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The Truth About Melody Browne - Lisa Jewell

When you finish a book and declare 'That is the best book I have ever read!'. Objectively, you know that isn't true, and, anyway, who wants to rank books in strict order of preference? One's reading experience can be altered by subjective factors and one goes through phases or life stages. Nevertheless, that warm glow of having experienced a truly worthwhile book is one of the special feelings of solitary pursuits.

I think Lisa Jewell comes under the umbrella of chick-lit, as long as you're prepared to accept this as a big umbrella. I read a lot of chick lit in my 20s and into my 30s, and it's a broad category. I didn't like the 'shallow woman lives a consumerist lifestyle and falls in love with a seemingly perfect man and they encounter no conflict' style, but I found many books that explored issues and problems, conflicts and tragedies, in a sensitive and human way. They helped me understand the world better.

The Truth about Melody Browne fits into that latter category. You may have gathered by now that I am not well educated about literature, novels and writing. But I am fairly well and widely read over many years and I have accumulated half a lifetime of experience. Reading a book like this, I'm glad I don't understand the rules of English Literature because I would hate to have to read this and tick off a list of attributes, or criticise it for not displaying the full panoply of literary techniques.

Instead, we get a raw and open account of the life of one woman. Raw but never dark. Light, sometimes almost breezy in its tone. The synopsis in the blurb is quite long, because it's not a straightforward story:

When she was nine years old, Melody Browne's house burned down, taking every toy, every photograph, every item of clothing and old Christmas card with it. But not only did the fire destroy all her possessions, it took with it all her memories - Melody Browne can remember nothing before her ninth birthday.

Now in her early thirties, Melody lives in a council flat in the middle of London with her seventeen-year-old son. She hasn't seen her parents since she left home at fifteen, but Melody doesn't mind, she's better off on her own. She's made a good life for herself and her son and she likes it that way.

Until one night something extraordinary happens. Whilst attending a hypnotist show with her first date in years she faints - and when she comes round she starts to remember. At first her memories mean nothing to her but then slowly, day by day, she begins to piece together the real story of her childhood.

Her journey takes her to the seaside town of Broadstairs, to oddly familiar houses in London backstreets and to meetings with strangers who love her like their own. But with every mystery she solves another one materialises, with every question she answers another appears. And Melody begins to wonder if she'll ever know the truth about her past.

There are two time-frames interweaved in the book. One is Melody in the 'now', stating what she is doing now and what she remembers from her childhood. All of 'now' is told from Melody's Point of View - although it's not 3rd person, nothing happens which she doesn't see, and the narrative includes her thoughts, but no one else's.

The other part is in the past and is more detached. Similarly third person narrative, similarly we have access to Melody's thoughts, and no one else's, but it seems detached. Lisa narrates from the point of view of a young child - approximately between the ages of 4 and 9. It's a difficult trick to pull off. She includes some of Melody's thoughts, but doesn't convert them into complex concepts, because small children don't do that, but they do think, and try to piece together and understand what they experience. Melody also sees things and people, and does things, and things happen around her. Lisa uses some quite complex vocabulary here, not the vocabulary you would expect of a 6 year old. It works because it describes an objective reality that is in public. Just because the 6 year old doesn't know the word for an object doesn't mean she doesn't see it. It would be twee to write it in the language of 6 year olds, and Lisa doesn't.

A large cast of characters appears in both 'now' and 'then', but you don't lose track of who they are. We only ever see them through the eyes of Melody, so they are limited in dimension, but many of them are real - they walk off the page,  more than just a collection of words. None is shallow, and although one can see 'typical' characteristics and behaviours, they're not stereotypes.

I like the places - North Lambeth, which I know fairly well; Covent Garden, with which I'm as familiar as most people; and Broadstairs, where I visited a couple of times last year (the famous Morelli's ice cream parlour is a delightful feature of the book). There is a decent sense of those places, although the book isn't driven or dominated by place.

The blurb tells us that Melody suffered traumatic amnesia and the book is about her starting to remember life before the fire. It's fair to say that her childhood was far from ideal. It would have been easy for the writer to create a history of abuse but that doesn't happen. Instead, it's a far more nuanced tale of how life gets in the way, of how children become the victims of random events and other people's problems.

What makes this book great is that it is a tale of love. 'Strangers who love her like their own'. It sometimes risks falling into sentimentality but doesn't. It's a rich evocation power of humanity to love and give. I cried at times, and some readers will find that raw emotion difficult to handle, often for very good and personal reasons. I see it as cathartic and cleansing.

The first Lisa Jewell book I read was Before I Met You. This came up as a Kindle Deal. I already had the author on my 'To Be Read', so I bought it.

