Today’s Thursday throwback features me and my beloved little sports car, taken about 10 years ago. The story behind the MX-5 goes back to when I was 21 years old and receiving 20 fractions of radiotherapy for my first lot of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. At the beginning of my treatment, I had been feeling lousy. I remember halfway through my 20 fractions, lying on the table with the machine rotating around me and zapping me with invisible rays, and thinking that when I finally got better, or even cured, from all of this, I would buy a wee sports car to celebrate.
Well, although the radiotherapy worked initially, my Hodgkin’s Lymphoma recurred again four years later. However, I still maintained, during my chemo, that I would buy a wee sports car if or when I was finally cured. It was like a little pipe-dream to hold onto. A carrot in front of a bunny. A motivation to keep going. I would live a fun life when all of this was over, and not take things for granted any more.
In 2007, ten years after I finished my chemo, I was discharged from the hospital’s haematology department as I was cured from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. And I got my little car. He was old (an old W reg) but he was my pride and joy. I washed him every week, and went out for spins in him every day. I even got a personalised number plate to claim outright ownership of him, in my mind. I used to love driving home from nursing shifts in the summer, along the country roads which connected the hospital to my home, with the roof down. We had such fun, my little Zoomzoom and me. Sadly, in 2015, we had to sell him as he was getting too expensive to maintain, but somebody else subsequently bought him and looked after him. I’m glad he didn’t get sold for scrap.
I miss that wee car, but am so happy that in the years I had him, I was able to fulfil the dream I’d had 15 years before. Will there be another Zoomzoom to celebrate being cured of breast cancer? Time will tell…..
Me and my Zoomzoom by St Mary’s Loch, Scottish Borders.
Today, I thought I would start a series of blogs about my travels. Not that I have done much, as I am a home bird and we tend to take family holidays down in my English home county (Suffolk, where my Dad is from, and where I spent every summer until I was 18). Additionally, when I was in my 20s, I was receiving cancer treatment over several summers which made getting away very tricky. And when the kids came along, we had other things to spend money on than trips abroad. As a result, compared to most people, my travels have been minimal – I’ve been to Spain, Andorra, Greece twice, toured round Ireland with a friend, been to New England, USA, on honeymoon, Shetland, and France several times – mostly Paris, but also down the west coast (La Rochelle, Biarritz, the Pyranees). And that’s it, other than holidays in mainland Scotland or England (namely, Suffolk and London). But, I’m not one for holidays abroad – does that make me weird? I hate flying and I get seasick ever so easily. I need to be able to get to places by car if I’m going to be really happy. Flying renders me deaf for at least a week after I arrive at where I have flown to and my ankles swell up like balloons. Add onto that my fear of heights, and I’m like Mr T on ‘The A Team’ – knock me out before going on an aeroplane. By the time I am normal me, it’s time to fly home!
I also cannot stand beach holidays; sitting/lying/sozzling on a beach doing nothing except getting bad sunburn, along with scores of other semi-naked people doing the same, really does not appeal to me. When I go somewhere, I like to explore. So, this series of blogs will contain photos and memories from some of the places I have been in my lifetime, so far. Some of the photos are old – hence the poor camera quality. Old disposable cameras really don’t match up to phone cameras these days!
This week, I’ll post my memories of Greece and New England/Vermont/Boston, USA. Both are from the late 80s and the 90s so please bear with me. I don’t go so far away very often. I’m Mrs UK-holidays-R’Us.
Greece
I’ve been to Athens (with a class Classics holiday when I was at school). Loved that place – so much to visit and do there. Man, it was hot though! This is the famous Parthenon on the Acropolis. It’s an old photo – my school trip was in the summer of 1988. We visited a lot of museums and monuments on this ‘trip’ (which was more akin to a holiday really, and which was really great fun. The teachers who had taken us made sure the educational value was there, but there was a bit of splashing about in the sea fun as well!).
We also visited Delphi, Epidavros, and Corinth. The latter I found really interesting, thinking of Paul having been there and his letters to the Corinthians in the Bible. Some photos from these places, as well as two from the island of Aegina, are below:
Greece. Clockwise from top left: Delphi – Temple of Apollo, Aegina – Aegina harbour – Corinth – Corinth Canal – The Lion Gate at Epidavros (you have to peer, but you may be able to make out the two headless lions above that entrance).
Following Greece, and its heat, the next lengthy holiday I went on was a tour around the whole of Ireland with a friend. A lot, lot cooler thankfully! Again, I will post these photos in another blog when I find them, but I do remember absolutely loving Dublin. I would go back there in a heartbeat. We also saw some dolphins off the Dingle peninsula, which was something special. That’s for another blog though.
