Punk & Prejudice

 

    If somebody had told me I’d hit fifty and then start chasing childhood dreams, I would have laughed but that’s exactly what happened. I had very simplistic aspirations as a child: get married, have children, be a writer. I did it in that order and as it turns out, it’s worked really well for me.
   I grew up in the thick of a large, Irish family in North London – our names of Murphy and Cody give an indication of how large – and emulating my grandma’s family values became my main focus in life; she influenced me from such an early age. Marriage and motherhood suited me, and living on the Dorset coast sets a particular pace; life isn’t to be rushed, dreams will be realised … one day. And then a wake-up call happened, giving me a suitably sized kick up the backside. It hit me that while I am perfectly content to bob along at my own speed, time isn’t so laid-back. It hurtles along, carrying us to the finishing line at an alarming rate, with people like me blissfully unaware of it. Our children have grown up: two at college, one at Uni and the eldest living in London since she finished Uni there a few years ago. They’ve all moved on and yet, I’m still dreaming that one day, when I grow up, I’ll be a writer.
   I’m from a long line of story-tellers. Most of us, I’m sure, have had to sit through Sunday lunch listening to a grandfather or great-aunt ramble on about a time gone by, and how things were so different then, and we don’t know how lucky we are.

My Grandma & her siblings at my parents wedding

   As I have pieced together my family history over recent years, and found contact with cousins who share the same Cody ancestors, it occurs to me how alike we all are in our artistic bent. We all have a drive to share stories, through writing books, writing songs and music, acting, dance, painting, photography. Any medium we can find to share our passion. Each generation has produced this talent, going back through the ages.

We found evidence from the 1870s of our great, great, great aunt, Ellen Wood, performing at Covent Garden as 'The Great Azella', before setting sail for fame & fortune in America. She sang, danced and performed acrobatics on a tightrope, creating quite a name for herself; though not quite in the same league as our more famous showman cousin, William Frederick Cody, aka Buffalo Bill.

The flying harness worn by Ellen 'Azella' Wood

   As cousins offered their insights into our family history, replicating my own knowledge, it became apparent that those lengthy lunchtime stories held a weight of truth - not just embellished rumours as I had thought - and our ancestors had successfully preserved history, passing it down by word of mouth. And although the tales from Ireland were of unbelievable hardship, starvation, loss of family and being forced to leave their homeland in order to survive; and of our Yorkshire grandfathers, drovers by trade, facing the arduous, dangerous journeys to London with their livestock, there was always a sense of achievement, of triumph, of spirit. As it turns out, my great aunt was right: we really are lucky and we can’t possibly truly comprehend what it was like back then. We can only imagine. And keep the stories alive for the next generation.

   Although my father’s side of the family dominated my early childhood, my Swedish mother’s side played an important part too and memories of sun-soaked summer holidays by the lake, still crowd my mind. Each July we would embark on the journey across Europe, crammed into a hot car that smelt of melting vinyl and cigarette smoke, to spend the summer months with my grandparents. The road trip was a huge adventure for us - well, for my brothers and me at any rate, not so sure about our parents - and the well-travelled route across France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and finally, Sweden, filled us with mounting excitement. The promise of two months of freedom was almost too much to bear; endless swimming and rowing on the lake, eating strange food and salt sweets, and being utterly spoilt by doting aunts and uncles, was always heaven.

My grandparents house backed onto Lake Drevviken, south of Stockholm

   But growing up within the two cultures was also confusing; I could never quite decide on my identity. We moved to Sweden when I was nearing the end of primary school, then my brother and I moved back to England to live with one of my dad’s cousins, half way through secondary school. By then, childhood idyll was a thing of the past and teenage angst had taken over: identity crisis set in. In England, I was the Swede with the funny-sounding mother; we were the Catholic kids who got picked on (and frequently beaten up) by the C of E kids. In Sweden, I was the prim and proper English girl who was good for help with English homework. And then, back in England again, I was the Swedish girl with trendy drainpipe jeans, when everybody else was still wearing flares. I never quite fitted in. I decided early on, I could either give in to the angst and endure the torture or I could make myself happy. Find my escape, my happy place. My bubble.
   Yes, of course I rebelled, but on a small scale compared to some. It was the era of punk rock; I endured ulcers in my cheek from futile efforts to push a safety pin through it. I left it half hooked in for a couple of weeks until the pain became too much. Long enough to prove a point, I felt. I smoked and drank before legally allowed, which enabled me to fit in, to go with the crowd, but my salvation lay elsewhere. In music and books. I arrived in England with a state of the art radio, which became an extension of my left arm. The size of an A4 folder, I cradled it in the crook of my arm and fed my fingers through the handle. Why it didn’t occur to me to simply carry it by its handle, I shall never know. Much cooler to have a permanently bent arm, apparently. It gained me friends and kept me company 24/7. It never left my side and I slept with my ear pressed against it every night, drifting off to the sounds of Radio Luxembourg. School was much more lax in those days and we were allowed to discreetly crowd round my radio in morning registration, eagerly waiting for our favourite hits on Radio One, the DLT show. Obviously, I had to turn it off during lessons but it remained on the desk, amid my school books, pride of place.
   I stumbled across the village library one day, quite by chance, en route to a friend’s house. I’d been living in the village for a year and had no idea it even had a library!  Reading had always been my escape but the books I had brought over from Sweden had been read over and over, and outgrown, so I was keen to find something new. As I worked my way along the shelves, I immediately spotted a title I recognised: Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë. My mother had had a copy by her bedside for years when I was younger. I’m not sure she ever completed it; she had been given a collection of classics by one of my many great aunts, in a bid to help her learn English. I know she appreciated the gesture but it probably wasn’t the best way to learn how the natives spoke in the 1960’s.
   Full of nostalgia, I borrowed the book and instantly fell in love; with the story, with the landscape and most importantly, to any romantically starved fifteen-year-old, with Mr Rochester. I went on to read the other Brontë books the library had and fell in love with Heathcliff, from Wuthering Heights. Working backwards on the shelves, I discovered Jane Austen and – as you probably guessed – fell in love with Mr Darcy. By now, the local lads didn’t stand a chance with me. How could they? Nobody compared to my new heroes.

I read Brontë and Austen on a loop, totally hooked. In an effort to remain cool, I always borrowed a couple of naff romances (which I usually read as well), claiming the classics were for an elderly neighbour. And so, at the weekends I would take my neighbour’s dog – a gorgeous Golden Retriever named Henry – for long walks along the top of Ironbridge Gorge, armed with my radio, my library book and my Players No 6 cigarettes. We would tramp through mud and bracken to sit under our favourite tree, where he would sprawl across my legs, keeping guard, while I lost myself to Mr Rochester. Or Heathcliff. Or Mr Darcy. And that is how I survived my teenage years, with my sanity intact. Relatively.