So it Goes

Paul New 1965-2022

At his happiest with solitude and something to read

My late partner Paul was a fan of Kurt Vonnegut's phrase from Slaughterhouse 5, so it seems appropriate to use it as the title of this post dedicated to him. As many friends couldn't get to his funeral, I thought I would share some of the awfulness that was 2022, and by contrast the positivity and love his funeral and wake engendered.

He died on 14 November 2022, two days after his 57th birthday. What had started out as "a bit of digestive trouble" early in the new year, turned out to be oesophageal cancer, which was not treatable with surgery. In August, he started palliative chemotherapy in the hope of giving him another 12-18 months, but in October he developed back pain which ultimately turned out to be the cancer spreading to his spine And liver. And lungs. On 10 November, he went to the Christie for his bloods and consultation prior to chemo on the Monday and was told he was not fit enough for the treatment. Oramorph and steroids were prescribed, with a view to building his strength back. The next day, he was rushed into Resus at the MRI after his blood sats had dropped to the mid-60s and he'd started hallucinating. On the morning of the 12th he was comfortable on a ward, but by late morning, the kids and I were asked to go in.

Despite the best efforts of the medical staff (and believe me, they tried SO hard) he was too weak to fight of the various infections, and was moved on to end of life care. Thanks to the neglect of 12 years of a government eager to sell the NHS off to private healthcare and refusing to accept that the pandemic was in fact not over, there was no side room anywhere on the enormous MRI site, so he spent his final hours on an open ward, with only a curtain for privacy. I will never forgive the politicians (of any party) who have allowed this to happen.

Because his final days were so rapid and traumatic, we hadn't had the time to discuss his funeral wishes with him (one of the few advantages a dying man with cancer has over those who go suddenly and unexpectedly). The only thing we knew for certain was that he wanted to be buried rather than cremated (although we never really discussed why) and so we planned for a burial in Manchester, in December, in what turned out to be the most prolonged cold spell for years.

In the days after his death, my son Josh and I started putting together a Spotify playlist of a whole load of songs that he loved, that reminded us of him, or which spoke to something which meant a lot to him (protest songs, mainly; the angrier the better). This was as much therapy for us as anything else but from this the first framework of a funeral service started to come into view. 

He was not a religious man so we didn't have to include any hymns, and therefore had free reign to use whatever we wanted. We were keen to avoid clichés, so although he loved Ralph Vaughan Williams, we didn't include any classical music - do we really need to hear that damned lark ascending yet again, beautiful as it is?

Instead, we went for Hallelujah ("No, not that one!") as the song to which he entered the chapel. As we followed him in, I noticed friends and colleagues from all areas of Paul's life in addition to immediate family, as well as a small tribe of Josh's friends who had travelled from all over the country to come and support him. I also knew that there were many others who had wanted to attend but were unable to make it due to other commitments and a rail strike (and he absolutely would not have wanted anyone to cross a picket line on his account).

We were fortunate that my oldest friend, an experienced celebrant, agreed to conduct the service, which meant that she actually knew the deceased in life. There's nothing worse than someone describing your loved one where it's clear they have no clue about who they were or anything much about their life.

The tributes started with Josh reading a poem which he had been reading the day we broke the news to the children about Paul's diagnosis.

Two Headed Calf by Laura Gilpin

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this 

freak of nature, they will wrap his body 

in newspaper and carry him to the museum. 

 

But tonight he is alive and in the north 

field with his mother. It is a perfect 

summer evening: the moon rising over 

the orchard, the wind in the grass. And 

as he stares into the sky, there are 

twice as many stars as usual. 

This is a print Josh made from an original artwork by his friend Salem (@voidheaded on Instagram), whose other work  can be found here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/cyberrhaunt/s

This was followed by Prettiest Eyes by the Beautiful South, a song which sums up the love and friendship of a long-term relationship, and a personal favourite of mine.

We then heard further tributes from family and friends. First Megan, who read (brilliantly) a piece written for her about Paul's qualities as a dad. It was funny, full of affection and written with the "abundance of care" that the (anonymous) author ascribed to Paul himself:

Despite his lifelong assertion that “Your mother wanted kids, I wanted cats. I lost.”, Paul was a devoted and incredible father right up until the very end. He was the best dad in the world, though not in the sort of way you reward with a cheesy Poundland mug (though I may have tried a few times!). Those that knew him will know he’s not much of a touchy-feely person, generally leaning away from hugs and avoiding expressing any genuine emotions in a way that people could hear. He always proved his love in other ways -- secretly spending all day on a train to and from Bristol to collect Josh’s beloved cuddly toy that had been left behind after visiting grandma, or letting me punch him because his exaggerated groans of agony would make me laugh until my bad mood went away. He chose not to treat his children like inferiors, always inviting them into the grown-up conversations and giving them the opportunity to try and understand, even if they ended up not doing. He was a man of carefully measured words and carefully considered actions, characteristics that made him perfectly suited to fatherhood even when he (continually, and only half-sarcastically) claimed to have no clue. No declaration of love could ever mean more than a great lover of cinema taking his children to see Happy Feet and, even worse, Mrs Brown's Boys: D'Movie. He was good at using his own experience of (undiagnosed, but agreed by pretty much everyone except him) autism to advocate and encourage Megan and Josh whenever others weren’t sure how to. He indulged plenty of ridiculous things, like a phobia of doors and a desire to take every bus route in Greater Manchester, but he did more than that as well. He was the best at problem-solving and seemed to always know how to work through situations where emotions weren’t the solution. He often claimed that he was getting carers’ allowance without ever doing any caring, but it wasn’t true -- both of his children would agree that much of their continued survival stems from his abundance of care. For all his wonderful acts as a dad, the best thing he ever did was relinquishing his dream of naming a child Colostomy. Paul lives on through a shared phobia of moths, a dark sense of humour, a perpetual willingness to pop to the shops, and all the love and strength he left behind. These words aren’t something he’d necessarily agree with, and he might visibly cringe if he heard them said aloud, but they’re the truth. He was a better father than he ever gave himself credit for.

