Cancer 29

Inevitably through all this I am reflecting on so many aspects of my life, looking back at what I have done, the good things, the mistakes. I make no claims to have lived a perfect life. I know I have upset people badly at times and I am sorry that has happened, but I suppose being someone who has generally been honest in life (again with some serious exceptions) that is going to be the cut and thrust of life itself.

Looking back I inevitably think about some of the people who have influenced me, who have, for some reason, changed my life. I don’t usually mention names in this blog, but I am going to make an exception here. I hope I am not upsetting anyone by doing so.

As an adolescent we are influenced by many people, our parents, other members of the family, friends, workmates, and so on. I was enormously influenced by an individual, and by a family.

The family is the Ferozes. Throughout my adolescence I spent a lot of time being with and living with the Ferozes, mother, father, three girls and grandma. My family was working class. They were middle class. They were middle class in a special way. Looking back they acted more like the upper classes. They behaved in ways they thought was right regardess of what others might think. Their large house always smelled of dogs and horses, everyone was – to my eyes – both posh and very laid back. I didn’t realise that posh people could be so normal. I was a friend of the girls so I was made very welcome by the parents. As I got older I started to have meals there, sleep there, I even had my own key – which I once forgot so I crawled in through the dog flap (dog flap? How posh and not posh is that?) after a few beers, went to the toilet and when I emerged there was a policeman in the hall. The neighbours thought there was a burglar.

It was here that I learned that you coud be well-mannered and keep your elbows on the table. It was more important to have something interesting to say. I secretly admired the Dad. I wanted to be like him – indeed later, after he sadly died of cancer I was given some of his clothes which I wore for years. He was a GP who was (quite rightly) incredibly proud of his daughters. He also sat in a large leather chair. His chair. You could sit in it when he wasn’t there, but not if he was. Then we leaned over his shoulder, helping him with the Telegraph crossword, answering the clues in the wrong order which really annoyed him (not really, he rarely got annoyed. He would just smile indulgently at his beloved daughters whatever they did wrong).

The Mum was a second mum to me. That is not to denigrate my own mum, why shouldn’t I have two? She would fuss around, offering advice, coffee and food, asking me to help out with this or that.

Grandma’s biggest contribution was language. When I decided to leave the building site and move into academia she made it very clear that I could not move into the bigger world with my broad Derbyshire accent, that I had to learn to speak ‘properly’. She was right. I did tone down my accent, and in later years I would test some of my foreign students. When I spoke the new normal they understood me fine, but if I put on my earlier accent they would just look at me in a bewildered fashion. Good old Ivy.

The girls had a huge influence on me. We were never lovers, more like brother and sisters. Why did we never become lovers? I have no idea, perhaps it was because from the start we were friends who drifted towards family and it would be a little odd to go out with your sister. It was probably a good thing. We went out, we shared music, we went to gigs, we did the normal things young folk do.

There is no way I could have achieved any of the things I have in my life without the Ferozes. It is difficult to say exactly what it was, but it was the putting elbows on the table, it was speaking in a way that is intelligible to others, but on the grander scale it showed me how to be middle class in a good way, no posing, no looking down on other people, doing what you want to do within the constraints of not hurting others, trying to do a little good, and definitely not posh. Of course others helped with these things, but the Ferozes are an essential component of what I am today. Their influence is immeasurable and I am so grateful to them.