My search for stories takes me on a journey of sorts. Over hills and dales, down motorways, skiing off piste from time to time, often hitting a target and occasionally grinding to a screeching halt. One can never tell where the road might lead you but one thing is for sure, you have to be prepared to explore.
Last night I got a call from Janice James*, my sister’s oldest friend and the only woman I have ever met who has six children. And didn’t want to stop there. Her husband, unsurprisingly, had other ideas.
In the time since Janice first met my sister and the present day i.e. donkey’s years, all of her children have grown into lovely teenagers.
Bingo! I thought, I need to interview more teenagers; Janice has six of them, so some of them must have mates who might want to talk to me.
Let me point out here that the thought of interviewing Janice’s kids was not an option, at least in my head. Far too much ick factor, for them, not me.
Janice, clearly, had other ideas.
‘Hi Kate’, she said on the phone last night. ‘It turns out I have a family of prudes’.
Excuse me?
‘I have asked all of them to tell you their stories and none of them will do it. I can’t believe it. I’ve even taken all of them aside separately and asked them to give me one good reason why they won’t tell you their story’
‘Err, Janice, I can kind of see why they might not want to, I am their mother’s best friend’s sister after all, they know me.’
‘That’s not the point’, she said, ‘we all know how and when each of them lost it because we sit and talk about it around the dinner table every night. I don’t really see what difference it makes.’
‘Well, quite a lot apparently.’
‘The little one said she would tell you, but that’s not much good because she hasn’t lost hers yet’.
God bless her.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Apologies to Janice’s kids for the haranguing. And many thanks to their plucky mother for trying on my behalf, your effort is appreciated.
My transcriber, on the other hand, recently struck gold with a brilliant suggestion for an interview. I followed the trail and quickly got a result. I have always maintained that it was highly unlikely I would ever interview anyone older than ninety one year old Mary Stuart, a lady I travelled down to Cornwall to interview last year.
I was wrong.
Today, I am off interview a lady who was born in 1907. She is a hundred years old. In preparing for the interview, I realise that I will be talking to one of the first women in this country to vote, not that long before she married her husband, and, I suspect, had her ‘first time’.
And the best thing of all?
We are not related, we have never met before and she absolutely does want to be interviewed.
Bingo!
*All names changed to protect identity.
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