JOHN-BOY’S MOTHER
Our garden is now at its most productive and we have large amounts of pears, damsons, rhubarb and apples so it was definitely time for me to don a figurative apron and access my housewifely genes. I set to with vinegar and lots of spices and when the first jar of pickled pears was ready I felt proud; it was a step on the way to what had once been my ambition – to be an Earth Mother.
People who know me may laugh; they will certainly find this difficult to believe, but I did want to be the person who baked cakes, filled larders with pots of jam, cooked delicious meals with wholesome ingredients and had dinner parties every week. Reader: this did not happen.
I did all the right things: got an Aga; made a large kitchen, had a few children (well, 3) but I never achieved Earth Motherhood. It may have something to do with the fact that I haven’t the appropriate build for this, I am not generous of size or bosom – both requisites for the title, although now I think of it my role model had neither of those things.
The woman I wanted to emulate was John-Boy’s mother, Mrs Olivia Walton.
I first saw her on TV when I was a young mother and she seemed perfect. She was calm and wise, a woman who had a tribe of children, a table groaning with home-cooked and home-grown food, yet had a stomach as flat as the ironing board that must have been in perpetual use in that lovely wooden house.
She was always ready with proper advice as she pulled yet another pumpkin pie out of the oven or stitched more dungarees for those children to rip. She was like the old woman who lived in the shoe, except that she was young, and unlike the old woman she obviously knew exactly what to do (although I don’t think she got to grips with birth control – and her pelvic floor must have been shot to pieces).
My children had left home when I finally admitted that I would never attained Earth Motherhood status. Now I content myself with writing about different, wonderful mothers. In my story, Cris and Minty Save the Planet, their mother is a scientist – perhaps a more realistic goal to achieve but too late for me – I should have worked harder at physics.