This was followed by Paul's oldest friend, who met him when they both joined Bristol Cathedral School as scholarship boys at the age of 11. A fascinating glimpse of the boy who would become the man we all knew; it was clear that the intelligence and wit was always there right from the start.

I found this with his mum's photos.
Paul is the one in the middle at the back with the glasses and his tie crooked

Next came one of our university friends, and godmother to Josh, who regaled us with tales of journalistic rigour and criticism on his part when putting together the annual Film Society booklet, full of works of varying quality but where Paul's always stood out as knowledgeable and often wickedly funny. Here we all are at my parents' house just after we'd won the BFFS' Film Society of the Year. One of the most joyously drunken nights of my life.

We are still in touch with all but two of these people 30 years later

Finally we heard from a former colleague from his twenty-plus years' service with Manchester City Council (a career which ended prematurely due to one of the frequent Osborne-induced round of "savings" heaped on local authorities during the Coalition era). He was never happier than when on his own in a room with a spreadsheet, collating the data that would inform the city's homelessness strategies, but despite all his efforts to evade recognition or promotion he was widely admired and loved by those whose paths he crossed.

Manchester Housing, Southcombe Walk, Moss Side, early 90s 

At this point, it was time for a reading. We agonised over this - having had no chance to discuss what he might like, and wary of him haunting us should we make a bad choice, we were temporarily stumped. Then we remembered how he adored the tales of Noggin the Nog from his childhood; but how to achieve the unique delivery of Oliver Postgate, which made them so special? (He always maintained that he channelled Postgate's narration style when reading aloud to the kids when they were little. It works for everything except Dickens, apparently).

It was here that one of Josh's friends stepped in - he's currently studying Film and TV at university, and he roped in several friends and a lecturer to isolate the audio track from a YouTube video to produce an MP4 which could be played on the chapel audio system.

Noggin the Nog

Which brings us to the eulogy. I make no claim to be a writer - at best, I'm a hack: I can throw something together at short notice with the basic facts but little creative flair (see any of my Film Society reviews as evidence of this - I was always the one who could put together a vaguely competent review of a film no-one had seen and which no-one was quite sure why it was on the programme). On this one occasion, though, I wanted to do him proud, despite the fact that his first reaction when I started this blog in 2010 was to say "Oh, please don't start blogging!" There is a lot of life to sum up (albeit a lot less than there should have been) and I hoped to capture the essence of the man I adored for over 30 years. So here goes:

Paul was born in Bristol in November 1965, and was adopted at birth by Ron, a GPO Engineer, and his wife Pam who had moved to the city from Somerset after their marriage. He grew up in Headley Park in the south of the city and at 11 was awarded a scholarship to Bristol Cathedral School, where he excelled academically. In 1985, he went to Manchester University to study English and American Literature. He had wanted to study Film, but found that the only courses on offer were on campus universities remote from any actual cinemas, which, as he said, meant he could learn the history of cinema but not catch anything on general release. He made up for this by joining Manchester University Film Society where, a couple of years later, I went along to a Freshers Week Cheese and Wine, a decision which as it turned out was momentous.

For a few months we were simply friends (at one point unsuccessfully trying to match-make for each other with other FilmSoc members) until the night of the legendary All-Night Film Show when, at 3am, he shambled along the corridor and leant against the projection box door - taken off its hinges for access reasons - took his John Lennon specs off and rubbed his eyes. It was at this moment I thought “What lovely eyes he has!” and that was it – for the next 34 years, we were virtually inseparable, apart from the 10 months I spent in Pennsylvania, to where he made an international phone call to propose to me in 1989. Sadly, we never did get around to the wedding (it was being planned over the last few months but time ran out on us) but that notwithstanding we had the most glorious life together. 

FilmSoc has been central to our lives – initially, the summer FilmSoc annexe at our old house on Slade Lane, where many a review was written (usually at the last minute), films booked, programmes planned; and latterly the source of so many close friends, several of whom are godparents to Meg and Josh. Paul was delighted that this love of film passed down to the next generation, although he and Josh’s reciprocal film education will now remain unfinished.  

Music was also central to both our lives. Paul loved music but was legendarily tone-deaf and never understood music theory. We watched documentary after documentary from the best explainers – Howard Goodall, Neil Brand and others – and he still understood not one word of it. Our tastes were diverse but grew together over the years, although I’ve never got the Jesus and Mary Chain and he never got Genesis! The children and I have found comfort over the past weeks in putting together a playlist of his favourites, songs that mean something to us or which make a social or political point. 

On leaving university, Paul joined Manchester City Council’s Homeless Families Temporary Accommodation team. For several years, many of his colleagues were also our social circle, with loads of pub quizzes and the fabled trip to York races in 1996. I drove the team there in a minibus and then headed over to visit Philippa, our celebrant today, and her family who lived nearby. It was only on our return to Manchester that we had discovered our adopted city had been blown up.  

