Friday 17 April 2015

Lancaster bomber

Lancaster bomber

Although aviation has never been a passion of mine, I have always wanted to see a Lancaster bomber. And not just because of the history and the role it played in WWll, but because I share the name with this iconic aircraft.
Coincidentally my stepson DeeQ wants to be a pilot, so a trip to the Imperial War Museum was in order. We signed up for a lecture about the Lancaster and I thought I’d be bored within seconds. But it turned out to be the most interesting half an hour I’ve ever spent in a museum.
The war demanded reliable and capable aircraft. The designers came up with Avro Manchester which was a medium plane with a twin engine, it was underpowered and prone to breakdown. Only 200 Manchesters were built and were quickly withdrawn from service in 1942.
Having learnt from the mistakes of Avro Manchester, the designers went back to their drawing boards. What they came up with was the plane that made history – the Lancaster. It had four engines and could carry more bombs on board. Originally designed as a night bomber, the Lancaster excelled in many other roles, including daylight precision bombing. In fact, it was one of the few war planes that was ‘right’ from the start.
Later that week I was tiding up my flat and putting my belongings into boxes, ready for the move. I dived under my bed to retrieve more shoe boxes when I saw it, squashed between a box of board games and pair of black strappy wedges, the disk with my wedding photos.
It was the first time I saw it since the divorce. Just like the event it represented, it was covered in dust – like an ancient relic. Unsure what to do I simply froze there, afraid to even touch it. For a split second I even considered binning it. But quickly decided against it – you don’t bin history books, they only are the chronicles of what happened.
I knew I didn’t have a choice but to face my past so I inserted the disk into my laptop. The event, that was supposed to be the happiest in my life, moved in front of me in a steady slide show.
It made me smile. There were photos of my family and friends and it made me miss them; the photos of the dress and I remembered how much I loved designing it, agonising over the flower detail. The snapshots of a happy bride – so young and so full of hopes, I could hardly remember her.
As my gaze drifted to my ex I felt nothing. No hate, no love, no regret – no emotions whatsoever. He was simply a handsome guy I used to know. My brain has simply archived him and our five years of marriage.
Surprised by my own reaction I returned to packing. And I was putting my belongings into boxes I couldn’t help but wonder, how can five years simply vanish from a memory? How can a person I loved so much could be so easily forgotten? How can he prompt no emotion?
I went to the kitchen on autopilot and turned on my coffee machine. As I was reaching for a coffee pod I saw a fridge magnet I got from the Imperial War Museum to remind me of the trip. It was one of a Lancaster bomber.
And it hit me – yes, I was married to a Lancaster but he wasn’t ‘right’ for me. In fact, he was my Manchester. He existed in history (no denying that) but he never made any impact. And just like the Manchester was withdrawn from the service, our marriage was dissolved.
There are many Manchesters that pass through our lives. They are there for a reason, for a certain amount of time, but as years go by we hardly remember them.






Saturday 11 April 2015

Family traditions

Family traditions


I woke up at the crack of dawn on Easter morning. Mr Chateauneuf and the boys were still asleep so I crept downstairs for a cup of tea.
With a steaming cup in front of me, I sat in the conservatory watching the sun trying to break through the thick cloud and enjoying the tranquillity of the morning. As I gazed across the garden, something about it jogged a memory…
Easter was always a big deal when I was growing up. Not just because dad was a church leader and Sunday church attendance was compulsory; but because of all the happy memories mum created for us in her kitchen.
She would start with baking a few days before Easter. It was always traditional Eastern European Paska, (from Hebrew pésakh passover), which are a brioche base loaves usually baked in a round tin.
Because back in those days we didn’t have proper baking tins, we would save up any metal tins we opened (anything from tinned fish to jams) – the wider variety of vessels the better. That meant different bread sizes and so much more fun.
Once Paska were baked mum would ice them. To this day I have no idea how she made it, but it was the most delicious icing ever – running down the sides of each Paska and topped with hundreds and thousands. We couldn’t wait to eat them.
Colouring eggs is where my brothers and I were heavily involved. Mum used the traditional onion skin method and our job was to find as many interesting leaves as we could in the garden. It didn’t matter what plant they came from, as long as they had an unusual shape and were small enough to fit on an egg.
She would press a leaf against a raw egg and then wrap it into a piece of old tights, holding the leaf in place. Once they all were wrapped, she would gently place them into a dark looking, bubbling mixture (it was onion peel that had been boiled for a while which gave the liquid a dark colour) to cook the eggs.
Once they were ready, fished out and cooled down we were allowed to help mum unwrap them. The leaves left a perfect imprint on the egg preserving the original colour of the shell, while the rest of it was stained the colour of the onion mixture. It was such a joy to find the shapes of the leaves we had found decorating our plain eggs...
I don’t know how long I sat there staring into the garden but my tea had gone cold. In the haze of nostalgia I considered colouring eggs with the boys but decided against it, in fear of staining Mr Chateauneuf’s pans.
As I looked at the mountain of chocolate Easter eggs on the kitchen worktop we bought for the boys, I couldn’t help but wonder, what Easter memories would my boys have? What would they remember and tell their children about?
And watching two cats running around the garden, I had a thought. Maybe our boys won’t have as many memories about Easter as I do. We don’t bake - we buy hot cross buns. We don’t decorate eggs – we get chocolate ones.
Living in an ever-changing world we slowly forget our traditions, dismissing them as old and stale. We want everything immediately and ready-made; we require an instant response – waiting for anything is not an option; the world without Internet has become an ancient history, and pen and paper have been replaced by emails and electronic massages.
My phone beeped and I automatically reached out to check it. And as I swiped it to life to check my emails, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that with dismissing the past and traditions, we are losing a part of ourselves in the process; and the urge to peel some onions suddenly became bigger than ever.