Jacky Daydream (14 page)

I wanted to be Mandy’s friend in the film and make her plasticine necklaces and play ball with her and comfort her when she couldn’t sleep at night. I was old enough now to understand that
the
film wasn’t real. Mandy was played by a child actress, Mandy Miller. I thought she was wonderfully gifted. Biddy showed me a photo in the
Sunday Mirror
of the real Mandy at the premiere of her film, and I realized she was much more glamorous in real life. She still had the spindly plaits, but instead of the pleated skirt and tartan windcheater she wore in the film, she was wearing a sophisticated silk party frock with puffed sleeves and a broderie anglaise collar and velvet ribbon at the neck and waist. She was even wearing
white gloves
.

I had a third Mandy in my head from then on, not the deaf child in the film, not the real actress. I had
my
Mandy, an imaginary friend with big eyes and dark plaits, and we were inseparable for years.

Biddy took me to see every Mandy Miller film that came out, though I wasn’t allowed to see
Background
because it had an over-twelve rating, probably because it was about divorce. People thought so differently about divorce in those days. They frequently
whispered
the word. It was considered shameful, barely socially acceptable. It was the reason why so many incompatible couples stayed together. They didn’t want to go through the public disgrace of a divorce. I thought this odd even then. In fact I used to pray my own parents
would
divorce because there were so many screaming fights now. Sometimes I was caught up in a quarrel too, both of them yelling at me, appealing to me, while I begged not to have to take sides. Sometimes I simply listened from my bedroom while they argued endlessly, whipping each other with cruel words, then slapping and shoving, hurting and hating.

Perhaps this was another reason why Mandy’s films meant so much to me. She was in one or two child-centred fun films like
Raising a Riot
(about a family living in a windmill), but most of Mandy’s films were about unhappy, anxious children living tense lives. My favourite Mandy film was
Dance Little Lady
, a colourful melodrama about a beautiful ballet dancer, her unscrupulous impresario husband and their only daughter, played by Mandy. The ballet dancer has a fall and can’t work, the impresario loses interest in her, they fight bitterly – but they both love their little girl, a budding ballet dancer herself. Mandy does a proper dance in the film, her hair tied back with a satin ribbon, wearing an amazing cream, pink and turquoise beribboned tutu with white fishnet tights and pink ballet shoes.

There were no videos or DVDs in those days, of course, but I rewound that dance scene again and again inside my head. The film had a very dramatic
ending
. The father is in charge of Mandy one weekend but leaves her alone in their lodging house. There’s a fire, Mandy is in peril, but the father comes rushing back and rescues her. She clings to him in her white nightie on the rooftop, the flames licking nearer and nearer. He manages to throw her to safety before he’s engulfed by the flames himself. I thought it the most thrilling film ever, though I think I’d have severe reservations about it if I ever saw it again!

It might seem odd that I remember Mandy’s films so vividly when I only saw most of them once – but I had a fantastic
aide-mémoire
. I kept my own scrapbook of any Mandy Miller photos I saw in newspapers or magazines, but these were just tiny blurred images. I also had a little attaché case bursting with big glossy Mandy photos, some of them ‘stills’ from her films, some specially taken publicity photos. Biddy looked at the photo copyright names in the papers, found out the right addresses and took me up to London with her to the film companies and press offices.

I was still a very shy child. I’d be paralysed with embarrassment when Biddy blagged her way through reception and then begged for Mandy Miller photos.

‘It’s for the kiddie, you see,’ she’d say, nodding at me. ‘She’s mad about Mandy.’

I’d hang my head and blush scarlet, but nine times out of ten they’d soften and let us have several photos. Sometimes Biddy had to pay, but mostly we got them for nothing. Biddy would wrap them in tissue paper and carry them carefully on the tube and train in her shopping bag. When we got home, I could spread out my new photos and relive each film, frequently inventing new scenes, completely different new plots and characters to suit myself.

I used the film photos for most of my imaginary scenarios because Mandy looked sad or anxious or tragic and that gave me more scope. I felt more in touch with that Mandy. The Mandy photographed in her own home was a different girl entirely, a blessed child leading an idyllic life. I treasured a series of photos taken at her birthday party. Mandy’s wearing a beautiful smocked Liberty frock, lighting the candles on her cake while her mother and her big sister and her friends smile at her.

Biddy didn’t make birthday cakes. She
did
make lovely fairy cakes with lemon-flavoured icing and a walnut stuck on top. I liked them very much but they weren’t quite the same as real birthday cake with icing and butter cream and special candles. I didn’t have birthday parties either. Biddy said the flat was too small and she
didn’t
have time to prepare for them as she went out to work. I was partly relieved because I’d have been horribly shy and scared that we wouldn’t pass muster as a normal happy family, but I still felt a pang whenever I looked at the photo of Mandy’s party.

