Forgiving Anne Perry and going to Heaven

Last year I posted some thoughts about the 1954 Hulme-Parker murder and the way it affected me. Some inflammatory comments resulted—because even 58 years later, that teen-age murder still polarises and alarms and infuriates people.

Why? What made me keep carping about Anne Perry's perseverative lying—at least in the privacy of my own mind? For example, claiming that she was an accessory to a murder when she was convicted of murder—planning it, fully participating, doing the deed, holding the brick. Is that my business, really? I was also perseverating and it wasn't healthy.

I had finally managed to forgive myself, I think, for failing to notice a murder was about to happen, failing to prevent the disaster developing under my very nose. (Ludicrous guilt, but that's guilt for you.)

But I still had to find a way of forgiving Anne Perry—in order to get her out of my head. Judging from the comments on my former post, so do some other people.

Yes! Success! A couple of videos combined to flick that rusty old FORGIVE switch in my brain and (touch wood) I have let it go.

• Interiors, a documentary about Anne Perry by Dana Linkiewicz shows her at home in a Scottish village.
• Ian Rankin's interview with Anne Perry for his TV series Evil Thoughts gets her to talk about her crime.

In both videos she continues to distort the truth and present the crime as an unfortunate event that just happened by accident, in her periphery, more or less. She is the heroine of her own story: fair enough—aren't we all?

OK, I don't have to believe her highly polished version of events. That's where I draw the line.

Because finally I get it. Anne Perry may be a famous Victorian crime writer but she is not leading the life of Riley. From the outside, it looks like an isolated, sad and struggling life. Perhaps she is still not free.

When I was about eight years old, I had an existential crisis: desperately worried about going to Hell, I consulted a professional—our Dad, then a small town vicar. At bedtime he gave me his considered (and possibly unorthodox) opinion.

1. He was pretty sure there was no such thing as Hell after death.
2. If there was an after-death Hell, only very very bad people would be sent there, and certainly not a little girl who had scribbled in a library book.
3. When pressed hard to define a "very very bad" person, he thought deeply and replied, "Perhaps a murderer who never felt sorry for their crime."

Whereupon I sighed with relief and slept soundly for the first time in, well, hours. 

Anne Perry will go to Heaven: Mormons do. She has doubtless arranged for her victim to go to Heaven too. Perhaps Heaven really will be the magical Fourth World she and Pauline imagined as girls. (Hope not. Eternal harps—enough. Eternal Mario Lanza—spare me.)

Of course she has to lie to herself! What's behind the mask is not my business.

Let us forgive this woman who is doing the best she can, like all of us. And pity her.


 

1970s vintage grannies dress up to dance

What to wear for the grannies' dance in the next Crows Feet Dance Collective show?

Six of the dancers are grandmothers and we are rehearsing an emotional dance to the song You are so beautiful.

We have to find our own costumes, vaguely 1970s vintage (like us), vaguely homogeneous (not like us), and totally liberating for dancing. That means not too heavy, not too tight, not too revealing, and able to accommodate kicks and deep knee bends.

Sally's lovely long dress in blues and greens is a foundation garment (joke) that has established a theme.

Yesterday I hunted through a few second hand shops. Rather than buy a dress on spec and crossing my fingers that it would blend with the others, I tried on the contenders and snapped them with my trusty iPhone.

Verdict: green dress from Polly's in Elizabeth Street is go. Everyone agrees.

I took some ghastly photos, but found that raising a leg improved my appearance considerably.

But I must also describe the weird experience of trying on a genuine 1970s Laura Ashley dress. High neck, big sleeves, dainty blue flowery Liberty print cotton fabric, waist, voluminous skirt.

I saw in the mirror an alien creature from a parallel universe—a sweet lady who never swears but runs through fields of daisies with tendrils of curly blond hair wafting behind in the wind. Butterflies flutter around my head. Bluebirds tweet. Three handsome princes are rivals for my hand.

Note that I am all blurry in this photo—you see me through a Vaselined lens, like Doris Day. I am probably going to die young, I'm just so pretty and quaint.

The Laura Ashley dress was yukky. I experienced a strong urge to vomit.

In the 1970s we were flat out doing wild stuff—fighting in the women's movement, recklessly travelling the world—wearing hippie gear, not aprons.

We did not dedicate our days to picking flowers and polishing the silver. We were reinventing ourselves.

And not as little Bo-Peep.

What were they thinking? In retrospect, the Laura Ashley craze looks like a patriarchal plot to lure us back into the kitchen.

Come to our new show: Sea of love: Songs of the 60s and 70s

Senior Poems: read, laugh, sigh, share

It's great when somebody else puts into words exactly what you yourself have been experiencing, isn't it? And poetry is such a memorable way to share the pains, pangs and satisfactions of getting older.

So thinking, I have bundled my favourite poems on the topic of age into one ebook, Senior Poems.

I hope you'll read them. When you do, I hope you'll laugh and sigh and share them freely.

Senior Poems are published by Smashwords and cost the princely sum of $1.50.

