The Poignancy of Covid Separations...by Sheila Claydon

 

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This is about children. They feature a lot in my romances because they feature a lot in my life in the form of grandchildren and their friends. Animals also feature ditto. Authors are always told to write about the things they know, so I do...at least to some extent. And certainly as far as children are concerned. 

All of my granddaughters love books and all of them enjoy writing stories and poems, many of which give the family pleasure as they note the progress being made and the imagination being shared. Just occasionally, however, things become a little more poignant, none more than this letter from my 6 year old granddaughter who lives in Hong Kong. She and her parents were due to spend 6 weeks with us in the summer of 2020 but Covid put paid to that as they weren't allowed to leave Hong Kong. So now we continue, as we always have, to talk on Skype and to share thoughts on a WhatsApp Family Chat. This includes everyone in the immediate UK family. 

Due to the time difference we often wake up in the morning to messages and photos that have been sent while we were asleep and this is what arrived last week. 

Given that we are way past Christmas we are taking the greeting as it is intended. We also love the idiosyncratic spellings, the pink pen and the various stickers. The message, sent without any prompting from her parents, is heartrending though. In our UK family we have dogs, cats and a horse, some of which she has already met, and all of whom she has seen on Skype. A Hong Kong high-rise is not the place for pets, however, so she is living for the day when she can play with them all and ride the horse on a leading rein, as she was expecting to do last summer.

Having said that she is managing pretty well on Skype in the interim. She's been known to send her eldest cousin messages during a university lecture and call us up while we are out walking the dog and take the walk through the fields with us. We also manage to play games like UNO or Chess online after a fashion, read books or write stories, and, if they are with her, be introduced to many of her little friends.  It's amazing what can be achieved with technology and we consider ourselves very lucky to be able to maintain such a close relationship across the miles. It doesn't make up for that poignant little letter though. Nothing will.

On a lighter note, the middle granddaughter is known for her sense of humour and dry wit. These came into play this week when, to her disgust, she was told that because it was International Book Day she had to dress up as a character from a book she liked. At 14, she thought the whole thing was ridiculous in  the way only a teenager can, especially as lessons were still online! She is, however, a very dutiful student, so when the day came she chose Harry Potter as her character. She then mentally donned his invisibility cloak by keeping her camera turned off during her online English lesson. I don't know what costumes her classmates came up with but what I do know is that she won first prize. Obviously her English teacher has a sense of humour too. It has kept the whole family laughing all week. 

Now she is back in the classroom and so is our granddaughter in Hong Kong, and hopefully it won't be too long before we can all meet up again. In the meantime I have another book to write...children will feature!!

Mad About the Movies

 

Here's what popped up at the Laramie awards ceremony as ... the Grand Prize Winner!

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It’s movie awards season again, looking different because of the pandemic. Most of the films this year can be seen on television, either pay-per-view or on a streaming service.

I have a great passion for good movie storytelling, so I will don my tiara and let you know my favorites of the year —

