Saturday 8 January 2011

The Queen of Sheba

This is H.I. as a young lass, taken in her home town of Sheffield. Isn't she cute? I used this picture as a Christmas card one year, with the simple addition of a glitter halo around her head, slipped slightly to one side to denote imperfection. We never had such a response to a Christmas card - everyone loved it, and a couple of people had it framed and put it on their mantle-piece.

H.I. is Northern through and through, but knew from an early age that she would - as soon as old enough - flee to the South and - more specifically - the great metropolis of London and the Slade School of Art, where her personal tutor was Frank Auerbach. We have met Frank a few times over the years, usually by invitation to a preview of his shows. She began her career in the Sheffield Junior Art School, when she was extremely young - about this young!

She could not believe how unfriendly us southerners appeared to be when she arrived, compared to Sheffield, where people would stop to talk to strangers in the street, or simply greet them as they entered a pub, etc. She spent most of her time in London living in Soho, which was then populated by Italians during the day and prostitutes by night. Both of these groups are - by nature - naturally friendly, so she felt very at home. Whenever she took her little daughter (now 42) into 'Vallerie's or the 'Bar Italia', they would come over and make a great fuss over the little girl. She couldn't leave Valerie's without some sort of sweet present being given to her girl by the huge and corpulent Celeste - the then owner, and at Easter or Christmas, these presents would be quite substantial.

H.I.'s mother and father doted on her, and were - quite simply - unrealistically perfect for ordinary, mortal parents. I met them many times before they died, and could not believe what a marvelous childhood they created for her. Even today, H.I. has no real concept of the ordinary childhood that most of us experienced, with flawed parents who we have to forgive for the insignificant, personal imperfections that caused us so much pain as we grew up. Although I don't think she was a spoilt brat, she wanted for nothing in her childhood - or at least nothing that money could not buy.

She remembers - whilst walking to school in Sheffield - stopping to sift her fingers through the vast piles of iridescent clippings of mother of pearl, heaped up in every yard in the street of the cutlers, just down her road. She remembers peering into the great steel mills and watching bare-chested men catching huge snakes of red-hot metal as they flew out of the rollers, and diverting them around their bodies as they speeded away to another process. She remembers being woken up in the middle of the night by her father in order to see a once-in-a-lifetime sight - the river Don which, having burst it's banks, was then flowing down the street in a great torrent. And she remembers being caught up in the huge and friendly crowd of football supporters on saturday afternoons, outside of the ground at the bottom of her road. All these sights have been extinct for a long time now.

Her mum used to say about her, "I don't know where she came from. She's like the Queen of Sheba".

15 comments:

  1. What are you after? All these niceties heaped upon HI in recent days; it must be something pretty substantial!

    Or are you just looking for forgiveness; like the rest of us.

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  2. Although it has been a sudden attack of affection on my part, I am after nothing more than I already get, and although I probably deserve forgiveness on a daily basis, I haven't done anything particularly horrid for quite a while. Having said that, the last post caused a great wave of appreciation from H.I., so I am now milking it. The big thing is to know when to stop.

    She actually remembers that jumper fondly, Cro - amazing, considering the incalculable amount of designer labels that have been bought since that pic was taken. I think our household contents insurance is for about £60,000, but this would not even cover her wardrobe, let alone the shoe collection, which is bordering on Imelda Marcos. I must do a post on the fabulous Ferregamo museum, which had H.I. smearing her nose against the glass display cabinets a few years ago.

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  3. She should move to Ireland - in friendliness, we are more northern than the northerners. I too have perfect parents, and therefore send her my compliments.

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  4. She's beautiful in this pic and the other one in later life. As are all of us of northern extraction. You soft southerners have no idea. Believe and worship and be grateful.

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  5. Mise - if it not for the Celtic Tiger being shot up the arse by corporate hunters, and the tax exemption for artists being scrapped in the Emerald Isle, then we would consider moving to Ireland for the sake of saying hello to all you friendly rustics, but I fear that things have changed in the last couple of years.

    Elegance - did you not realise, before you hit the button, that you would be preaching to the converted with your comment?

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  6. c'est vrai. But then I am married to a Scotsman so even I feel southern LOL!

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  7. H.I. has just corrected me by saying that the Mother of Pearl piles were next door to the Junior Art School where there was a pearl button factory. There were piles of shells with holes cut out, apparently, from where they had cut the buttons.

    Also, the pimps in Soho also used to give her daughter presents - I cannot imagine modern pimps doing that today.

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  8. I am enjoying the HI stories immensely Tom. Have you told us how she obtained her nick name? Did I miss it? I hope not.

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  9. Her 'nick-name' is just a reference to an old comedy TV program in Britain, Olive, where the unsavoury hero called his wife 'Her Indoors', because the implication was that she was a simple housewife. I use it as a joke, but although I have mentioned H.I.'s real name a few times, it is also a form of protection, which is why I get a bit pissed off when certain bloggers who also do not use their real names, keep referring to H.I. by her real one. I am not called 'Tom', 'H.I.' is not called that, and certain Welsh ladies are also not coming clean about their identities. Sorry I hi-jacked your comment, Olive, but it had to be said, and thanks for saying what you did.

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  10. Oops, put my foot in it. Sorry, Tom. Point taken!
    In the Naughty Corner again :(

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  11. That's all right Moll - I've just been bottling it up for too long! You can come out of the corner now. :) X

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