Girls Will Be Girls

I've made a new friend through the ushering at Snape. She's a mother, wife and grandmother. Yet when we get together or email each other we can be as silly as adolescent girls. We have an ongoing jokey storyline, that all the other ushers are far too old to do the job, with their gammy legs and poor hearing, their slowness to react to crises, and their shortsightedness that places people in the wrong seats and causes fights to break out. We could fill their posts much better, we're sure of that. And we've decided there's a conspiracy to keep us new ones out in the cold when work is available while the older ones get priority. It's a load of nonsense, and we know it. But we started this last year, and we've kept it up to mutual hilarity. There's a lot of talk about liberty bodices and knee-capping and tripping OAPs (not like us) down the stairs. I often laugh out loud when I get an email from her. It's the same with some of the women I play bridge with. Something will tickle us and we're off, to the amazement of any men in the vicinity. Some of these women are old enough to be my mother, and yet their sense of humour is as girlish and naughty as if they were decades younger. It's so refreshing, and just goes to show that we never really change. Our skin might crinkle and our hair lose its colour, but inside we're the same. If young people saw and heard the things we say, the way we giggle, they might have to review their dismissive opinion of us, and see that we're really just the same as them.

I was going to have an early night, though the cosy sitting room was hard to leave and there was a glow still in the woodburner. So I switched on the television, and checked my recorded programmes. A Hard Day's Night was there from Christmas, and I flicked it on for a few minutes. But it was wonderful, joyeous, refreshing, fun, and all those songs from the early 60s! The Beatles were so beautiful and smiley and squeaky clean - even Ringo was gorgeous. Lovely shining hair and nice white teeth: no wonder America took to them. The plot was stupid of course, with lots of running away from screaming girl and leaping athletically over fences and walls, but by 1964 their suits were beautifully tailored from fancy fabric, and their shirts and ties soft and expensive looking, so I ogled to my heart's content. It's unbelievable that two of them are dead. Their songs were clever and catchy, and Paul's voice soaring in effortless harmony over John's rougher one showed his natural, irrepressible musicality. It really was a tonic.