ATA

Nobody likes a show-off – that was something I learned from a very early age. Because I was a show-off. And my elder, cooler sibling continuously instructed me to stop. But allow me this one little opportunity to show off my grandmother. I won’t take up too much of your time and I promise not to do any cartwheels.

I’m sure we’d all prefer there were no wars and we lived in peace, but as that was not, is not and will not ever be the case, I’m going to show off about my grandmother, Benedetta Willis, who flew in the second world war.

Of course, women weren’t allowed to fly in the RAF, on the front line. The very mention of the idea had the press declaring that women were out of their minds and should be back preparing supper for their husbands, where they belonged. But a small group of women could not be told. A small group of women joined the ATA, the Air Transport Auxiliary.

Yesterday my sister, mum and I went to meet an historian near White Waltham, the home of the ATA. He’s a very clever man and seemed to know more about our grandma than I did.

As did Mum. My dear old grandma died last year and never have I felt more regret at not absorbing more of her tales than I did yesterday. Mum can share no such regret – she knew everything. I used to spend a lot of time with Grandma, but we mostly played Scrabble or talked about the man she would have married if he hadn’t become a Japanese prisoner of war.

Now I wish I’d grilled her about her war efforts. Because they were many.

Aircraft factories were a prime target for the enemy, and in fact were often bombed, so as soon as the aircraft were ‘flyable’ (i.e, not finished) Grandma was on hand to fly them to maintenance depos elsewhere in the country. There they would be finished and handed over to the RAF pilots to use on the front line. My grandma flew them while they still had buttons missing.

We had a gander at Grandma’s log book. 344 deliveries comprising of 52 tiger moths, 135 spitfires, six mustangs, four barracudas and numerous others. Some she only flew once, and was given a little handbook which she would read while flying, which would explain how to land the craft. If I found myself in charge of a plane and the only way to land it was to read a handbook, you can bet your bottom dollar the ensuing panic attack would be met by nothing but certain peril.

In 1943 Grandma found out she was expecting my father. Hesitant to tell her commanding officer that she was pregnant, she was met with an enthusiastic: ‘Mrs Willis, raising a child is a wonderful thing and no less important to our country than flying planes. You shouldn’t be ashamed to go and start a family.’ Grandma thought it best not to tell her commanding officer that she already had two small children at home.


Grandma was the second of only five women to be given RAF wings and the press soon did a U turn. Women were on the front pages, smiling as they climbed aboard their crafts. ATA women were respected and wore trousers. A feat so bold their tailor stitched their crotch at their knees because he was too embarrassed to measure up their inside leg.

These women paved the way for us to work alongside men at equal pay. It saddens me to walk through Bristol town centre on a Saturday night and see the type of women my Grandma actually paved the way for. I’m pretty sure she didn’t dare have her inside leg measured so that these girls could walk around in their pants.

While we sat with Mr Poad, the historian, and absorbed some of the fascinating facts about Grandma and her compatriots, I couldn’t help thinking that my grandchildren couldn’t really sit in a room with a historian and pour over the incredible facts of my life. Last night I fell asleep during a film. This morning I forgot to put any socks on and have slightly cold toes. Not really country saving stuff is it?

Read More

Spring Clean

If you ever find yourself with £22 to spare and you’re not sure what to do with it, my advice is: get a cleaner.

We ummed and ahhed for months about whether to get one. We quarreled about who’s turn it was to sweep the floor or clean the sink, while other, less pleasant jobs, got ignored altogether.

But committing to giving someone else money to do something we really ought to be doing ourselves just seemed so frivolous. Especially when you consider £22 a fortnight is in the region of £500 a year. When you put it like that, hand me the ruddy broom, I’ll do it myself.

The time had come, however, to give our home some TLC, and it was painfully obvious that Gareth and I were not capable of bestowing any tenderness, love or care on our pigsty. Gone were the days we’d leave our bedroom door open during the day – now the mounting mess that hides behind our closed door is our dirty little secret – I’d die before I let Nicola see it. Poor Nicola. She has to work here, and the closest our stairs have come to being hoovered was the day we bought the hoover and dragged it up the stairs – in it’s box.

Being a conscientious eco-warrior, I opted to find us a green, eco-friendly cleaning service, which no doubt costs more – I didn’t do enough research to find out but I’ll wager that’s a truth. I don’t care. I’ll pay a few extra pounds for the planet.

But it has taken us months to justify parting with the money. We’re not exactly rich. I’m a journalist for goodness sake. A career which, when I gleefully told my dad I wanted to follow, he pointed out was ‘no way to make a living – but it beats having a real job.’

He’s got a point. I love my work, but it doesn’t exactly lend itself to so flippant a goodbye to my money as to have someone else clean my bog.

But oh. How I’ve come around. Justina, my new best friend, the love of my life, arrived today. She’s been in England three weeks and this was her first job. I want her to move in. She was here for two hours and I feel as if I’m walking around a different flat.

The floor is shiny. The dust has gone. She even cleaned under the Forgotten Corner where we store the Forgotten Bikes and the Forgotten Table Tennis Table.