1. Hamilton (Disney +) Just in time for the lockdown came the vibrant life of a little-known Founding Father via Lin-Manuel Miranda, inspired by Ron Chernow’s biography. Wow, from it’s dazzling choreography and camerawork, perfect color-blind casting, and  many musical styles, you’ll feel you have the best seat in the house.   Suggestion: turn the closed captions on because you don’t want to miss a word of the fast-paced music.
2. One Night in Miami (Amazon) A wonderful enlargement on the Broadway play about an evening in 1964 when Jim Brown, Malcolm X, and Sam Cook celebrated the prize fight win of young Cassius Clay (later known as Mohamed Ali). Wonderfully acted. Directed by Regina King with assurance and an evocative color pallet. Leslie Odom Jr. (Aaron Burr in Hamilton) turns in a heart-breaking, nuanced performance as Sam Cooke.
3. Greyhound (Apple +) Has Tom Hanks plowing the Atlantic as a first time captain of his mostly teen-aged crew. It’s 1942 and their task is protecting a convoy of 37 ships carrying thousands of soldiers and supplies around Nazi U-boats. Not a moment of this movie is wasted and the relationship that develops between beleaguered Hanks and his cook is an added bonus.
4. The Prom (Netflix) is a musical as escapist and frothy as Hamilton is serious, with its glitz, hammy acting, and back-to-back-to-back divas. But by the end it had won me over. The young lovers Jo Ellen Pellman and Ariana DeBose and a charming turn as a high school teacher by Keegan-Michael Key keep us caring about what happens next. See this one in your local movie theater when you can, as I think it would be enhanced by a communal experience, like the Mama Mia movies are.
5. Trial of the Chicago Seven (Netflix) Spellbinding courtroom drama in the capable hands of Aaron Sorkin who wrote and directed. Set in the aftermath of the riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention. You’ll find many unsettling parallels to current events. Strong performances by entire cast, but Sasha Baron Cohen’s Abbie Hoffman is a Sacred Clown for the ages.
6. News of the World (Universal) Yeah, I’m a Tom Hanks fan. I also love a good Western and this is a great one, combining a fateful journey and Indian captivity plot with suspense galore. Tom’s an itinerant news reader entertainer charged with returning captive Helena Zengel to her relatives. Together they travel a Reconstruction Era Texas fraught with dangers and astonishing moments of grace. Pay attention to the musical score of this one—it’s a knock-out.

So there you have it, Eileen’s favorite movies of the year of the plague. I’m so glad 

I had them to keep me company. 

See you at the movies!

Meghan, Harry & The Crown

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Like millions of people in North America and Britain, I watched the recent Oprah Winfrey interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. When the couple married almost three years ago, my husband and I happened to be in the UK on vacation. We visited the church at Windsor Castle, where the wedding would take place and watched the preparations underway. On May 19, 2018, the day of the event, we took a train from the Lake District to Edinburgh. At the decorated train station, a woman set up a festive table with afternoon tea for sale.  

Meghan and Harry’s honeymoon with the press and public deteriorated quickly after that, as did their relationships with people in the royal family. A year ago they gave up their duties as senior royals and moved to Canada, a Commonwealth nation where Meghan had lived and worked as an actress. When the UK and Canada refused to pay for their long-term security, they settled in California with plans to pursue non-regal ventures. In their interview with Oprah, they said that unfair and hurtful treatment by members of the royal family, the palace establishment and the British media forced them to take these steps. 

Everyone I know, including me, has watched the Netflix series The Crown, which chronicles the life of Queen Elizabeth II from girlhood to recent times. A theme I take from the series is that the personal lives of royal family members come second to protecting and preserving the institution of The Crown. In the Oprah interview, Harry said that all of his relatives are trapped in their royal roles. The Netflix show suggested the Queen might have been happier living a simple life in the countryside with her horses and dogs. But then she wouldn’t have fame, fortune and a place in history. Many would choose the trap. 

The media loves drama. It sells newspapers and gets people to watch shows like the “bombshell” and “explosive” Oprah interview. The UK tabloids exploited and maybe created the Meghan vs Kate conflict. This narrative serves The Crown if  Kate generally comes across better, since she’s a future queen. Harry told Oprah that the royal family needs positive coverage by the press. The monarchy isn’t secure forever and the country has many anti-royalists. While the Queen is beloved, her successor Prince Charles isn’t. But Will and Kate look on track to replacing the Queen in people’s hearts. They also have three children ahead of Harry in the line of succession. Harry's drop to the # 6 spot makes him less important to The Crown. That's why their son wasn't made a prince and perhaps why the palace made little effort to protect Meghan from media criticism and lies, as she said in the Oprah interview. 

Both Harry and Meghan made a point of telling Oprah they still get along well with his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth. Harry followed up the interview by making it clear that the Queen and Prince Philip weren’t the unnamed royals who made racist remarks that were arguably the interview’s biggest bombshell revelation. This shows that the young couple's intentions haven't strayed completely away from their prime roles as members of the royal family—to protect and preserve the person who embodies The Crown. 

 

Me with Harry and Meghan in Windsor, UK, May 2018