East coast USA
We went touring Massachusetts, New England, and Vermont, USA, for our honeymoon in 1997. I’d always wanted to go to the US, but I absolutely HATE flying. However, the five hour flight was worth it. (The least said about the flight out, the better!).
Clockwise from top left: Flume Gorge, New Hampshire – Fall foliage in Stowe, Vermont – Boston, Mass – Boston Public Park – the ‘Cheers’ bar, Boston – a random town in Vermont that I thought looked cool to photograph.
We went to the top of the Prudential tower – behind me in the photo (a Skywalk, 50 floors up) and there were some amazing views from the top. (Again, excuse the photo quality – old camera!). I so want to go back to Boston one day. I wonder if it has changed very much….
What was really cool was that when we arrived in New Hampshire, the area we were staying in were having a ‘Scottish week’ (can’t get away from the place!). They had bagpipes playing over the hotel muzak system (a little cringy but hey, they were getting into the spirit!), and were putting on special Scottish menus on the local diner train. Well, what the heck, we thought – it’s nice having a bit of home around us while we are so far away from it – and we booked a meal on the diner train (named the Edinburgh Express for the week, see – we couldn’t get away from the place!). This was the menu; thankfully there were also a few vegetarian options for the likes of me! The staff were fair chuffed to find out that we were actually from Scotland, and then we got bombarded by questions by the other guests to ask if we knew their Auntie Maud/ Uncle Tom / cousin / school friend who moved to Scotland a while ago…….. and how lovely our accents were……and does Nessie exist……. and how much they have wanted to travel to England to visit Edinborrow Castle (the latter a lot! We had to keep explaining that Scotland is a different country to England!).
I do love what I have seen of the US, though. Admittedly, it isn’t much – three states – but I just loved how friendly the people were (despite them constantly asking if we knew friends or relatives of theirs!) and how BIG everything is. The cars, the roads, the Dunkin’ Donut shops, the food, e-v-e-rything! New England/Vermont is like Scotland/The Lake District on steroids! Would love to go back again and visit places we didn’t have time to go to; we didn’t get to visit Harvard, nor any of the other scenic places that we could have stopped off at as we travelled through the White Mountains to Killington and then back to Boston. Also on my Bucket List is to visit Monument Valley in Arizona, and Texas (I do love books set in the Wild West; I enjoyed Larry McMurty’s Lonesome Dove and have two more of his wild west novels lined up to read soon). Indeed, a university in Texas has some Anthony Powell documents that I would like to see…..hmm, I’ll have to save up for that, I think.
Next travel blog, I will post memories of Shetland, and some of France.
I really haven’t been far, have I? I need to sort that out.
Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright, Both current and ripple are dancing in light. We have roused the night raven, I heard him croak As we plashed along beneath the oak That flings its broad branches so far and so wide, Their shadows are dancing in the midst of the tide. ‘Who wakens my nestlings,’ the raven he said, ‘My beak shall ere morn in his blood be red, For a blue-swollen corpse is a dainty meal, And I’ll have my share with the pike and the eel.’
II. Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright, There’s a golden gleam on the distant height; There’s a silver shadow on the alders dank, And the drooping willows that wave on the bank. I see the Abbey, both turret and tower, It is all astir for the vesper hour; The monks for the chapel are leaving each cell, But where’s Father Philip, should toll the bell?
III. Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright, Downward we drift through shadow and light. Under yon rock the eddies sleep, Calm and silent, dark and deep. The Kelpy has risen from the fathomless pool, He hath lighted his candle of death and of dool: Look, Father, look, and you’ll laugh to see How he gapes and he glares with his eyes on thee!
IV. Good luck to your fishing, whom watch ye to night? A man of mean or a man of might? Is it layman or priest that must float in your cove, Or lover who crosses to visit his love? Hark! heard ye the Kelpy reply as we passed, ‘God’s blessing on the warder, he lock’d the bridge fast! All that come to my cove are sunk, Priest or layman, lover or monk.’ … Landed landed! the black book hath won, Else had you seen Berwick with morning sun! Sain ye, and save ye, and blithe mot ye be, For seldom they land that go swimming with me.
Abbotsford House, Melrose. Sir Walter Scott’s home and the location of his death. This is one of my most favourite places to visit. (My own photograph).