Oh, Justina, I love you. Please come again. You’re worth every penny. And who can put a price on not arguing about who’s turn it is to clean the hob? Gareth and I know who’s turn it is. It’s Justina’s turn.

Read More

Trick or Treat

All that childhood competitive card playing has finally paid off.

That's right, while you were watching the Goonies or playing Tetris, I was learning the art of how to win at all and any card game ever invented. We Willis's like cards.

In Lockerbie to visit Gareth's gran, Faith, we accompanied her to the local village hall for her weekly Progressive Whist night. Gareth had forewarned her I liked cards and she'd jumped at the chance to take us along.

I was a little nervous beforehand. I may have been playing cards since I was knee high to a grasshopper, but my father, my teacher, had a habit of 'improving' games by adding Willis Rules. Thus I've never really been sure if I know how to play the same games as the rest of the world, or just Dad's ones.

I needn't have worried. A few games in I realised I was capable of giving these kind and welcoming old folk a run for their money - and I mean that literally - it was £2 a head to play.

Progressive Whist is a game for four, and you play opposite your partner. To my right was Jean, a woman pushing 100 with one white, and therefore blind, eye. The opportunity arose to either let her win, or cruelly beat her. Jean played a trump. It was my turn. I had an even better trump, or an average card. One way, I'd win the hand, the other, she would.

Obviously I took no prisoners. This wasn't a charity night. Jean was going down and taking all the other pensioners with her. As I thwarted her trump card with an even better one, I received a nod of approval from my partner - beating the blind was clearly encouraged here.

Later, I played my best round of the night with Jean's older, more doddery brother, Jock. He was my kind of guy - if I'd been 50 years older Gareth would have been fighting him off with a walking stick.

Jock helped me on my way to becoming the second highest female scorer and thus, proudly I won a prize of £1. I went to thank Jock for his part in my success and he - and this was where my night was complete - gave me a Worther's Original.

I was over the moon. Until:

'Haven't you been here before?' Jock asked.

I assured him it was my first time.

'Oh. Then you look just like my favourite glamour model,' he declared.

Oh Jock. It was going so well...

Read More

Tweet Tweet

Twitter. What’s it all about, yo? I don’t get it. Not one iota. But I’ve now joined it, in the hopes that I can make some money from it. But before I can make money, I need to have followers. How do I get followers?

I decided the way to get followers was to be funny. I can do funny.

So I’ve set myself a task: a two line, silly poem a day, to lure people in. Started well yesterday, talked about frocks and running amok. (see, brilliant, isn’t it.)

My followers were 12. I was smug.

Then they went up to 13. Holy cow! Must write more witty two liners!

Today’s poem was about Demi Moore, who I began to follow as she’s always in the press banging on about Twitter, and I liked her in Indecent Proposal.

What an annoying person she is. She tweets 14,000 times a day. And not funny, witty tweets. Really annoying ones. The kind that make me realise I do not want to be friends with Demi Moore – the kind that, if I did know her, she’d be one of those annoying people I try to avoid, because they say ‘lol’.

Soon after signing up to be her follower, I stopped. Then my body count went back from 13 to 12, and I realised that 12 wasn’t the number of people following me, it was the number of people I was following. The number of people following me, I found on closer inspection, was 0. Zero. Nada.

How am I going to make money out of this wretched thing if people would rather hear about Demi Moore’s wondering which charity to donate to this month, than my funny two liners? The world has gone mad, I tell you.

Read More

DulFriendDrums

One should never brag that one has invited 359 women to dinner, because one then has to, shame-faced and balloon-popped, admit that to said dinner, only two women came.

I liked one of them, Gemma. The other, I could have taken or left. Preferably left. She made a big fuss about carbs and, frankly, it was the kind of fuss she should have made before reaching 15stone. It’s too late love, you’re fat, now eat your pasta and be done.

I haven’t seen carbs girl again, but Gemma and I have become part of a new crew, a new posse, a gang, a gathering. We get together and tear up the neighbourhood in our sooped up Renault Cleo’s, smoking joints and listening to garage.

Oh no, wait, sorry, I’m not 16 anymore. We’ve joined a book club.

I know. What is the world coming to. We’re calling it cake club, which makes it more appealing and cool, right? But we’re still going to read a book between monthly meets. I hosted the first meet and as it was in December I served steaming hot mulled wine, with carrot cake and (yes, and) chocolate banana bread. Well, I wanted them all to like me.

While on my merry escapades to make more friends in 2009, I also attended a W.I meeting.

Luckily for me, it was creative writing night, and I got to show off the way I put words together. There was one girl there I liked, who I’d see myself getting drunk with down the pub. All this cake / book club, W.I meetings and civilised dinners with strange women, it’s all just a ploy to find someone I can get pissed with. But our night ended and I couldn’t exactly ask for her number without sounding weird, so it was over, my fleeting chance to be friends with someone who wore nice wellington boots.