Over the years, I came to know Paul’s home town of Bristol well. He always loved it, although he was torn between “These are my people!” and “Why does everything shut at half past five?” We visited Pam regularly as well as his grandmother in Clevedon, and Ron, who had remarried after his and Pam’s divorce. It was on one of these trips out to the pub with his dad in 1997 that we told him we were expecting Megan. As we said goodbye, Ron pressed petrol money on Paul, who protested that he was in his early 30s and working. “You’ll need it,” Ron said, “Now you have the babby on the way.” Sadly, Ron did not live to see his new granddaughter. 

The role of surrogate grandfather fell to Pam’s partner of 30 years, Brian. Uncle Brian was a much-loved part of the children's lives, although I’m not sure his explanation of prime numbers ever stuck with Josh.  

Paul, Pam and Brian

A naturally quiet man and an only child, Paul often seemed perplexed by the sheer loudness of my family, but it was always him who would fall back to accompany my mother while the rest of us strode off at speed, and who regularly corralled the children at family events. He was a good son in law to Fred and Frank and brother-in-law to Sally; he was also famously ‘Aunty Paul’ to his niece Emily for several years. 

A rare one of all of us. Taken on mum and dad's last trip out for a drink in 2016, nicknamed Operation Otter

As you’ve already heard, Paul was the most wonderful father despite his assertion that he was deeply unsuited to the role. From day one, he and Meg had an invisible bond – it was always Paul who could calm her when no-one else could and he continued to be her guide and her champion, delighting in her (belated) educational achievements which were often despite rather than because of the educational system. 

In Josh he had a kindred spirit – a love of film, a love of words, the same ferocious intelligence. They were quite the double act and it was a joy to watch them discussing Doctor Who, cinema or politics together.  
 
It is touching to see so many of his friends and colleagues here today along with the family. I have received so many wonderful tributes from all over the world from people who held him in very high regard. I have never met anyone who, once they got to know him, didn’t love him. As someone said to me, he was “the brightest man in any room he was in” and although he wore that intelligence lightly and was quick to highlight his failings (the lack of DIY skills, the ability to sing) he was an immensely talented and yet self-effacing man. He was also a devoted son, who continued to care for his mother as her health has declined. His curmudgeonly exterior concealed a man of great love and empathy for his fellow human beings, a committed socialist and campaigner for the underdog (hence his lifelong support of Bristol Rovers).

His one big failing was his laissez-faire attitude to timekeeping – the Douglas Adams quotation “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” could have been coined for him - I still remember him running down the stairs of the student union and across to the Arts Building to deliver his dissertation with seconds to spare, and nearly losing him on my first train journey to Bristol when he spotted a full fruit machine in the station café, ripe for emptying, just as the train was about to pull out. To the detriment of all of us, on this one occasion he was tragically early for something, and I so wish he’d been much, much later in his leaving of us. 

A quietly effective and unassuming man, he will be missed more than he will ever know or would have acknowledged. 
 
In the words of our friend and former house-mate Peter (who is currently en route between Japan and Vietnam) “Rest in Peace Paul New, you irreplaceable, cantankerous old star.” 

This was followed by Sondheim's Being Alive, sung by Adrian Lester, a favourite of both of ours. We saw many UK premieres of Sondheim shows together, thanks to the Library Theatre in Manchester, which spent much of the early 90s specialising in them.

And so to the final music choice. Again we considered something classical but then I remembered watching the TV coverage of Glastonbury in the summer (how long ago that seems now) and him saying "THAT'S what I want played at my funeral" so how could we ignore his wish?

Exit Music

So that's it, really. It was a beautiful service and the kids and I were touched that so many people made the effort to attend and stand in the compacted snow to say a final goodbye to my soulmate (such an over-used term, but what else comes close?). There are so many other things I could have mentioned, so here are some:

The massive international phone bills we built up calling each other while I was in the USA for a year (temping for BT on my return, I discovered they'd put an alert on our account due to the suspiciously high usage!)

As members of the Colin Weston Fan Club quiz team, the many pub quizzes which were part of our pre-child lives (over the course of one summer, a rival team kept re-naming itself in the wake of yet another of our victories - they finally settled on We Hate Fucking Students

On the night we won Film Society of the Year, the sight of Paul and our friend Ian jumping round my mum's kitchen, hugging each other and shouting "We won! We won! (alcohol may have been a factor).

Picking up an early morning taxi in Stockport on our way back from an overnight journey from London in 1997 and therefore being some of the very first people in the country to hear of the death of the Princess of Wales. That was weird.

Him spending the whole of my 3-day labour with me - he looked more wrecked at the end of it than I did. He'd (nearly) eaten an out of date pasty from the hospital café, been there to remind the medical staff that in putting my legs in stirrups they'd forgotten to lower the head of the bed, so I was sitting in an ungainly V-shape, and witnessed Meg's arrival by emergency C-section. The man who wanted cats instead was immediately smitten. As afternoon visiting ended, he finally went home to sleep (he had to borrow my jumper, as it had been an uncharacteristically warm February and he'd arrived 3 days earlier in only a T-shirt and jeans) and I said to my midwife "He won't be back until tomorrow now." "He'll be back" she said. And he was, as soon as evening visiting started.