I have always loved learning things, and in particular, I have always loved reading. My parents used to tell me that ever since I could walk, I wouldn’t be seen anywhere without a book under each arm. By the time I was five, I was in the top reading group at school, reading well above my age level, and by the time I finished primary school, I was top in English, grammar, science, and maths and was (informal) Dux of my primary school (my teacher and headteacher told both me and my parents this, but actually she decided to formally award Dux to another girl in my class – who cheated at maths – because my class teacher didn’t like my handwriting! I am still bitter about it to this day, especially when people always compliment me on my handwriting…. Oddly enough, this was repeated later on with my Master’s degree – I was marked by two markers as having passed with Distinction, but then unexplainedly demoted by a third marker to a Merit despite my work having been graded ‘Excellent’ all down my marking sheet. Yeah, cheers for that. I wasn’t even allowed to appeal. Huh. Apparently, there were ‘too many’ Distinctions that year so mine went down a league. Even now I can’t look at my Master’s certificate without feeling cheated. However, ‘we move’ – as the youngsters these days say. I’m just so happy I got my Master’s, especially not having done a full English undergraduate degree).
I knew when I started senior school that I wanted to study English at Uni when I finished school. It was always my strongest subject, closely followed by Biology. I wanted to spend my life researching books and writing about books, and lecturing people about books. I applied to Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities for their English Language and Literature degrees (as they were in those days) and got accepted by Glasgow but rejected by Edinburgh (which, incidentally, was my dream university). However, to cut a long story short, I eventually turned down my place at Glasgow; they had a scarcity of accommodation, and I would have needed to have commuted in every day from Edinburgh which really wasn’t feasible and would be expensive financially and time-wise. As it was too late by then to apply for a space on another course that year, I spent my Gap Year as a nursing assistant in a psychogeriatric ward in order to earn some money and ‘experience’ the world a bit. I ended up loving this so much that I decided to ditch applying again for English, and instead applied for a nursing degree at the university which was literally seven minutes’ walk from my home.
Me in my ‘last life’ as a nurse.
Fast forward sixteen years, and I had to medically retire from nursing due to my third cancer diagnosis. I loved my job – particularly in critical care – but there was no way I could continue. The long hours (usually working long shifts on days off too to cover for absent colleagues), minimal sleep between shifts, and the general low morale and excessive stress of the job took their collective toll on me. So, I had to think about what to do with my life. I was 41 years old – in my view, most people had their lives sorted by now, and here was me about to start from the bottom again. As my cancer treatment was lengthy and debilitating, one evening I made the bold move of enrolling on an undergraduate Open University English module (in the days you could just randomly apply to do any module you liked whether you were working for a degree or not). I was going to do this English study that I so desired when I was a teenager. I’ve written blogs on my Open Uni journey so won’t repeat myself suffice to say that I absolutely loved my studies so much that I enrolled on and completed a Master’s in English, also through the Open Uni. I have since been studying for my PhD at Edinburgh Uni (my dream university) where I am a-l-m-o-s-t finished writing my thesis. I have the best supervisor in the world and I am loving every minute of researching for my degree – well, mostly loving every minute. Let’s not gloss over the fact that it’s tough and there are days when impostor syndrome kicks in, self-doubt, and just general fed up-ness with my never-ending thesis.
Only some of my PhD research tools!
I embarked on my part-time PhD when I was in my mid-40s, a time when my kids were all grown up and at Uni or finishing school and were increasingly independent. At the time, my parents were both well as was my mother-in-law, and circumstances seemed to continue as they had been throughout my Open Uni study. I had a wee office to hide away in every day at home (which I preferred to the open plan, distracting PhD office at the uni) – first year was a breeze. It was different though. I was the dinosaur of my cohort. It’s something I didn’t feel with online study as most people were about my age plus, learning remotely, you only really interact through formal forums or through dedicated Facebook groups. But I really noticed it on campus. The youngsters (all in their 20s) were all wanting to meet up to go out in the evenings, when I just wanted to go home, put my PJs on and just read with a hot chocolate. They’d all talk about their favourite music bands, and I’m thinking that I still remember the original version of the cover song they are talking about. Don’t get me wrong, they were (and are) a lovely bunch and never let me feel excluded, but when you feel that inside you are their age, but you’re actually not, it can be a little odd. I have to admit to feeling envious of those youngsters though and the fact that they were studying for their PhDs whilst they were in their 20s – they have a whole life ahead of them to follow their dreams, while I’m likely to be way too old by the time I finish mine to follow my own.
Powell’s ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’ series – I am writing my thesis on these wonderful books.
