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When I was young, I prayed to be sent away to boarding school. It wasn’t that I was particularly unhappy at home but simply that I had fallen head over heels in love with the idea thanks to Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers and St Claire’s books.  I wanted to play pranks and have midnight feasts with a gang of friends.  Okay, so I also rather fancied the idea of swimming in a natural seawater pool and having my own pony in the school stables. At the bottom of it, I guess I just wanted to escape from the tedium of suburbia.  I was a lot younger than my siblings and I spent most of my time alone in my head. I wanted ‘chums’; I wanted merry japes; I wanted passionate friendships and drama and secrets.

The allure of the school saga has not diminished over the years. When my son first saw his school he muttered, with deep awe, ‘Hogwarts’.  And I smiled broadly when I saw that Lyn Gardner had written her own school series, starting with Olivia’s First Term (oh that title - so delightfully reminiscent of Blyton’s series).

I met Lyn when we both worked for the London listings magazine, City Limits.  Lyn was the theatre editor (I fixed the typewriters  – which says it all really).  Lyn went on to The Guardian (and remains there today) and continues to review theatre with her habitual insight, sensitivity and humour.  If anyone knows theatre inside out and back to front, it’s Lyn. Oh, and she has daughters so she’s the business twice over.

Now, you know me. I love dark and doomy and depressing. I inhale supernatural and overcast and heart-broken and wretched.  So how come I devoured a book about a bunch of kids at stage school, for pity’s sake?  Olivia’s First Term is about dancing and acting and singing; it doesn’t even have one vaguely creepy moment (though there is plenty of drama).  I hated High School Musical. I loathe Glee.  But, you know, this isn’t like that…not one bit.  It’s really got that old Malory Towers magic about it (though the writing is way better). I’ll let you into a secret – I even shed a few tears at the end.

Anyhow, if you have stage-struck daughters (roughly aged 8-12), they’ll devour it (and, fear not, it teaches valuable lessons about Not Being A Brat). I know a lot of you have young girls in the house and so I asked the publishers, Nosy Crow, if they could let me have some copies to share. They very kindly agreed and I have six copies to give away. So, if you’d like to win one, simply leave a comment and we’ll do the usual paw in the hat routine.

Oh, and talking about writing and young people, check out the Wicked Young Writers’ Award finalist entries, now published in an anthology by Headline.  www.wickedyoungwriters.com – some amazing stuff here.

We are teddy bears

Last night I was driving the Car of Great Grumpiness, performing the Taxi Ride of Gloom. Adrian had been in London at some do with Princess Anne (well, they’d been in the same room). Meanwhile James had stayed late at school as a salve. He wants to weekly board (actually in his heart of hearts he’d like to full-board but he is smart enough not to push too hard) – we’ve said it’s not an option.  Partly (okay, majorly) because of cost but also because, for pity's sake, he's only eleven.  We haven't had him five minutes and already he wants to move out?  
James was tired and grumpy – so was Adrian. Not that much difference between males really, whatever their age: when they’re tired or hungry they become revolting. By the time we got home the mood was positively festering.
‘Oh God, welcome to our happy home,’ said Adrian, dripping with sarcasm.
‘Well don’t worry; you’ll get rid of me tomorrow for the night, won’t you?’ lashed back James.
Cue hurt look from Adrian and stair-stomping by James. The SP hid behind the sofa and Asbo turned his head to the wall.  Jeez.
‘I wouldn’t mind but he isn’t even pleased to see us,’ said Adrian after we’d navigated bedtime and slumped at the table in the penumbra (half the light bulbs have blown).

Ah. Here it is. The Gulf of Parental Expectation. I had had lunch with a friend earlier and we were talking about just this. How, as children, we just accept our parents, we take them for granted. Sure, if they left or died, we’d be devastated. But generally a child’s view (if they even think about it) is that parents’ jobs are to be there, like giant teddy bears (albeit with open wallets and car keys) in the background, solid and comforting but ultimately to be grown out of, to be set aside and patted fondly from time to time.

But as parents, the whole thing turns on its head. Our children are The Most Important Things in the World, objects of endless interest and fascination. I can remember my mother wistfully asking about my day when I was at school; about my life when I was at university. It used to amaze me that she was so interested in every last detail. Now I understand, all too well.