Trying to research, in the pre-internet age, the likely prognosis for our beautiful new daughter, diagnosed at birth with a rare neurological condition (it was pretty grim - happily, real life has proved more positive)

The two of us despatched to the pub by my parents for some brief respite (in Beer, where else?) after an awful day when Meg had had a massive seizure while staying with granny and grandpa; sitting there listening to the tide coming in, wondering whether this would be a feature of the rest of her life (to date, thankfully, it's not).

While I'm angry that this wonderful human being has been taken from us when so many utter bastards live to a ripe old age, I'm also grateful that I had those 34 years with him

At least he lived long enough to see Paul Heaton win the Novello Award that he had so long deserved...

"You can't have too many good times, children

You can't have too many lines..."

How Can I Help?

It's LGBTQ+ History Month and I've been mulling over how, and even whether, I should be blogging about it. I'm a 50-something straight, white, cisgender woman; young enough to have benefited from the actions of the feminists who came before me, old enough not to have been taken in by the post-feminsim of the 90s and noughties, when some  assumed all the battles had been won and that "feminist" was an embarrassing and archaic way to describe yourself. You could easily say "What's it got to do with her?"

On the other hand, homosexuality was only decriminalised within my lifetime and I was middle aged with children of my own before equal marriage was recognised in law. I was in my 20s when AIDS came to public attention, at university when Section 28 was introduced. It may not have affected me directly, but LGBT History was happening all around me.

Things did get better. Section 28 was repealed; civil partnerships and equal marriage; the Gender Recognition Act. A few years back, watching Great Manchester Police take part in the Pride parade, my partner and I commented that when we had come to the city as students, the force was led by James Anderton. For a good while it looked to the straight, white world as if attitudes had shifted permanently. The homophobia and racism of the 70s and 80s that we'd grown up with had been banished to the fringes of discourse, vocalised only by the very worst of people. 

What the last decade (and especially the last 5 years) has shown us, though, is that those attitudes did not go away; they merely went to ground for a while, until they were again given legitimacy by a small but influential group of the very worst people, given massive public platforms in the name of "balance."

The targets have shifted, but the aim is the same - to 'other', delegitimise and demonise a minority group. The current moral panic is about transgender people but the "debate" remains depressingly similar. So much of the transphobia of today is the re-heated homophobic prejudice of my youth.  What is different about today's transphobia is that it is led and spurred on by..... feminists.

It is unutterably depressing to watch women of my generation raging against trans people, shouting about their "sex-based rights" and aligning themselves with racists, far right politicians and extreme evangelical religious organisations. Women who spent their youth acting in solidarity with other marginalised groups are now pursuing an irrational vendetta against one of the most marginalised of those groups and siding with the very people they fought against for so long, putting forward the falsehood that granting others rights will diminish their own. As academic Alison Phipps says:

Of all the awful things about trans-exclusionary feminism, it’s the claims of victimhood I find most difficult. In my experience these women enjoy unprecedented institutional protection: trans people and their allies are silenced & scared. We are being gaslit & it’s so painful.

— Alison Phipps (@alisonphipps) September 14, 2019

I think what I am coming round to, in a convoluted way, is intersectionality. This is, to be fair, a concept which struggles when released into the wild, but is nonetheless fundamental to how we as human beings relate to each other. Our life experiences will overlap and sometimes contradict those of others and recognising both differences and similarities is vital. Life is messy, and we sometimes may feel aggrieved that someone appears to be ahead of us in the pecking order, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do everything we can to support those who are more marginalised and oppressed than we are. 

I am heterosexual, so I cannot know what it's like to be gay or trans, but that does not mean that as a feminist I should ignore (and even oppose!) the fights and rights of others. The forces of reaction won't stop at the current marginalised group - if they succeed in taking away the rights of one group of people, they will move on to the next, and finally you will be the one being demonised.

For those of us who do have a fair amount of privilege, we should both acknowledge that privilege and not resent others' desire to have the same rights that we have. And we have a duty to act as the best allies we can be. That's not to say that we charge in and take control of the discourse (see - again - Alison Phipps' excellent book on the tendency for white feminism to do this) but to stand up to transphobes, to amplify trans voices and to do - well, the things feminists should always do!

I came to a position of trans allyship the hard way. 

I come, unashamedly, from a long line of "stroppy" women who did things their way. A child of the '60s and '70s, I reaped the benefits of the social mobility of the post-war era. I can't ever remember not being a feminist - my infant brain took issue with the whole Christian Garden of Eden thing, where banishment was on the basis of "She did it!" and I was one of a group of girls at my primary school who loudly voiced our objections when we were discriminated against. When the WWII air raid shelters below the boys' playground were about to be filled in, we were all promised a trip below ground. When we discovered the demolition had begun, and that the boys had been allowed down and we hadn't, we gave the headmaster the full "women's rights" treatment (as much as 10 year olds can).

I was very much a product of my age and background and I thought I knew my feminism. When my son came out as trans in 2015 it hit me like a brick. In part, I went into mourning for the fabulous, feminist woman he would have been but also I knew so little about trans issues - I'd heard of Stephen Whittle and Jan Morris, but that was about it - that I was very ill-prepared to deal with it. And, to be honest, I dealt with it badly. A friend pointed me in the direction of literature on ROGD and told me my son was "just a butch lesbian but hasn't realised it yet." Life got very difficult (especially as my partner had been far more accepting) and it threatened to wreck my relationship with my child. Over time, I tried hard to understand the issues and things got a little easier.