I presented my first conference at Oxford Uni in the late summer of 2018, and then – at the start of second year – everything seemed to go downhill. My Mum was misdiagnosed by her GP as having ‘swine flu’ but which, several months and a private CT scan later, turned out to be advanced metastatic breast cancer. Then my mother-in-law kept falling/fitting and going into hospital at six-weekly intervals. On top of this, my daughter was having a tough time with her mental health and, as a result of all of these, my PhD study took a major hit. I had to be daughter, daughter-in-law, and mother to these three women – there was no way I could focus on my studies. Any time I could focus, it was well into the evening – after tutoring my school students – when I was physically exhausted. So, on the advice of my supervisor, I took an interruption from my PhD study for 8 months. Being able to do take that break in order to be the supportive family member that I needed to be, was so great; by the time I returned to my studies just before Christmas 2020, things had calmed down – Mum’s cancer was being controlled well, mother-in-law had had her medication updated, and my daughter was at Uni (albeit under COVID lockdown). I felt mentally and emotionally ready to get going on my research again and so I set to on my second thesis chapter.
I had almost finished this when I needed to take another break a year later. Mother-in-law had fallen ill again on Boxing Day (from which she ultimately passed away two weeks later) and it was becoming more evident that Mum wasn’t going to be around much longer. The previous July we had received the news that her cancer had spread to her liver; by the December she was a skeleton of a lady and was really not well. So, I took another six months off so that I could spend Mum’s remaining weeks with her. She passed away at the end of February 2022. I was all for giving up my PhD then – I thought my supervisor would be frustrated with me, and fed up that I was still about, writing this magnum opus. I had had no focus for months and Mum’s passing hit me hard – reading anything was too much let alone books by my beloved Anthony Powell. I also thought of my full-time cohort, many of whom had already graduated while I am still stuck with only two out of three chapters written and no appetite to get back to it. But on the last day she had the ability to speak, Mum made me promise to see my studies through. She knew this was my dream degree, and she said she didn’t want her not being about to stop me finishing what I had started. So, I did promise her I would see it through – and I am, albeit at a pace akin to a snail as we now prepare our house for selling.
Me finally meeting the woman whose encyclopaedia of Powell’s ‘Dance’ novels is making writing my thesis so much easier – Hilary Spurling. She was the only author with whom Anthony Powell entrusted the writing of his biography.
Taking breaks during such big projects is absolutely OK. Researching for a PhD is a lonely business – unlike a school or undergraduate/Master’s university class where you have course-mates studying the same things as you. Add on top of this family issues, personal health issues, or anything else, then your standard of work is going to suffer. When I started my studies, I was determined I would finish in four years. A super-fast part-timer. But, life threw the kitchen sink (and the toolbox) at me and here I am, about to start year six, still plodding on. I’ll get there. I’ll do it. But I want to be well in the process. I presented my second paper at a conference last summer and got such encouraging feedback from it, that I remembered just why I am doing this research in the first place. Although I have had to take time out, twice, I would rather submit a thesis that I loved doing and is my very best work rather than plough onwards and feel that I resented doing it every minute. I’ve invested time, money, and energy into this – I’m going to make it count even if it takes me that little bit longer.
These are only some factors which make my PhD very important to me. Besides these, I love researching the author Anthony Powell (who, annoyingly, very few people have heard of) and finding brand new links that have not been connected before. I argue that he is just as effective a commentator of London society in the 1920s – 1970s as Charles Dickens was in the previous century. I have ambitions to teach a Powell course at the university – whether that be an evening class or by another means – and I have a post-doctoral research area all ready (if I am offered a place to study for this when I finish my PhD). My love of learning and reading that was part of my identity as a toddler still remains to this day.
This level of study does mean a lot of sacrifices – I am self-funding and so I have to pay the yearly fees, but my tutoring helps cover these. It means sacrificing some aspects of my free time or social life, but it is worth it. I am aiming to finish early 2024 – family health permitting. I want my almost 90-year old Dad to come to my graduation. I want to realise my teenage dream. The importance of my PhD to me is also because I’m not just doing it for me, or my late Mum, or indeed my family. I am also doing it for my supervisor (whose knowledge is inspiring), my friends at the Anthony Powell Society, (who have been so encouraging and informative), for my recently retired second supervisor, (who gave me such valuable feedback during the first two years of my studies), and also for Anthony Powell himself. Although he is no longer alive, I hope that my thesis will raise his profile a bit in the literary world so that more people can see for themselves the genius behind his writing.
June's Jottings 