When I came round to reading it, I saw the 'chick lit' tag, and groaned. Unfairly, because it was utterly compelling. A Guernsey woman travels to London to find out more about the young life of her recently deceased step-grandmother, and finds a fascinating tale of the Roaring Twenties.

I will simply say here that it is a very good book indeed, with two timelines that lay out a rich and plausible, if star-studded,world. More importantly, it proved to be an epiphany for me, and I highlighted the following passage:

You know, if I could go back to any period in time,’ said Alexandra, ‘it would be then. The twenties. Bright Young People, jazz. Everything new and fresh and semi-illicit. I mean, the fact that your grandmother was socialising with black men – it would have been unthinkable before, and for a long time after, too – but the twenties were this little window of optimism and broad-mindedness. And the clothes, sweetie,’

I could provide you with heaps of evidence, stretching back decades to show how much I like the Twenties and the Thirties. But this book lit the blue touch paper. I have always felt more than slightly guilty about romanticising this period, because so much awfulness happened. The aftermath of the Great War, the Depression and the rise of Fascism. The Bright Young Things were an elite and privileged tiny section of society. but yet, so much social progress did happen, and this period produced innovative and great works of art - the Golden Age not only of Detective Fiction but accessible thoughtful fiction, Railway Poster Art, Metroland, Art Deco buildings, and magnificent cars - but they make me feel guilty, as if I'm celebrating Nazism. But this book gave me permission to embrace the period, to learn more about the awful events and trends, and to celebrate the positive aspects, understanding the contradictions and ambiguities.

I will definitely read more from Lisa Jewell and I now think of her as one of my favourite authors.

 

Windermere Cruises

It's an absolute must if you are staying anywhere near Windermere. Boat trips. We went for a short cruise on the Sunday after we arrived, because, well, you just have to. Of course, I took a huge number of photos of Lake Windermere. Like when I was in Marazion and snapped snapped snapped at St Michael's Mount. And with Northumberland and Bamburgh Castle. Later, you look at them and think - most of these aren't very good, and, this sight has been photographed ad nauseam since photography was invented. Ooh, let's take a picture of that boat in the distance. Oh look, a house on the shores of the lake. I'd better snap that picture of that distant mountain with clouds above it.

A couple of days later we had a full-blown excursion. Boat from Waterhead at the north end of the lake to Bowness to Lakeside at the southern end, and by steam train to Haverthwaite (the steam rail will form another blogpost). My diary contains pen portraits and vignettes of some of our fellow passengers, and I suppose if I blogged them it might make fascinating reading, but long, and tangential. A thirty-something woman I guessed to be at least a size 26 kitted out in full walking gear, who moved lithely, elegantly and with fitness. Her partner was chubby, too, and I imagined a back story where they had realised a year or so back that they needed to do something for their health, started walking, found they loved walking, and are on a metaphorical journey that will make them happy and healthier than any soon-abandoned crash diet or joyless gym regime.

Large parties of tourists from India and China, pensioners from Wigan and schoolchildren from Northern Ireland. I am always slightly alarmed by 'groups' irrespective of the background or age but they were all just fine.

I was amused by the overseas tourists who spent much of the cruise taking selfies, posed artificially with false smiles, and slowly began to notice their environment. The Year 5s did similar, but were quicker on the uptake, and it was very pleasing to see how, unprompted by their teachers, they began to comment on things they had observed, from boats to swans. It struck me as the perfect outing for children of that age, and they were splendidly well behaved - the teachers had set a rule they weren't to go further forward on the boat than an imaginary line because that was where we and several other couples were sat.

And the children all waited at Bowness for the adults to get off first. I made sure to say thank you at intervals down their line and to their teachers. One of the girls had an old fashioned camera, with film, which needed winding on. I wondered whether her parents were incurable retro hippies or strict Protestants who abhorred digital cameras, mobile phones, computers and the internet!

For part of the cruise we had two couples in their 40s or 50s sat behind us. They were entirely inoffensive but I couldn't help overhearing their conversation, just because we were sat so near. It was banal and irrelevant. I have noticed this before and since, that people pay a non-trivial amount of money in order to hold a conversation they could have anywhere. Now, I'm sure that their surroundings seep into their subconscious somehow, but with the current fashion for 'mindfulness' it makes me sad that people can't be 'in the moment' with a simple pleasure they have actively chosen to pursue. Surely they can't just be doing it for Fear of Missing Out? Or to boast to friends on their return?

The east shore of Windermere is well built up, lined with large houses, now mainly luxury hotels, originally built by the rich industrialists of Lancashire. It gets less dense as you progress south. The west shore is largely unspoilt, due in no small way to Beatrix Potter, who bought several hill farms to preserve them, and eventually bequeathed them to the National Trust. I learned a lot about Beatrix Potter on this holiday, which happened to be the 150th anniversary of her birth. A remarkable woman, who did far more than 'just' write and illustrate twee enduring story books for small children.