The turning point was the 2018 GoFundMe campaign by some Labour party members to challenge Labour's decision to allow trans women on all women shortlists, which stated clearly that "any leftover funds would be used to fight self-ID". Two women I considered friends and political allies had signed it. I was so upset  and angry that I blogged about it, as a result of which I have spoken to neither since. This saddened me, but ultimately it came to a choice between my political friends and my child. Like I said, life's messy.

Over the last few years, I have done my best to be a good ally. Followed and shared trans voices on social media. Got to know my son's friends (a universally lovely group). Sought out other cis het women who aren't prepared to have gender critical feminists purport to speak for us - the many cis women who have no problem with trans women sharing our spaces, who aren't threatened by trans women and who believe that feminism without inclusion is not feminism. 

So my relationship to LGBTQ+ History Month is one of allyship. I have no relevant  lived experience, but I can at least do my best to be an empathetic ally and if I can't do much to make things better at least not make them worse. Promoting  marginalised voices rather than speaking for them and challenging transphobia. 

They say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, so this time I'm paying attention.

Patience is a Virtue (especially when you're trans)

This started off as a series of tweets which transcribed messages sent to me by my son in 2019, expressing his frustration with Gender Identity Development Services and the medical profession in general in relation to his treatment. Delay and procrastination seemed to be SOP and since Things Have Only Got Worse© since then, I've decided to put the thread into a blog post to save me having to keep searching for it.

Shared with his permission.

"anyway it's 2am and i can't sleep and i'm angry about newcastle so i made a Timeline Of Events since u love those things"

25th Jan 2015 - official coming out Jan 2016 - Saw the GP (who should've been able to refer me straight to tavi, but wasn't sure how to proceed and "felt more comfortable" referring me to CAMHS, which was no longer the recommended pathway)

June 2016 - Appointment with CAMHS, but had to be rescheduled because I had two GCSEs that day (He was taking his GCSEs as his grandfather was dying of cancer...)

July 2016 - Appointment with CAMHS where they wrote my Tavi referral (going through the entire history of my "gender journey" and getting info on my feelings, plans, family situation, etc)

23rd Dec 2016 - Received first letter from Tavi with initial appointment date

18th Jan 2017 - First Tavi appointment

Throughout 2017 I had six sessions, which were literally just a long form version of exactly what I got asked at CAMHS the year before. (Which had also necessitated him and us travelling to Leeds 6 times in order to answer them)

December 2017 - Final Tavi appointment, Newc referral written, came to the conclusion that I displayed all the signs of gender dysphoria and recommended me for treatment (aka Diagnosis 1)

April 2018 - First Newcastle [Adult services] appointment (in Carlisle, given 5 days notice, cost £40+ to get there, and they spent 35 minutes asking the exact same questions and coming to the exact same conclusions as CAMHS and Tavi, before telling me that because I wasn't on blockers I couldn't be put on the expedited waiting list for ex-Tavi patients, and said I had a ten month wait but they were doing their best to make it shorter) (aka Diagnosis 2)

December 2018 - Went to my new GP [by this time he'd gone to university] with 9 pages of documentation asking for a bridging prescription (which he should have been able to give me, but he "felt more comfortable" referring me to an endocrinologist despite the fact that the good practice guidelines say that GPs have the right to prescribe hormones "when the gender clinic is unable to meet the patient's needs within a reasonable or safe time frame")

Jan 2019 - Appointment with endo (two hour wait, missed a lesson, only to be told that she too wouldn't be willing to write me a bridging prescription because she "felt more comfortable" writing to Newcastle asking them what they thought she should do)

March 2019 - Bullshit letter from Newcastle arrives reading "Hi, We can't do anything, you can't either, we'll do something at some point lol" [He is, I think, paraphrasing here]

"It's been 47 weeks since my Newcastle appointment which is a Fair Bit Fucking Longer than anyone should have to fucking wait for medical intervention." [His words, not mine]

Me: Luckily, despite everything, he's an intelligent and resilient young man who appreciates that there are plenty of young trans people worse off than him in terms of mental distress.

But to all you "they're forcing young people to transition far too fast" types out there - this does not look to me like they're doing anything "too fast"; quite the reverse. The complete waste of effort spending a year going over to Leeds Tavi; the reluctance of all parties to actually act in the way that the guidelines suggest; the lack of any progress despite not one but two formal diagnoses of gender dysphoria. Nothing here is screaming "Slow down! You're moving too fast!!" at me.

And yes, I had reservations when he first came out ("You used to be a bit of a TERF, mum, but you're OK now."). I wanted to be sure he was sure of himself, but really - would you really put yourself through this for 4+ years if you were weren't serious?

A question I should probably put to the person who assured me a couple of years back that "she's just a butch lesbian but hasn't realised it yet." Anyway, that's his thoughts at the moment on where he's up to. Shared with his full consent. I'm proud of him.

(Apart from his inability to use capital letters...)

March 2019 - UPDATE: He's just re-read the thread on here, and has commented: "literally every single person i've seen has refused treatment on the grounds of what makes them feel most comfortable."

A point which a number of commentators had picked up on. Not exclusive to trans healthcare, of course, but far too prevalent.

And so 2019 came and went without a murmur, and then 2020 and Covid, with its inevitable delays. And then:

October 2020 - Me: A year and a half on, he's just had a letter from Newcastle about an appointment. He has to respond by the end of the month or they'll discharge him! He came out at 14; he's now 20. He's not going to have changed his mind. It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious.

He's since had a phone consultation and is due another appointment this month, so maybe things are finally beginning to move...