Oh well. I’m not going back to the W.I because there are too many old people there and I don’t want to learn to knit.

But having signed up to a year’s free membership (due to guilt) with the friendship website, I have to come up with a few more canny ways to lure people out of their comfort zones and into my life. Whilst avoiding cinema trips with Neill.

It’s tough being me. How I long for the care-free days of old, when my phone rang on a Friday afternoon and the possibilities for the weekend were endless. I think I’m having a mid-20s crisis. I yearn for my youth, but simultaneously feel more at ease pottering about my kitchen than going on a bender. I think it’s because I’m a gemini. Split personality. I am two people. I am the party. I am the lame excuse to stay in. And in fitting two people’s thoughts into my one head, I am busy, tired, and, perhaps, in need of medical attention.

Read More

Ladies Night

Well, that’ll teach me to put someone’s name in quotation marks, in a rudely sarcastic tone.

I quickly got bored of my new social networking site and decided I was never going to like anyone and that Neill was inviting far too many people to the cinema far too often.

So I wanted to close my account, but could not see for the life of me how to. I instead wrote to the administrators to ask them to do it. And I could have just left it at that, couldn’t I? I could have left it at ‘please close my account,’ but instead old big gob over here had to go and tell them why I wanted to leave and that I no longer wished to receive five emails a day asking me if I wanted to join ‘Neill J’ at the cinema.

Yes, I used quotation marks for his name.

The managing director emailed me back. The managing director, Neill J.

Whoops. Hi Neill. He kindly apologised for over-inviting and said it was just because although the site had plenty of members, it would seem no one was actually very good at instigating events. Then he asked me if, in return of one year’s free membership, would I stay on board and perhaps just initiate the odd event?

Guilt surged through me. What a meannie I am. No wonder I don’t have any friends.

Yes, Neill, of course I’ll stay on board and invite people to do things. So now not only am I a full member of a website I wanted to leave, but I’ve also committed myself to 12 months of socialising with strangers.

First up – a dinner for girls only next Friday. I thought I’d start with a girlie dinner as it’s a few girlie friends that I’m after anyway. Plus Gareth thinks most of the men will probably be rapists so best not to invite them.

I followed the instructions for sending out an invite to my gender and age group and clicked send. ‘Congratulations!’ the website declared. ‘You’ve just invited 359 people to dinner!’

Christ. I’m not very good with women at the best of times. I either get shy and don’t know how to talk to them, or get drunk and snog them. Now I’m inviting 359 of them to dinner? Alarm bells are ringing already.

Read More

A friend in need

I need friends. Anyone got any friends for sale? I like dinner and drinking, I’m not much of a dancer but I can make you laugh. I’m not mental, I don’t get annoyed if people cancel dates, but I do get annoyed if people try and share food. I don’t smoke and I don’t smell. I’m a catch, basically. So just sign on the doted line.

I’m not saying I don’t have friends, I do. My friends are brilliant. There’s Cesca, she’s great. I’m going to be her maid of honour next summer. I must be doing something right if someone wants me to be their maid of honour. There’s Laurence, he’s hilarious. We like to pretend we’re Jack Bauer when we’re together. Many a morning after the night before I’ve woken up covered in scratches from all the brambles I’ve invincibly roly poly’ed through while talking to Laurence in an invisible walkie talkie.

There’s plenty more, who I love with all my heart and I could list them all and why I love them. Nicola for her wry sense of humour, Amy for her giggle, Mike for his thoughtfulness. But I’m not here to list the friends I do have. I’m here to talk about the ones I don’t.

My friends live as far away as South Africa and Australia. Hell, even London seems like too far away when it’s a Tuesday night and I just want to go to the pub and talk about X factor.

I don’t know how it happened. One minute, I was living with three wonderful friends and my filofax was bulging with social engagements. The next minute, I’m living in the middle of nowhere, working for myself in a job which has me face the wall in my spare room from 7.30am to 6pm every day. I only see two faces a day – my business partner Nicola and my boyfriend, Gareth. They both have very nice faces, but I want more.

Sometimes I see the face of the man who runs my local post office. I buy stamps from him. He’s a bit annoying. He makes me give him a high five and I don’t want to give him a high five.

I guess you could say I am lonely. For one reason or another, all my friends have left this city, and I’ve forgotten how to make new ones.

So I’ve joined a friendship making website. So far, it’s not going well. I scoured through all the members and messaged the ones I liked the look of. Preparing my best banter, I gave them all a paragraph to show them how funny I am. And I chose a good picture so people know I’m not a troll.

I logged off feeling really good about myself, put my feet up and waited for all my new friends to message me back.

Only, no one has.

The only person to have messaged me back so far is Neill. He looks about 40 and I don’t want to be his friend because he uses the website too much. He keeps trying to rally everyone together to watch the new Tim Burton movie, as a gang. Then maybe a pint, afterwards.

I’m desperate, but I’m not that desperate. He can keep his Tim Burton movies. I’d rather face the wall in my spare room and feel sorry for myself than be friends with someone who spells it ‘Neill’.

Read More