‘Bottom line, we’re not as interesting to James as he is to us,’ I said to Adrian as we walked the dogs through the early morning mist by the river. He had just been relating a long story about the brewing industry in Burton on Trent. He looked suspiciously at me.
‘That was a boring story, wasn’t it?’ he said.  Aaaghh. ‘It’s not about you, it’s not about us.’ I paused. ‘See, you have to understand.  We’re teddy bears.’

He looked extremely puzzled and scratched his fur.

Back to school

Oh weirdness incarnate. Two days into the new term and it feels as if the whole axis of my world has shifted. James has moved up to senior school and has started boarding (he’ll do one or two nights a week). In reality, he’s only moved down the road to the big school and is still surrounded by all his old friends. Yet the shift is seismic. He has been desperate to start school all through the holiday and has slid into his new life like an eel sliding into a pool. Not a pause, not a jitter, not a backward glance.

He loves boarding; wants to be there more; wants to immerse himself in this new, more independent life. And I should be glad, I am glad. It’s what I have always wanted – my boy to be his own person; to be free; to fly. But he is changing, it’s inevitable – and I can feel the ties loosening. He phoned me from his dorm room just before lights out and sounded totally different. I could hear his friends in the background, laughing that he was phoning home, that he was saying goodnight to his mother. Bless his soul – I hadn’t asked him to, he didn’t have to - but he did. I could hear the split in his voice – the pretended nonchalance, the little boy sliding away. I am fading into the background. Still loved, still needed, just not so much, not in such a central way. It's right, it's proper but by heck it's unsettling.

It struck me that this is a new start for me as much as for him. For the last twelve years I have not been my own person in any way. I have been Mother – a role, to be honest, I wasn’t ever sure I would fulfil. I’ve never been natural mother material, never felt particularly maternal – I can appreciate babies in an aesthetic way but keep my arms firmly pinned by my sides when they’re around. While loving James was the easiest thing in the entire world, packing away my own needs and desires was harder. To say my career has slid in the last decade is an understatement. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Time flies so fast and it never occurred to me to go down the nanny route. So I scrabbled and made do and had to turn down work that conflicted with mothering (the kiss of death in journalism). And so, here I am, sitting at my desk thinking "now what?"

I can feel, so strongly, that it’s time for a change, for a shift. I need a new start, a new pencil case, a new pair of shiny Clarks T-bar shoes. There’s that whiff of autumn in the air which, for me, is always a kickstart to the psyche. I need to get back in touch with who I am when I’m not being ‘James’ mum’.  I can feel it, like a song whistled quietly into the wind, but can't hear it clearly yet.

I hope, I really hope, that my teenage fiction works out. I love sinking into that wild, hopelessly romantic, endlessly exciting world. And teens seem to adore the book - their enthusiasm and puzzled fury that it's not published is so dear.  I just hope I can find an editor who feels the same way. If not, then I will need to discover something else. All suggestions very welcome...

Growing up and blogging for The Lady

I’m all at sea, all discombobulated, haven’t been able to settle. Not that unusual a state of affairs of course but this is something more. My boy is off on a school trip tomorrow – a five day rugby tour involving a plane flight (and a 3.30am start to boot). I’m not the clingy mummy type (far from it) but I’ve been finding myself holding on for a few extra seconds of hug this last week, snuggling up closer on the sofa and even watching Top Gear while kissing the top of his head (to the point where he turned and said, ‘You’re going to give me a bald spot at this rate’).

He’ll have a ball (literally and metaphorically) and I know he’ll be fine but – oh – I can’t help but worry and just know I will miss him like fury. So, I’ll get a lie-in on Sunday. So, I will have the time to crack on with the new novel without constant interruption. But, crikey, it feels strange. We’ve been parted for this long before but usually it’s me doing the going away. This is him branching out on his own, starting the road to independence that is so necessary and right for a child and such a mix of pain and joy for a parent.

It seems barely five minutes ago that he was being born (all 12lbs 8oz of him), having his first day at school, having his first sleepover....

That’s it really. Nothing more to be said. Brace up, Alexander old girl....could be packing him off to boarding school, I suppose. You know I couldn't even think about watching that TV programme - even the trailer with the mother crying got me going. I dunno...I don't believe in criticising other people's parenting methods but surely eight years old is too young by far to be away from home for a whole term?

On other matters... I have just started doing a blog for The Lady. Don’t laugh – it’s not just posh peeps any more (well, hardly, with me on board). Do take a look and, if you don’t mind signing up (I don’t think it means you’ll be bombarded with prospective nannies – they’re far too polite for spam), would love to have your comments on it.
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