But if you want an indication of the level of misinformation and outright untruths being put forward by "gender critical feminists" pontificating about trans youth being forced down the transition route too quickly, this is it.

How Not to Do Christmas

Originally written in 2020, in the middle of Covid...

Listening to all the media prattle about how to do Christmas this year (now rendered meaningless thanks to Johnson the Incompetent) I was reminded of one of our attempts to travel the length of the country to meet up with family which was pretty fraught even without a pandemic to contend with. Our usual Christmas routine at this time was to visit my mother-in-law in Bristol for a long weekend in mid-December to do some Christmas shopping and to meet up with my family, who travelled up from Devon for a meal and present exchange before we all headed home for Christmas itself. 
 
This post is adapted from an old Facebook Note (remember them?) I wrote 10 years ago. It was, if you remember, the year where we got unusually heavy snowfall in December. 
 
Friday: Due to an adverse weather forecast, we completely changed our plans for the pre-Christmas trip to Bristol, travelling Friday straight after school (last day of term) rather than the more civilised Saturday morning. This turned out to be a good decision, as the journey only took 4 hours, including rush hour through Birmingham (this was before the era of the smart motorway). 

Saturday: We woke up to about 1" snow. My mother in law's house (as with a lot of places in Bristol) was at the top of steep hill, so this was not encouraging. 

Also, Kid#1 was now unwell so I had to stay at home with the children instead of all of us heading out into Bristol to shop. With no internet and only basic TV channels, it was lucky we packed the Wii! The weather wasn’t too bad in Bristol, but if anyone remembers that huge weather system which dumped snow over south east England, closing airports, etc? We saw it moving west to east across the country from the comfort of my mother-in-law's living room...

 

 (That's the moon showing above the clouds)

Sunday: Kid#1 a little better, but Kid#2 now unwell. Stayed at home again while Other Half headed into town to shop (and buy emergency Calpol). Kids rallied enough for the planned meal with my sister and niece that evening, so headed into an ice-cold city centre for a meal in a virtually deserted Pizza Express. 
 
 
Monday: Kids still poorly. Got up early to take mother-in-law for a planned blood test. While in Bedminster (at the bottom of the hill from her house), more snow came on very rapidly and so we struggled through semi-stationary traffic all the way home on untreated roads. 45 mins to do the 10-minute drive home.  

While this was going on, my sister was trying to arrange to meet up for the present-swap, and eventually opted to drive to mother-in-law’s house (getting lost and stuck on black ice in the process). With the weather worsening all the time, she had to make a decision whether to head back to Devon or stay in Bristol with us (which would have meant seven of us in a small house usually occupied by one, with no additional food in the house). She decided to risk the trip home and got lucky with roads.  

The state of the roads precluded me getting into the city to shop for presents for Other Half, but even if this wasn't the case, the fuel leak I'd discovered on the car meant a call to AA (we were warned it could take up to 24 hrs for them to come) so I was stuck in house anyway, waiting for them. Hasty revision of plans to take mother-in-law to BRI for her op on Tuesday morning (which might be cancelled anyway, due to weather). In fact, the AA came within 90 mins of logging the call and a very, very nice man fixed the problem, but by then Other Half had gone into town on the bus and the kids were still not up to travelling. OH did his hunter-gatherer bit by buying M&S food for tea, and at least we had hospital transport again. 
 
Tuesday: Mother-in -law delivered to hospital and I went back to the house to pack the car, which involved carrying all luggage down 20 snow-covered steps from the house. MIL’s op fine, but our reserve plan to stay overnight to make sure she was fully OK scuppered by a weather forecast for heavy snow through Midlands on Wednesday. 
 
An indication of health of the kids - neither of them showed any desire to play in the snow all weekend. 
 
The journey home was fine, as there was little traffic on the road, but a drop in temperature froze the windscreen washer, so I was unable to clear screen properly. At one point the screen was nothing but an emulsion of salt and oil, making it virtually opaque (pretty scary), a bit like covering your windscreen with vinaigrette! Thank goodness for congestion at M5/M6 interchange (not often you can say that!) which enabled me to spray de-icer on the screen as a temporary measure until we could stop at Hilton Park. 

Once home, all I had to do was all the planned Christmas food shopping and an attempt at last-minute present buying with two poorly/bored kids in tow! Still at least I wasn't stuck at Heathrow bemoaning the fact that I couldn’t get to Bali! 

As ever, though, Christmas (just the four of us) came and went as normal, regardless of preparation or panic, and we’ll be doing much the same this year except for meeting up with family – Manchester and Bristol are both Tier 3 and my sister’s bit of Devon is Tier 2. That way, hopefully, we’ll all still be around to meet up next year. 
 

Dettol be the Day...

This morning the Campaign to Get the Serfs Back in the Workplace to Save Capitalism was bolstered by the appearance on the London Underground (and shortly thereafter on social media) of this piece of inanity from a well-known manufacturer of disinfectant:

I'd put good money on the people who created this not having worked in a typical office in some years. Or, like the "creatives" on the floor above us in one of my previous workplaces, have spent their time lounging on beanbags, playing ping-pong and setting the fire alarms off because they don't know how to use a toaster.

Let's take their points one by one...

Hearing an alarm  

Nope, haven't missed that. Having ditched the Today programme after more than 40 years, I wake up in a far better mood. And you know what? I'm never late for work - I now wake up naturally at the right time. 

