Something from my childhood…………

The lady who loved herself

Children have such a vivid imagination and can dream up things and make believe that they are true. They can also be very cruel in their treatment of others and in the observations that they make about them. To a child, often black is black and white is white. There is no in between sometimes. Everything has to conform and anything, even slightly different is quickly spotted and therefore open to ridicule. We would dismiss this as normal human behaviour because I suppose we have all been guilty of acting this way when we were young. Most children will grow up to be sensible adults, making educated assessments of most things and situations. As adults they will have developed the ability to not only see black and white but all the in between shades of grey too. They will realise, with the advantage of experience, that things cannot always be taken at face value because often there is a reason for things not appearing as perhaps they think they should. Of course even adults can be unaccepting of many things that they consider out of the ordinary or not conforming to accepted standards, standards imposed by society. It is the demonstation of rejection and discrimination which is intimidating to the recipient and can lead to unfortunate situations. Homophobia is a form of this kind of behaviour.

As young children, my brother, sisters and I would often kneel on chairs and look out of the window overlooking the main street in front of our little house. Our youngest brother had not been born at that time. It was just the four of us. We would spend hours gazing out into the street which was quite busy at times as it was one of the main arterial roads out of the city centre less than a mile away. We would see the old tram cars, buses, lorries and a few private cars too. Many people walked back and forth in front of our window on regular trips in and out of town. We got to know a few of them by sight. On Sunday mornings we would see two women walking past. First down the street, presumably into town and later again up the hill past our window, presumably returning home. Both ladies, I will call them ladies because of the way they were dressed, always immaculate and well groomed in the fashionable clothes of the day. So it seemed to us anyhow but they did stand out from the majority of the women we ever saw. One lady appeared to be much older and smaller in height than her companion who I guess must have been around thirty years of age. It was the younger of the two who I remember most vividly. She was usually dressed in a brown tailored skirt suit, trousers for women were not fashionable in those days, high heeled shoes, carrying a matching brown bag and wearing a wide brimmed hat sometimes with a feather in it. The hat also had an open mesh veil which covered her face. I will always remember her face. It was as smooth as porcelain but heavily covered in make-up and she had bright red lipstick on her full lips. She wore pearl earrings and a pearl necklace was draped around her neck. She often had a fox fur stole around her shoulders which many women still wore occasionally. She always looked immaculate, a perfect model, a perfect woman. I secretly loved seeing her and wondered if I would ever be able to wear clothes like hers and full make-up. I must have been about eight years old, maybe a bit younger when I first saw her. She walked arm in arm with her older companion who we thought of as her mother and we never did see them apart. We felt as children that because this lady was always so well groomed and elegantly dressed she must have thought herself very important and was trying to say to all who saw her, ‘Look at me, I am so beautiful and lovely’. Well, that is the impression she gave to us as young children and I for one really did think she was worthy of the claim. It was because we felt she thought herself as lovely that we beagan to call her ‘The Lady who loves herself’, amongst ourselves that is. If one of us happened to see her whilst we were looking out of that window we would shout to the others, ‘Come quickly, here’s the lady who loves herself’ and we would all rush to the window to see her. She never once glanced in our direction but always looked straight ahead.

It was a few years later and I would be about fifteen or sixteen years old when ‘the lady who loves herself’ was the subject of a conversation. I remember reminiscing about the past with my mum when she told me the truth about those women. It appeared that the older of the two was the mother of the younger lady and that this lady was in fact a man! I had a feeling of excitement when mum told me that because it demonstrated that I could do the same. I could dress as a woman and be passable. Really though, I wanted more than that. I have to admit my disbelief at what mum had told me but she was insistant so I said no more on the subject and ‘the lady who loved herslf’ was never mentioned again.

As children we made fun of that lady but we had no idea of the facts and perhaps that was just as well because things could have been worse. That is how children are, they don’t reason that they are hurting someone’s feelings, it is all just fun to them. Most adults would find the subject intriguing and would express their feelings in closeted conversation but some would be openly disapproving. It is difficult being the exception in the normal scheme of things. I felt this way for many years and it was often reflected even if covertly sometimes in my habits and attitude to things in my life. Am I now ‘the woman who loves herself’? In a way I am. I am happy in myself now more than I have ever been.

Shirley Anne