Senior Poems: you know you want them
Please share your own thoughts and poems about growing older, here on the Old Lady Laughing blog.

Three cookbooks for old ladies

Recently three great cookbooks crossed my desk, each totally different in their appeal. 
I've tried to identify how far my response depends on my great age, and whether I'd have enjoyed them all regardless. But that's impossible, because (like you) I am at least three different people in the kitchen.

Inside this city writer/businesswoman lurks a classic suburban housewife, the one who used to grow artichokes and tarragon and strawberries, and preserve quince jelly, sauerkraut and 60 jars of tomatoes every year. OK, I've moved on, although I still preserve olives from our street and eat micro-goodies from a micro-garden. 

And indeed, rural-woman syndrome is part of the psyche of thousands of other women my age, which partly explains why A Good Harvest: Recipes from the gardens of Rural Women New Zealand is proving so popular. It gives a true picture of rural women's cooking now and a nostalgic glimpse of a time when we all made raspberry jam, zucchini fritters and pickled gherkins from scratch. Awesome book, this will come into its own after the apocalypse. Meanwhile, just love it.

Cookbook number two is One Pot, One Bowl, from Kim McCosker's 4-ingredients series. The appeal is to the flat-out, no-nonsense experienced cook, which is also me and maybe you. I turn my nose up at recipes that include cans of soup or packet soups (or both) for flavouring. But I celebrate the brilliant concept that produces dish after dish with just four items, for example Blue Cheese Pork with Pears, or Leek and Potato Soup. All Come Dine With Me contestants should be given this book: no more cheese in the curry.

My daughters pounced on Pipi The Cookbook the moment it arrived, which shows this is not a book for oldies. However, we old ladies happily drool over Brian Culy's delicious photos, mouthwatering recipes by Alexandra Tylee, and story of a family-friendly family business. Then we might take a long drive to eat at Pipi restaurant, soaking up the Pipi culture but leaving Pipi cuisine to the experts. 

A Good Harvest (Random House)
One Pot One Bowl (Simon Schuster)
Pipi: the cookbook (Random House)

Sweet little old lady stereotype

I've been reading The Winner's Bible by multi-talented neurologist Kerry Spackman. As one of his coaching tools he recommends getting an independent, anonymous audit of your personal strengths and weaknesses.

Like everyone, I have a certain view of myself. But how do others see me? Is my self-image on target or way off the mark?

Last week two friends gave me unsolicited information on how they perceive me, and in each case, I was astonished. These are not friends who know me intimately, mind you, so I take their comments with a grain of salt.

Background: at Crows Feet Dance Collective rehearsals, we're looking at 1960s and 1970s clothes for the Grannies Dance in our August show.

Friend #1 wanted someone to help her man-handle some heavy trunks down from a high cupboard. I volunteered, and she said,

"Oh, not you! I need someone strong!"

I was most indignant: I believe I am very strong indeed, but she chose somebody taller to help her. So is weakness, absolute or relative, one of my weaknesses?

Comment #2 came when I showed a picture of myself in 1969, admittedly looking frightfully demure in a muslin top, gypsy skirt and sandals.

"You're sweet! You have always been sweet and you always will be."

Sweet, huh? This was not offensive but tremendously puzzling. What does sweet mean? Good-natured, happy, unobtrusive, a bit wishy-washy? The opposite of sour?

Add them together and I suspect I have been stereotyped as a sweet little old lady.

Photo either (c) New York Press or a stock photo: please tell me if you know.
Illustration, Joshua M Bernstein's article: Old Lady Syndrome

Celebrating Jenny Pattrick's historical showbiz novel, Skylark

Jenny Pattrick reinvented herself in mid-life as a novelist when arthritis made her delicate work as a jeweller too difficult.

Now I wouldn't wish arthritis on anyone. It's a horrible affliction and the world would be a better place if arthritis slit open its miserable belly and was swallowed by a cane toad. The planet can do without arthritis, thank you very much.

However, wonderful books have been born partly as a result of mild arthritis. (Jenny Pattrick has said she was ready for a career change regardless, after 30 years of working with metal.) 

Her first novel, Denniston Rose, was 10 years in the writing, but once published was an instant hit. Readers were hungry for tasty, well written, well researched historical novels about New Zealand, and that's what Jenny Pattrick has been feeding us ever since. Luckily she loves research, as do most writers of historical fiction.

Now her talent has flowered again in Skylark. Marvellously mingling fact and fiction, Skylark tells the story of Lily Alouette, born and bred to perform in theatres and circus rings—indeed, addicted to the life. Nineteenth century theatre comes alive in technicolour, and singers, acrobats, pirates, settlers, horse breeders and gold miners populate the pages. 

Skylark must surely be another well-deserved hit for our favourite historical novelist. She comes from a show-biz family—theatre and music have always been central to her own life. The story and characters are as wild as any she has ever written, and yet they are beyond credible: they live, breathe and turn somersaults on the pages. 

As the old lady laughing, I must point out that this New Zealand literary heroine was born in 1936. 

Yes, you can buy Skylark online

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Cyclamen wilting: water me!

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