This is Pam leaving to go back to America to live for good. It's about 2005. She's stroking Jesse. Tessa the boarder collie was dad's gardener, Michael's dog who is now dead, the dog not Michael. The only one remaining in this photo then is Jesse. Pam and Mike got on really well and went on holiday together once to Goa. In the other photo there's dad and Mike's assistant gardener Chris. Pam once told me a hilarious story about how she had to referee an argument between Mike and Chris who no longer work together, they had a rather strained relationship. I would get her to tell me the story over and over cos it made me laugh. She knitted this gorgeous wrap. I never saw it again after this...
Last night I dreamed about Pam. In the dream we are in the house on North Road in Clayton. Angie tells me Pam has been paying her for cigarettes. I'm furious. Angie is standing wearing glittery clothes from a shopping spree. I shout at Angie. I run to find Pam. I shout her. I'm in the family room she shouts back in a very depressed voice. She's watching TV sitting on the floor. She tells me she got involved with a guy who is using her house for drug trafficking. I say Pam you have to stop him. She knows but she's scared. So am I.
We went up to twenty trees in Hayfield for the anniversary of Pam's death. Pam and I walked up to these trees together once. I usually do it in Santa Fe but I'm here now and so were my family. So I dragged them up to the top of the hill, me, Ron, Mum, Angie, Eddie and Billy (literally in mum's case as she wore pink flip flops erm mum!) It was sad. Angie said, 'I'm going to carve her name in the tree!' We went into Hayfield village after for tea and scones, Pam liked a cream tea.. the song Somewhere over the Rainbow started to play...
Tonight I am performing 15 minutes of my one woman play with 5 others at a venue in Santa Fe. This play has been in the works for many moons and Pam was very much in the mix. I would call her at all hours and read the things I'd written and as always she would be a huge support. Well I hope I can embody the phrase Pam invented and be a true Giddy Kipper tonight in her honour. I'm doing the full play here in March.
I thought I'd share a few photos of the family members I'll be playing tonight, the 'stars of the show' as per usual!
Star No. 1 Nana. The big dresser upper..here she is as Madonna..
And Boy George!
Star No. 2 Mum. In the Mikado
Mum and Dad on their way to be audience members of The Good Old Days TV show..
Star No. 3 Dad. Being daft with friend Diane..
Here he is behind his bar which is mentioned in the show..
Sitting in the bath just now, where we get all our best ideas, I thought of doing this post. League of Gentlemen also came to mind. This is an English TV show that Pam and I watched together one summer at her Inn in Newport. We bloody loved it for its similarity, be it a rather dark, twisted version to our family and to people from the north of England. The clip below reminds me of all the times I went to audition for commercials in the UK. Zany, Giddy Kipper humour..and she's called Pamela!
Today is 3 years since Pam was killed. As usual (as usual?) I would have gone up the Sandia Peak and put flowers at the foot of a tree. But it's closed as fire danger is extreme. So we will go to the cabin and I'll sprinkle some flowers into the river. These family photos were taken a year before her death. Doesn't she look beautiful? She is wearing the cardigan that I clung onto the weeks following while my heart was breaking. I keep it in a plastic bag as suggested so as to try to preserve her smell. This weekend I feel like all the life has gone out of me.... again..
My parents were just over for the wedding. I asked dad to bring some old journals of mine. I found this entry..
Jan 4 1994
How protective I was today when Pam left to go to the station. I couldn't resist saying, "Don't ask a strange, horrible man for directions." Pam said, "I'll find a man and say to him, 'Are you horrible?' and he'll say, 'Yes,' evilly. Then I'll say, 'Can you direct me to the station?' and he'll say, 'Yes and let me stab you horribly.'" I must stop being so protective it makes Pam have no confidence in her own abilities. Nice to see her so fun-filled and excited last night. She has been so irritable and snappy of late.
There is a sadness in Pam's face in these shots I think. Like so many photos of her, a sadness, a suffering. She was unhappy so much in life. Sometimes I would say to her, "You wouldn't DO anything would you?" I meant to end it. She would say, "No Jane, I would never do that to you lot." But look what happened, her life did end early. Perhaps on some level I sensed something coming..
Me on the left and Pam at a cabaret she arranged at The Slipper Room, New York
Singing has been a big issue in my family. From as early
as I can remember I was forced to sing. Oh come, come Jane 'forced' is a strong word isn't it? Not in my book I say, twitching nervously. I have been blessed (or cursed?) with a robust singing voice, and since my
mother passed it on to me she thinks she gets a say in what I do with it. Singing was the be all and end all to my mum. For God's sake don't tell her about this bloody post. Look mum if you do happen to read this, I love you it's just some of your hopes and wishes for me that were hard to take OK? Anyway the pressure was on from the start. I am the eldest of three girls and
since Pam came in last she kind of got overlooked in the singing department not
to mention everything else. A
memory that encapsulates this for me is Pam as a baby in a baby bouncer. They’d just come in fashion so Pam got
to test-drive one. She would droop over in this contraption as she fell asleep and just well hang there. A little baby hanging by a thread. Anyway being gentle by nature Pam didn't have a loud screaming voice so she mostly wasn't heard in our family.
I’ve got to the point in life where
I’ve stopped singing. It has lost
all its joy for me. I got all the praise and the pressure around it. I had a panic attack when I was seven whilst singing my first solo at Sunday school. It resulted in me singing the same line over and over as I watched the expectant grin on my dad's face turn into a look of horror. Then a teacher kindly led me away. This event may well have been a pivotal moment regarding my future as a singer. Anyway I’ve been
pushed too much and now singing sticks in my throat. I’ve lost
the will to sing. If I hear my parents complain one more time because I am not on the X Factor (English version of American Idol) I think I'll have to be locked away in a padded cell. This is how I feel at the mention of the S word now...