At about the same time – she’s wearing the same checked hair ribbons – there’s a set of photos taken in her back garden. Mandy’s playing in her tent and climbing a tree with a friend, and then she’s swinging dangerously upside down from a branch, her plaits flying.

I didn’t have my own garden – but I could play out in The Jungle, the huge overgrown wilderness behind the flats. I was very much a girl for playing
in
, but sometimes I went down to The Jungle with Sue, the little girl next door. We were both meek girls whose mothers fancied themselves a cut above the other residents. We were sent out to play in clean checked summer frocks, little white socks and polished sandals. We had enough sense to steer well away from the tough gangs, who would pull our hair, tug our skirts up to mock our white knickers and then push us into the nettles.

They had a rope attached to one of the tallest trees so you could swing like Tarzan. We swung too, timidly, and we both climbed the fir tree with the easiest branches, all the way to the top. One slip
and
we’d have broken our necks. It was just as well our mums never found out what we were up to.

Mandy had a white poodle, and there was a lovely photo of her giving him a big hug. I decided poodles were my favourite dogs too. I had a little black china poodle on my windowsill at home, and a kind old lady at Waverley Hall won a white furry poodle at bingo on Clacton Pier and gave it to me. I was overwhelmed, though this poodle quickly developed alopecia. His fur fell out, leaving ugly yellow glue stains, and then one of his glass eyes loosened and dangled out of his head, so Biddy put him in the dustbin.

When I got my Vip, I decided I loved Pekes most of all, but I’ve changed my mind now. I can’t wait to have my little black miniature poodle.

Much to my joy, Mandy seemed a bookish girl. She was photographed several times with books spread all around her. My all-time favourite photograph of her shows her sitting up in bed in her flowery nightie, holding a gilt-embellished copy of
Peter and Wendy
by J. M. Barrie. I hope she’s somehow hung onto that book. I’ve got a first edition of it myself, bought in my twenties for ten shillings – that’s 50p in today’s money. A first edition in a dust wrapper was recently auctioned for £3000!

I didn’t know anything about the value of books as a child, but I did know the price of every doll,
and
I was seriously impressed that Mandy was photographed holding an Elizabeth doll. This was a special doll brought out to commemorate the Queen’s Coronation in 1953. She wasn’t a grown-up doll with a crown; she was a child doll with blonde curls and a cotton frock with a tight white plastic belt to match her neat white plastic shoes.

I longed for an Elizabeth doll but they were nearly three pounds – much too expensive. Biddy took me to see several shelves of them in Hamleys and they all smiled down at me, fanning their fingers in regal waves.

Which of my characters gets taken to Hamleys toyshop and longs to be given a special doll?

 

It’s Dolphin in
The Illustrated Mum
.

We went to Hamleys in Oxford Street afterwards, a special huge toy shop. Micky took us to look at the dolls though even he could see that Star was past that stage. I knew I should be too old for dolls too but I ached with longing as I looked at all the specially designed dolls locked away in glass cases. They had beautiful gentle faces and long long long hair. My fingers itched to comb it. They had wonderful romantic outfits too, hand-sewn smocked dresses and ruched pinafores and perfect little leather boots.

I leaned my forehead on the cold glass and stared at them all, making up names for each one and inventing their personalities. They all reached out for me with their long white fingers. They looked so real I was sure they couldn’t be cold and stiff to touch. I
chose
the one I liked the very best. She had long blonde curls and blue eyes and a dress and pinafore outfit the pink and blue of hyacinths, with pink silky socks and blue shoes fastened with little pearl buttons. I called her Natasha and knew she and I could be best friends for ever . . .

Children often ask me which is my favourite out of all my books. I tend to chop and change a little but I frequently choose
The Illustrated Mum
. I never re-read my books once they’re published – I’d find it awkward and embarrassing and want to
change
things – but I’ve watched the beautiful television film of
The Illustrated Mum
several times, and I always end up in tears.

17

The Coronation

THE QUEEN’S CORONATION
was an enormous big deal in the 1950s. We thought differently about royalty then. They were like mysterious powerful gods with gold crowns permanently perched on their heads. Each school had a poster of the royal family in the hall entrance. The national anthem was frequently thumped out on the school piano while we all stood up straight, and woe betide you if you messed around or got the giggles. If you so much as sneezed during ‘
happy and glorious
’, you could get the cane. They didn’t just play ‘God Save the Queen’ in schools. It was played at almost every public event, even at every cinema show down the Regal or the Odeon.

The country was in a state of feverish excitement before the Coronation. People plotted for weeks to work out how they could camp overnight on the route and catch a glimpse of Elizabeth in her gold carriage. There were little replicas of this gold carriage everywhere, complete with weeny horses. I hinted and hinted but didn’t get lucky. My only Coronation memorabilia were the silver spoon and
the
blue china commemorative mug given free to every school child – and Harry broke my mug a week later. I expect the spoon might still be rattling about at the back of my mother’s cutlery drawer somewhere. Maybe I’ll try to reclaim it.