Putting on a tie

Pah! Ties are a 19/20th century anachronism which should have been ditched years ago. If open necks and rolled-up shirt sleeves are good enough for the G8, they're good enough for an office in Slough. As with school uniform, they're all about petty control and damping down individuality.

Carrying a handbag

There you go again with your gender stereotypes. Hate handbags, always have done. Although my backpack's looking a little unloved of late, give me something practical.

Receptionists

Ours are lovely, but I don't go to work because of them...

Caffeine-filled air

Fine if you like the smell of coffee, I suppose... my partner, who dislikes the smell of coffee used to find his office unbearable at times. And does caffeine even have a small?

Taking a lift

The stairs at home are better for you.

Seeing your second family

Second family?! Who makes this s**t up? I mean, I like my colleagues but if you think of them in this way you probably need to seek help. Just because we used to see more of them than our own families due to Britain's long hours culture, doesn't mean they actually are family.

Watercooler conversations

We're in sitcom territory here, aren't we? I mean, do you know anyone in real life who stands around the big bottle of water chatting about last night's TV (especially now that we don't all watch the same few channels live). I'm usually a good 6 months-10 years behind the viewing public...

Proper bants

Anyone using "bants" should be fired immediately.

The boss's jokes

...can still be heard via Zoom, if that's your thing.

Plastic plants

Or a summer of home-grown potatoes, courgettes, raspberries, blackcurrants and apples...

Office gossip

Probably sour grapes as I'm the world's worst for picking up gossip, but not sure spreading rumours and sniggering about colleagues is really what we go to work for (unless you work at Labour HQ, I suppose).

Those weird carpets

Do you spend your day staring at the furnishings?! You need a better job.

Face to Face meetings

As we've discovered, in all but a few cases we don't need them. And as someone whose working life used to revolve around trying to arrange meetings for busy people, trying to get them all in the same place at one time, my (and their) lives have been made immeasurably easier through the use of virtual meetings. Of course without face to face meetings there's little justification for spending all that money on HS2 to cut 20 mins off journey times to London...

Not having to make lunch

Actually, mate, I now stop and have lunch (something I was very bad at in the office). Not an over-chilled, over-priced sandwich, either. Proper food instead of the bag of crisps I was likely to snaffle on the go. Better all round.

cc-ing, bcc-ing

These things can be done from any computer, anywhere in the world. Amazing, isn't it?

Accidentally Replying All

Ditto. But not recommended in any setting.

Hearing buzzwords

See "bants" above. Home working offers some level of protection from both.

Leaving early for a cheeky afternoon in the sun.

So much to unravel here - 

If you can leave early for no reason without it affect you or your colleagues, you probably don't have enough to do. Your boss needs to take a look at that.

A "cheeky" afternoon in the sun (in the UK. In September?) sounds like skiving to me.

Millions of us have been working flat out - from  home - since March. I probably have more additional hours built up than the PM has put in to COBRA meetings since the start of the pandemic. We didn't "leave early" for any reason, because there was a load of work to be done (that's what happens when you're in care sector). Making sense of the government guidance that changed overnight; trying to source enough PPE; making provision for keeping staff safe while still providing vital services; our teachers providing virtual lessons and pastoral care to our students. We haven't been at home doing nothing - we've been working as usual. Nothing changed but the location. So I'm getting a bit fed up with the presumption that we haven't been doing anything for 6 months. I mean, who's had the time to make sourdough? 

I love my work and I have brilliant colleagues, but home working has been really beneficial to my wellbeing. There is only one thing I really miss about being away from the office, and that can't be replicated at home - the wonderful young people from our training kitchen coming round with the trolley; they make the best scones and cakes!

Yes, there are people who need to get back to a workplace because of their home circumstances, and they should have priority. If we're going to reduce emissions, we need to cut down on commuting. Employers are seeing benefits, too, so HM Govt may find that the ship has already sailed. There are already reports of local independent retailers and food outlets experiencing increased activity in the suburban localities where people live - if the big sandwich chains don't want to fold, they need to invest in some bikes and go out and look for custom, just like Norman Tebbitt told us all to do in the 80s.The world of work has moved on.

To be honest, when I first saw this ad I assumed it was a passive-aggressive GOV.UK thing rather than an advert from a commercial company. I think that says quite a bit about the state of HM Govt these days. 

Here's an alternative view:

Having time for breakfast. Not having a commute that can take anything from 20-70 minutes for a 5 mile journey. Having a proper window with light and ventilation. Not falling asleep in your armchair at 9pm. The prospect of seeing daylight during the week in the winter months. Being able to make a "cheeky" trip to an appointment for a young person with a disability, knowing you can just make the time up later on. Keeping up to date with colleagues via online meetings (and getting to know them better than you did when you were at work with them all the time).

I've always preferred Savlon anyway.

There's a Camel in Our Cellar...

A few years back, one of my Christmas presents was Rhodri Marsden's A Very British Christmas, an affectionate tribute our national traditions and eccentricities regarding the festive season. My reactions ranged from "Oh, yes, I remember those..." to "They do WHAT??!!" and agree with his conclusion that there simply is no 'right' way to do Christmas, and part of its glory is that you can be as reverential, daft or indifferent to it as you see fit.

In our house, this includes continuing to hang up the decorations made of DAS modelling clay which I made when my partner and I were students and couldn't afford to buy decorations:

Or my late mother's 1930's cherubs, complete with the piece of cotton tied unceremoniously round one of their necks, the one with the tetanus-inducing wire hook on its wings and the one with no wings at all. These used to glow in the dark, which has spooked the odd guest who wasn't expecting it, but are now completely glow-less.