            

A fair few more photos in my Lake District photo album.

Nymans

Nymans was already on 'the list' of places to visit, and when I saw my cousin's pictures on Facebook, I was spurred on further. It lies just off the A23 - we approached it from Pease Pottage Services, which are located where the M23 runs out and rejoins the A23. It's run by the National Trust. I hadn't heard of it until I watched a documentary on BBC4 three or four years ago, which was fascinating. I'm sure it will be repeated again in due course - we also watched it a few weeks after visiting.

We visited during the school summer holidays, which, in retrospect was a bit of a mistake. On the other hand, why should normal people feel excluded from adult-oriented visitor attractions for an entire 6 or 8 weeks at the height of summer. 

I know some people might take exception to what appears at first to be an anti-child rant, but please bear with me while I explain. 

Good parenting expects parents to let their children experience a wide range of places. Small children aren't ready to take in the details of places but from a young age should definitely experience broad and new horizons. When I was on HMS Belfast along with a group of Infant school children, I felt that the exhibitions and interpretation boards were lost on them but they were experiencing the space and environment of a sea-going ship, and I'm sure few will ever forget that mind-expanding day out. Similarly with open spaces. There's much research on the benefits of open spaces and fresh air, and even in supposedly over-crowded South East England there are many places to explore.

What struck me at Nymans was the lack of imagination and the fear of open spaces. It was if those parents had absorbed the research but needed to be somewhere ultra-safe and curated, structured, in with crowds, rather than finding a public footpath beside a river through the woods. It was a sign of bad parenting, because they had chosen the wrong location for the wrong reasons because they weren't capable, and when they were they were unaware of anyone else and behaved inconsiderately. Is it that the parents, despite their expensive gym memberships are not capable of walking very far? Or is it because they've never allowed their children to walk far, so don't know what they could do if allowed?  I walked about 4 miles, mainly gentle strolling, a lot of it stop-and-start. It's hardly strenuous!

The National Trust don't help in this. Obviously, their objective is to maximise the number of visitors, and they know that more people will come if they feel that their children are welcome. So, in order to make it child-friendly, they left toys - skipping ropes, skittles, hoops - in various places. Why? Do they think that the residents of Sussex and National Trust are so poor they can't afford their own toys? And yet, what should have been a glorious rose garden, supposedly a highlight of the place looked neglected, because they couldn't be bothered to deadhead the roses. This is a task I learnt at Primary School age, but as far as the National Trust is concerned, is less important in a historic garden than posh kids doing skipping.

The behaviour of some of the parents as manifested in their children was bemusing. Running through the formal gardens. Yes, kids have to work off energy. That's why there are play parks, and wild countryside. Just a pity for the majority of visitors, older people, who had come to enjoy their gardens and had to put up with the self-centred helicopter parenting. On the outer ring of the garden some kids climbed trees encouraged by, I think, their grandparents. 

But here's the rub. As well as the formal gardens, Nymans also contains two very different woodland areas. We walked in both. In the first we encountered just one person, a man of about my age with a serious camera. In the other, in the valley beside the river we encountered two other parties, one of them with children. (They were very rude, strung out across the wide pavement, trying to force me onto the narrow rocky cliff from which there was a long drop into the river). The point was, that almost nobody took their kids into the wider expanse of the grounds,, instead treating the formal gardens as a glorified playground. And this wasn't the first example of violence from parents, as two women with prams walking side by side on the path glared and glowered at me until I moved onto the grass, because of their special sense of entitlement.

The peak 'anxious parent' came on the lawn outside the ruined house. A man with two junior school age children was sitting in the shade of a tree. Granted, it was a hot day, well into the twenties, but clearly, the shade of a tree wasn't enough, because he erected a tent that he was carrying around with him all day. I know you're thinking, perhaps they were redheads, perhaps they had skin that easily burnt. How about I mention that they were Black. Not even mixed heritage, but black African with black African skin!

Rant over! But it did make me angry. There are so many places to take children, from expensive theme parks to free open countryside and beaches. So why flock to one of relatively few adult-oriented locations and ignore your environment to such an extent that you are imposing on other people and potentially ruining their day out. It's a form of bullying, ageist bullying, saying that older people, people without children are invisible, don't matter and should be erased. And the National Trust is a major culprit in this outrage.

All this having been said, Nymans is worth visiting as a garden, surrounded by woodland. I took so many photos and am very pleased at how they have turned out. 

 

                

                   

I was amused when we paused beside the river and a whole flock of ducks sauntered up to us, clearly taking it for granted that they would be fed. when it became clear we were ignoring them, they sauntered away again!

