Alas poor Yorick...

Back in April/May, my brother, sister, sister-in-law and I began planning a birthday party for our Dad whose 80^th birthday was coming up. We considered, contemplated and then…

On the invitations we told guests of our plans to make our parents a rose garden. We contacted David Austin Roses to ask if they would do us a gift list for Dad’s birthday and we decided it would be on a theme. We chose Shakespeare as our theme because Mum and Dad are a bit obsessed with him and his plays. (Every year, for as long as I can remember, my parents have holidayed in Stratford Upon Avon, watching all the current RSC productions. My mum is a drama teacher, local director and my Dad has acted in several plays.) David Austin obliged with the ‘list’ idea and we chose roses like Noble Anthony, Cordelia, Othello, Wise Portia, Falstaff and even William Shakespeare for guests to purchase if they wished.

A local woman was engaged to do the catering as our numbers were looking alarming. Instead of doing a birthday cake, my sister asked her to make cup cakes (these are all the rage, dahling.) These were the cup cakes that arrived on the day:

Of course the Toby one, I mean Yorick, was my favourite.

In the interest of balanced reporting...

Husband has always read my blog. After yesterday's post - which you should probably read before this one if you haven't already - he sent me by email his own brain dump of Poole memories. He has given me permission to reproduce it here.

"Just checked your blog and I wanted to comment, saying all the special memories I have of Poole, of you bringing two wonderful babies into the world, walks along the promenade, strolling up the high street most weekends, trips to the private beach (Studland) just over from Sandbanks, our little workshops on the top floor of the house, your Amstrad, my lathe, the pew we bought at an auction, where I learned what a galley kitchen was, trying to park in our own street and using the cones to reserve a spot, having a "real" fire but in a kind of little iron house, gym membership at Racquets where we ate bigger lunches than the workout in the gym removed, ruining our new mattress by leaving it in the bedroom when they repaced the ceiling, M and T (friends), late night shopping at the garage only to re-meet the Katie as a nanny at Racquets a year later, Wimborne, our first Christmases as a family and leaving the turkey to defrost in the oven until it went off, Mothercare (we should have bought shares), planting vegetables in the second, walled garden out through the back of the shed. The poor bloke next door slowly losing himself to Alzheimer's, more basil and tomatoes than we knew what to do with. You telling me you were pregnant in the same rear garden, propping Son up for photos because he couldn't sit up yet, on that little green iron garden table set we bought in B&Q, Daughter's frogs legs as she slept. Pepper (the dog) on the beach in winter, the leaking roof, cosmetics to go, the playground in Poole park, the noise of the speedway track one evening a week, your little car crash on Ashley Road, Corfe Castle. Our first real family home with the red door and lots of stairs. "

And that, reader, is why I married him.

Becoming grown ups

Last week, on our driving trip west, I took the kids to Poole in Dorset. We had our children during the five or so years Husband and I lived there.

Son was nearly four when we moved from there and his memories extend only to our having a red front door. Last week we drove past number forty three and now the door is green; a sludgy, dull, army shade.

I have odd memories of Poole. Although we were married by then, it is where we made the transition into proper grown ups. We moved to Dorset from our university town, Hull, for Husband's second post-doctoral job.

We sold our two up two down (to a friend) and set off south. It felt a bit like coming home. We bought a three storey Edwardian town house - "big enough to sprog in" my sister said. We both went to work and then, after nearly two years in Poole, I got pregnant.

I struggled with postnatal depression through the following period. My brain has rewritten some of my memories during this phase: emotionally I don't remember it as a dark time but intellectually I know it was one of the toughest times of my life so far.

I showed the children around, remembering stories and people. It felt very strange, as though I was experiencing a vague sense of deja vu over and over again. We had fish and chips on Poole Quay, ice cream and then we went to Poole Pottery.

That was enough. I didn't know if I wanted to remember any more.

Data dump

In the last five days have driven through:

• Kent
• Surrey
• Hampshire
• Wiltshire
• Somerset
• Wiltshire
• Dorset
• Wiltshire
• Hampshire
• Surrey
• Middlesex
• Greater London
• Buckinghamshire
• Oxfordshire
• Buckinghamshire
• Oxfordshire
• Buckinghamshire
• Middlesex
• Surrey
• Kent

We covered: 620 miles mainly on the M20, M26, M25, M3, A303, and M40.

We got lost: Three times because I thought I knew better than my sister’s sat nav. Let’s be honest, Sat Nav, when it comes to the route to Shepton Mallet, I really did know better… (turn right on to A344 at Stonehenge, drive through Chitterne.) I do, however, accept that you would’ve found your way two miles to the M40 from Bicester instead of going all the way to Aylesbury on the A41 as I did.

I narrowly avoided hitting: a deer between Dorchester and Warminster at 9.30pm and a very large coach doing something silly outside my children’s old primary school in Buckinghamshire at 3.30pm.

My favourite bit of motorway: was on the M40 between High Wycombe and Bicester, where I saw about 15 red kites in two days.

My favourite scenery: was looking over North Dorset while driving past Compton Abbas airfield from Shaftesbury, not on the A350 but from the B3081. Completely stunning: I wondered if I will go back to Bangkok.

Back soon

I’m off traipsing around the country but I’ll be back here at the weekend…

See you soon.

And then...

Next, Toby the skeleton went to medical school with my Dad.

Dad had been a year ahead at school which meant that when he finished his Higher School Certificate (as it was) he was too young for National Service. He went off to medical school (and did his National Service as a newly qualified doctor.)

Dad had been set to follow Bing to the Middlesex, but the then government had promised all soldiers returning from WW2 priority over university places. So Dad took Toby, who had a full set of teeth in those days, to Charing Cross medical school in 1948, the same year as the NHS was born.

In the early 70s, Toby’s box was brought out again as my brother took him back to Charing Cross medical school.

During the 80s I took Toby to school to draw him; he modelled for my A Level in art (he kept wonderfully still). I took him into my children’s primary school and finally in the late 90s, I took Toby to Art College where I used him in the metal workshop to learn how the equipment was used.

In between times, Toby has lived in my father’s study. He sits, separate from the rest of his bones, on Dad's desk. Whatever the provenance of this chap, however his skeleton came to be sold, since he’s lived in our family, he’s been shown only the greatest respect.

Introducing...

I’m continuing the medical theme here today.

This is Toby.

Toby was a male of about 17 or 18 and family history reports that he was probably from Russia or France. Of course there are no guarantees that the whole skeleton belonged to one person but the long bones and the sutures in the skull inform us of his approximate age. The pelvis identifies his gender. All medical students are required a half skeleton though now they are man made and not real ones.

Toby is almost a member of our family. He was purchased as half a skeleton from Adam, Rouilly in the early 1930s for the start of Cousin Bing’s medical degree at the Middlesex Hospital. Albert Vivian (“Bing”) Stevens (he could sing like his namesake) is from my Welsh family. He qualified in 1939, joined up and went straight to France in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Cousin Bing was awarded the Military Cross for a string of acts of bravery recorded in Dunkirk. It was only after he died that we discovered he had also been awarded an OBE for work to alleviate disease during the Bengal famine. He never spoke about it.

After Bing died in 1997, the Imperial War Museum contacted his widow, Margaret, to ask if they might be able to have the personal papers relating to the time in Calcutta.

Next, Toby the skeleton went…