And then there was the falling-to-pieces rocking chair my sister gifted us as she didn't have the space for it, and about which we kept saying "We really should get rid of this" - except it was where Rudolph the stuffed reindeer spent his Christmas! Originally, he was placed over the back of the chair to stop our small children rocking it back into chimney block or - worse - the glass doors of a cabinet when it was moved to accommodate the tree, but it stayed there for many more years than was strictly necessary. Rudolph now resides happily on a shelf.

These are all 'traditions' which relate to our immediate family, and are changed as the kids grew up and were off doing their own thing. We don't 'go away for Christmas' (partly so as to minimise autism-related change/disruption) - our family get-together was always held a few weeks' earlier, when we de-camped to Bristol for the weekend to visit my mother in law, and where my family came up from Devon to meet for a meal. At one time there were 12 of us, but the passage of time reduced the number and since Paul's death in 2022, and his mother's a year later, we no longer do the trip and we're much more likely to have people come to us for Christmas.

There is one major component missing from the Christmases of my childhood, though. My mother was a dancing teacher and she and my dad ran an amateur theatre group in my home town. Despite having a Municipal Theatre (later re-named the Hazlitt, after one of Maidstone's few notable residents), the Borough Council didn't see fit to put on a pantomime, so mum and dad decided to fill the gap. Mum always said her pupils had little outlet for their dancing other than "interminable dancing displays" and that it would be good for them to get some actual theatre experience, and for their parents to see the results of the lessons they were paying for.

Between 1966 and 1976, we provided the town with its panto - mum's rule that only pupils aged six and over could take part meant that I missed out on being in the inaugural production of Cinderella (I was 5) although I did sit in the audience with my granny, fuming that I wasn't allowed on stage, especially as I knew all the dances. From the next year (Aladdin) until I left Maidstone, I was in every production, initially as one of the dancers, then taking on small parts and eventually principal boy (Aladdin, Dandini) or - much more fun - comedy sidekick.

From September every year, when rehearsals started, the house turned into Panto Central. I told my first proper boyfriend "This is what I do every year. You don't have to get involved but..." and bless him, he subjected himself to several years of dancing, singing and tights on my behalf. We lived 'above the shop' - dance studio downstairs, flat above) so scripts  were churned out on the dining table on an old Gestetner machine:

The living room  was festooned with costumes, the sewing machine had to be moved in order for me to do my homework, scenery-painting took place in the cellar (there's a whole other story connected to that - see "A broken mug"), it completely dominated our Autumn and Winter. On Christmas Eve, the panic would set in and mum would rush round un-hanging the costumes from the living room picture rails and hanging them up somewhere else for the duration; the ironing board would be stowed away and the living room would again become a normal family space for two and a bit days.

My special Christmas job was emptying the ashtrays, in advance of the Christmas Eve open house my parents held for friends and family. Mum baked industrial quantities of mince pies and chicken patties (I was never sure what these were - the filling suggested some kind of poultry-based, short crust vol au vent) and a punch which I've never managed to recreate - cider, brandy and a cinnamon stick thrown at it. Mum also used to make her own Christmas puddings which - every year - dad would assess as "Lovely, Fred, but not quite as good as last year's." Her reputation for them grew and at one stage she was producing about 6 puddings for friends and neighbours as well as ours. She never quite got out of the habit of mass-production, though, and was still producing extra puddings and tons of mince pies even when it was just the two of them. The mincemeat recipe - dad's thing, nicked from Mrs Beeton - was passed down to me. It was only when I was discussing mum's newly-diagnosed diabetes 20 years later and mentioned the mincemeat having no added sugar that we realised dad had missed the sugar off when typing out the recipe (I still make it without).

Christmas pudding, 1972 (the year I got a Kodak Instamatic). Not quite sure what that drink is in my sister's hand...

Anyway, back to panto. Once Boxing Day was over, the costumes reappeared, and we prepared to move into the theatre. As my birthday falls between Christmas and New Year, my birthday tea was very often held on trestle tables onstage, between the matinee and evening performances. In a pre-Whacky Warehouse/stretch limo era, this was pretty damned cool. And we all got to wear fancy dress (there wasn't time to change...).

When the council finally cottoned on that they might be able to make money out of a professional pantomime, we found ourselves without a gig so mum and dad simply re-designed the existing productions and took the show on the road, visiting residential homes and village halls, taking panto to the masses (or at least those sections of the masses for whom getting in to the rival panto at the Hazlitt was a bus-ride away). 

After a few years, we realised that those people who'd taken the kids to the panto in December were ready to submit themselves to another round of it in January (when, let's face it, there's not much else to do), so we returned to the Hazllitt after the pro show had finished. Mum and dad continued to put on shows until their retirement, at which point the costumes were given away to other local groups and they moved to Devon.... where they proceeded to join a choir and carried on doing performances well into their 80s, when they finally decided to call it a day.

And as for the camel? That was me aged about five. Like all good amateur drama groups, we had a pantomime cow (stage name: Christabelle) and a camel whose name was Phyllis. One day the gas man came to read the meter and I announced "There's a camel in our cellar." "Yes, dear" he said indulgently, only to emerge from the cellar having read the meter and said to mum "She's right, there is a camel in your cellar." Grown-ups, eh? They don't believe a word you say.

It was an odd childhood....