I did join a
madrigal group last summer and this I enjoy, no overtones of Frank Sinatra here. Instead a welcome hey diddle diddle of country fayre a far cry from the crooning that now makes me feel like throwing up. The whole sorry business was
summed up for me after Pam’s memorial service when we gathered at mum’s golf club. About six friends of my parents were left chatting with us when dad suddenly said, “Jane are you giving a song?” You know like it was any old party. When I declined a woman friend of theirs who runs a night club, grew up in the fifties and has severely latent and blatant 'Rat Pack' tendancies said, ‘Well I’ll say this much Jane, what a waste of
talent!” I should have said, 'Oh
sorry Norma you are quite right,' grabbed my top hat and cane and started
singing ‘Give me the moonlight give me the girl and leave the rest to me!’ That would have been so fitting don't you think?
Pam on the other hand didn’t realize she could sing
until she was in her thirties. She
didn’t even try to sing before that, well it wasn’t her place, she was the
flute and piano girl. So one
night at our parent's house mum was watching the Three Tenors on TV, her then favourite. Pam started to sing along in the next
room and proceeded to surprise herself by how good she sounded. Mum shouted out, 'Is that our Jane singing?' To which Pam replied, 'No it’s me!' That was the start of Pam singing and she didn’t stop. I was
already well on my way to my current dried up singer on the shelf self so as
far as I was concerned she could have it. You see there was also the small matter of us being a highly competitive
family so this could have been a problem. But since it took the pressure off me I was delighted. Although it was becoming increasingly
difficult for me to muster enthusiasm for the business of singing no matter who
was doing it. I had to snicker to
myself at parties during Pam’s coming out years though. ‘Friends’ of the family would strongly
imply in my general direction that Pam was by far the better singer. That old competitive spirit rearing its ugly
head again. Who was competing? Not me, I’d had a belly full. Still it was nice of them to remind
me what a precocious, big-headed singer I used to be thanks to the grandiose
praise that had been lavished on me by my parents in their hope that I live out
their dreams and become the next Barbra Streisand. Funny thing, it turns out Barbra
suffers from nerves singing on stage too. Have you
seen the film Shine? Let’s just
say I relate. Not that I am in any way as gifted as this you understand...just the film is about too much pressure on him from his father..
Anyway Pam sang and she sang and she sang after that. Like a bird. She could sing like a coloratura and go much higher and
faster on the trills than I could. This might have had something to do with the fact that she could make her eyes go very fast from side to side too. Quite amazing to see, like a nature spirit. She made lots of opportunities for herself
to sing. She joined a band for a while in New York, sang in church every week and in the last year before she
died she joined a dinner theatre cabaret in Newport. She could always be heard singing and whistling in the house
something I never did. She could
sing opera and even got into a prestigious music college in Leeds, which she decided not to pursue but that’s another story. She loved to sing that’s the top and bottom of it. She loved it, she wanted it and she did
it. I’m so glad about that now.
I have been transferring DVD tapes onto my computer, the ones that aren't getting chewed up by my stupid old camera that is. Oh I have to save them! There is a lot of footage of Pam that I can't transfer for fear of ruining it all completely. I do have some though like the Christmas I spent with her at her place in Long Island in 2002. Watching this film is heart-breaking. It is like she's just walked into the room, as I watch I feel how totally and utterly whacko it is that she is, you know... dead. WTF? Honestly I can watch it for a minute and then I have to turn it off because it is so freaky. That Christmas, just the two of us, I spotted an old Jackson Five Cd so I put it on and started singing along loudly, 'Whoooo's lovin you..' I was in the Jackson Five fan club when I was a kid and used to sing my heart out to them. So off I bellowed somewhat territorially, well I had been in the fan club! Pam became furious, her eyes flashed. She went into her 'I'm the youngest and I'm always last in line' stuff. Like I said at the beginning of this story, singing is an issue in my family.
Below is a hilarious recording of me singing along to the Jackson Five just like I used to when I was a girl. I taped it last week because I figure Pam would want me to sing. So I'm singing when I remember to. Every time I listen to this it makes me giggle I hope it makes you smile too! You never know I might rekindle a desire to have singing be a part of my life again..
Want to hear something lovely?
Click below to hear Pam singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, 2008
This photo of Pam was taken after my parents had visited a dog shelter. They walked out of the shelter saying they didn't see a dog that they wanted so Pam marched them back in and this little puppy was the result. They called him Spikey, he was dad's constant companion until he died in 2005 (the dog not dad!) Pam loved dogs with a passion.
I was listening to a man on the radio last night, Frank Mundo as he talked about losing his brother a year ago. He and his family have a website where they put all his brother's art work and photos and memories. They also put stories and memories on there that friends share. So I invite all those people who knew and loved Pam to please email me and share your stories so that I can put them on this blog. Don't be shy! Come on!
I wrote this quote on a piece of paper in the months following Pam's death. I found it in a file where I put all the hand-outs on grief that were coming my way. I don't know who wrote it.
"When all the family members are alive, the family system is carefully held in place. When one member dies, the system is thrown into a chaotic state destabilizing each family member. Old ways of coping are no longer effective; those left behind feel exhausted. This exhaustion combined with a sense of disorientation and disillusionment make room for new awarenesses to break into consciousness..awarenesses that at other times a person could keep at bay."
This blog is about me and my sister Pam who was killed age 43 in a plane crash on July 3rd 2008 along with the instructor Charlie and her husband Keith who was learning to fly. These stories and thoughts keep me close to her, it's her shrine.
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