 

Plenty more photos in my Sussex photo album, which also contains Sissinghurst, Wakehurst Place and Borde Hill, if you''re interested in gardens.

Ambleside

We went to stay in Ambleside last Spring. We stayed in a delightful holiday let. Technically, it was a flat but it didn't feel like one. Perched on the side of a hill, it had a terrace and a garden, falling away into woods, with the most magnificent view of the fells.In mid-May, the days are not the longest possible, but they're long enough, and with a westward view into the setting sun, our day was extended by basking in the sun after dinner and, technically, being able to read outside up to 10pm.

These are all taken from the terrace of the flat, and as you can see, vary with the time of day and the weather.

When you go to the Lake District, you have to be prepared for the weather. It's reasonable to expect rain. And, guess what, it rained! But, actually, hardly at all. There were a couple of days when we saw it was raining and planned accordingly. One of them was the first opportunity for a rest in a week - that's the trouble with holidays. You're dashing about the day before to get packed and ready. You have an early start on the day of departure. Because of the distance, we stayed overnight in Cheshire (not that it's a massive distance to drive, but it's a long way to risk major delays and end up arriving at the dead of night with nothing to eat, and then wasting the first day because you're so tired from the journey).

We were pretty much in the centre of Ambleside, which is a good base. I think you could go to a different restaurant every night for three weeks. There are plenty of shops - my walking boots packed up (I'd had them a good few years) and I couldn't have been better located for replacements. Several shops catering for tourists - book shops and three different chocolate shops. There's a small Tesco and Spar, but for a supermarket you have to go to Windermere, not far by car or the frequent bus service. There are also several independent food shops.

Ambleside is well geared up for tourists. During the weeks most people were dressed in outdoor clothes, so it came as a shock at the weekend when a different 'sort' arrived, barely able to walk for lack of practice! And I was surprised by how many overseas tourists there were. Unsurprising to see people from Western, or indeed Eastern Europe, but I was surprised to see just so many from Asia - not British Asians, but organised parties from China and India, and one group we were struggling to guess their ethnicity, Nepalese perhaps. Tourism is a vital part of the British economy, and I tend to think of it being centred in the London-Oxford-Stratford triangle, or in Edinburgh and selected parts of the Highlands, but the Lake District really is a global tourist destination, and all that tourist spend represents 'exports' and 'foreign earnings'  to the national economy. Unfortunately, most of the jobs it generates tend to be seasonal and low paid.

The area round our flat was also quite picturesque.

 
   

We had a fair number of military planes flying low overhead and I made several attempts to photo them, some more successful than others.

There were some nice sights around Ambleside. I can't tell you how many photos I took of rhododendrons and azaleas - they were prolific and copious in full bloom in many colours around much of the area we visited. But I find them so hard to photograph because they are so bursting with colour that it's difficult to get the settings on the camera right without exploding with colour.

  

No trip to Ambleside is complete without the obligatory photos of the famous Bridge House.

 

Food in Streatham

There's something nice about going to a restaurant and enjoying good food that's presented nicely. The main pleasure is in the eating of the food, coupled with the good company and the pleasant ambience.

I'll never be a proper foodblogger because taste isn't a sensation I can easily turn into words. I suppose I can if I try. sit me down and tell me to eat something, and to write about it, I daresay I could. But out in the wild I want to experience the sensations, not make mental (or physical) notes about the sensations.

So, instead I am posting some photographs taken at a couple of Streatham's best food places. I would strongly recommend either place for a lovely dining experience.

The first is Hood, which has brought Fine Dining to Streatham Hill.

I laughed out loud at some silly millennial who blogged about the place describing in great detail at how he'd got an Uber there. There are loads of buses that stop almost outside from loads of directions. And it's almost opposite a railway station. They think that using the word 'uber' makes them look ultra-trendy. It doesn't - it just shows them incapable of navigating long-established transport infrastructure.

I think I might have walked there. But not the time our table was booked for 7.45 and United's match, which had kicked off at 5.30 went into ten or twelve minutes of time added on. 

Anyway, lovely photos of lovely food from Hood.

      

 

The Bull, down at the other end of Streatham, near Sainsbury's, opposite the Common, is an old Young's pubs which had seen better days. It seemed to be dominated by one group of customers, with the inevitable out-of-control children and wandering dogs, and was an intimidating atmosphere. It was shut for several weeks, and refurbished and resurrected, into a very decent place indeed. Good food, good atmosphere - pub area, dining room, dining terrace, and beer garden with burger shack.It lies in that space which is somewhat short of 'fine' dining, but considerably above the mass-catering-bunged-in-a-microwave which can be so disappointing.