My All Time Favorites

 

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I think by the time I was born my mother was just a teensy bit fed up with children after already rearing five boys and four girls. That is not to say that she wasn’t the greatest mother any child could wish for. Loved and respected by all who knew her, Annie was a typical mother of her time. As far back as I can remember she was always there at home with a meal ready and waiting for me. Never the type to make a fuss of you, even when you were sick, she nonetheless never raised a hand in anger to any of her offspring, even though I am sure that there were many times when she could easily have taken out her frustration on any or all of us. I think we all inherited our sense of fun from her, as one thing she enjoyed was a good laugh. How she survived bringing up ten children, surviving two World Wars and endless deprivation is something to be admired above all else and this sense of humour no doubt helped her through. She allowed me the privilege of running wild and free as a child. Somehow, all ten of us turned out to be not so bad human beings and it surely was from lessons learned from our parents.

As wonderful as our mother was, the task of raising me was, more or less, left to my older sisters Joan and Doris, who would dress me up, pamper me, and take me out to see what went on in the world. They taught me to read and write well before I attended primary school. My big brothers also made a fuss of me but were prone to tease me, after all, (except for the youngest) they were adults when I came along and anyway this is about my favourite women. If you have read my ‘Crying is for Babies’ then you will know that my favourite woman of course was my dear Vi, who was a constant in my life until her death. Because of our mother’s legacy, all the females in her family have the strength of character required to get them through the toughest of times—after all none of our lives have been half as difficult as hers.

Among my screen favourites, I think Doris Day stands out. How I loved her movies. Not only was she beautiful but her love of animals is surely what drew me to her. She founded The Doris Day Foundation and vowed to protect animals in any way she could.  The characters she played in her movies in no way reflected her life—which didn’t appear to be a bed of roses. Another singer/actress who had a big impact on my teenage years was Rosemary Clooney (Is she really George’s Auntie?) but do you know the only song of hers that stands out for me is, ‘Hey There’. I cannot leave Audrey Hepburn from my list. She never did any movies that could be termed as stupendous, but how could I forget her in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ and ‘Roman Holiday’. To me she was the epitome of beauty at its purest. And her outfits in the movies! She always looked the picture of elegance. But it is her humanitarian work that stands out for me. In 1992 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as

Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. Sadly, she passed away too soon.

It was Joan our fashion conscious sister, who steered me towards a career in the fashion industry. Always ahead of her time, she loved dressing up, and was the least shy of all of us, never ashamed to flaunt her body, whereas we were mostly too coy. She instilled in us a sense of right and wrong in anything to do with our outfits and was never too bothered about setting us straight if she wasn’t happy with what we were wearing. It was she who forced me into nylons at the age of fifteen when I was still quite happy to wear ankle socks. And she made me wear higher heels because she said it was not ladylike to swagger like a boy so they would help me to walk like a model—unfortunately I think none of us (especially me) quite came up to her standards.

There are many more women that I have admired of course, such as teachers, authors, activists or ordinary women who cope daily with disability or worse, but none can compare to family. 

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