How (and why) I became a teacher . . .

My mum was a primary school teacher. I have few memories of her. She died when I was 7 years old. My dad, a quiet and proud man, was so devastated by the loss he never spoke of her again. Consequently, my mother's death was never explained to me. This silence fed my dark and fanciful imagination. I began to believe my mother had been murdered. Why else would no one speak of her? The dark shadow cast by this disturbing suspicion suffocated me for years. I was a teenager when I learnt the truth, when a friend's mum mentioned that my mum died of breast cancer.

Over the years my mum has come to represent to me everything that is nurturing, loving and essentially feminine. She loved her husband, her children and her home. When my mum was alive I remember our house as being eternally scented with baking sugar, vanilla and spices. It was warmed by flickering coal fires and decorated with home made cushions and curtains. Every inch of our home was filled with my mother's loving presence. Everything was made, created or designed by her. I can imagine that magical creativity and love was put to good use in her classroom too. I think she must have been a wonderful teacher: warm, kind and inspiring.

Through my teenage and university years my dad would often say that I too would become a teacher. The truth was I was utterly lost during those years, desperately insecure and often crippled with depression. I had no interest in teaching at all, I was too wrapped up in my own stale sadness. I studied for a degree in Drama and Theatre Studies. Even my choice of university course seemed a form of passive aggressive, self-harm. Why would someone who was paralysed with agonising shyness choose a course that required abundant self-assurance and swagger? God knows. It was agony.

In my 20s I met and fell in love with Chris (Son of Satan). We planned to have a family, I began to dream of the kind of life my mum had valued: a home, a family, a husband. It felt like everything I wanted. The baby never happened, We never really investigated why. In the end he cheated on me and, with a cruel wist of fate, got his girlfriend pregnant and left.

In my 30s I was working in a reasonably successful but vacuous job in corporate communications. I'd started to do more and more voluntary work in local schools. This was the time I began to first think seriously about teaching. I already had a degree, I would just need to study for a 1-year PGCE to qualify as a teacher. I suppose a massive, if unspoken, aspect of this dream was the realisation that I was unlikely to have any children of my own. It is actually quite hard for me, even now, to type that. I can feel tears pricking at the back of my eyes and a fluttering nausea in my chest as I acknowledge those thoughts.

When I was 35 my father was unexpectedly diagnosed with very aggressive, terminal cancer. I'd always loved my dad beyond measure. The bond between was fiercely strong. Within 12 weeks of the terrible diagnosis he was dead. I had taken time from work to care for him at home, until he died. After his death I began I feel, very strongly, that the time had come to do something more positive with my life. I applied to Durham University for a PGCE course in primary education (ironically, my mother too had trained to become a teacher at Durham). I qualified and ended up at the School of Hard Knocks. I am now half way through my 4th year of teaching.

It is very true, I have made hundreds of inept and clumsy decisions in my life: the atrocious boyfriends and the even more atrocious haircuts. But, I have never regretted changing career. I love teaching. Financially, it has been disastrous (hence my current church-mouse status) but emotionally and spiritually it has been the most positive decision I have ever made. Rochester and I had a big heart-to-heart about this, last time we met. He asked me if I was happy. The truth is, the only part of my life that I am truly happy with is my job. Sometimes I wonder if it is all that keeps me going.

I remember some absolutely inspirational teachers from my own primary school years. My Year 5 and 6 teacher was a sprightly matriarch called Mrs Robinson. Her passions were art, literature and the countryside. On sunny afternoons she would usher us outside for long, languid walks round our local village. As a class we could identify every tree, bird and wild flower. We spent whole days in the beautiful, sun-dappled woodland of Hawthorne Dene. Mrs Robinson was captivating, she inspired her class of colliery ne're do wells to see the surging natural beauty all around us. I also attribute my love of books to Mrs Robinson. She read us some very surprisingly dark and adult stories: Daphne du Maurier was one of her favourite authors. We always had a storybook before home-time, it is a ritual I have continued in my own teaching career: those twenty minutes of peace and stillness that allow the children to drift away into another world are so important. I do wonder, if in 20 years time, any of my current class will be teachers and whether they will read their class Born to Run (the book we are all mesmerised with at the moment).

As a child I loved my primary school. It felt like a very safe, vivid and magical place: Christmas was a time of nativity plays and carol singing, summer time was marked by the smell of cut grass and rounders on the school field. The gentle order and routines of school life are so comforting for children, especially for children who are living through difficult times. I also remember how very kind and reassuring my teachers were during the time of my mother's illness and death. After my mother's death, school became a haven of normality and happiness.

I suppose teaching was very different back then, in the 1970s: no OFSTED, no league tables, a fraction of the paperwork and (most importantly) no stifling National Curriculum. I am frustrated when I read the latest Tory education minister, usually in the Daily Mail, bemoaning how children these days leave school without knowing any Shakespeare sonnets 'off by heart' and cannot recite all the kings and queens of England, in chronological order. My favourite quote about education is from WB Yeats.

'Education is not the filling of a pail, it is the lighting of a fire.'

Teaching is a creative occupation. The Tory view seems to be that teachers simply pass on knowledge. That children are passive, empty vessels to be filled with facts. I don't see my job that way. Teaching is so much more than that. To me teaching is about inspiring children to be curious, independent, resourceful and ultimately, kind and considerate people. I love the creativity of teaching. Teachers should have the freedom to be creative, I think.

Teaching in a school like the SOHK can be tough. A disproportionate number of our children come from backgrounds that are unimaginably bleak and chaotic. As a 7 year old girl I lost my mum. That was a tragedy, but I had a strong and loving family around me. Many of our children live in homes saturated with abuse, neglect, addiction, crime, poverty and violence. For those children I want to create an environment that is calm, happy, loving and inspiring. That is not always easy, but it is the most rewarding and worthwhile way I can think of to spend my life. The fact that I probably won't have children of my own, well, there are no words really to express the sadness I feel about that. But, I do get to (brace yourself for a cliche of worthy and sanctimonious vomitrociousness) 'make a difference' to the lives of hundreds of children. And that, in itself, is pretty amazing, isn't it?

100 Hours of Solitude

It's been a very quiet week. Nothing has happened, twice (as the saying goes). This weekend, for example, I haven't seen a soul, or 'sole' (in the parlance of my illiterate interweb wooers). I am torn between quite enjoying days cocooned, like a dormouse, in my nest of Cath Kidston and dust, and feeling that really, I must make more of an effort. I've not actually spoken to anyone since Friday afternoon. It can't be healthy. I was always rather solitary and introspective, even as a child. My heaven on earth was a sunlit, summer's day and a big tree to sit under and dream of romantic, faraway worlds. People are hard work, I think. Even after spending time with people I adore, I just long to come home and close the door on the world. I have always, pretty much, lived on my own. I expect I always will. I think a bit of space and mystery in a relationship is not a bad thing. I have no desire to spend weekends washing a fanny rat's pants.

Mind you, I did feel a little sorrowful and lonely yesterday, but at least I had The Killing to look forward to. I may not have had a salient conversation with an adult for 48 hours, but who cares? Lund's sleuthing jumper was just the tonic I needed. (It is the knitwear equivalent of Miss Marple's brogues). Then, ABOMINATION, the phone rang. I despise the telephone, almost to the point of phobia. I love emails and texts but a CONVERSATION. Dear God NO! I answered because I thought (hoped) it was Rochester. It wasn't. It was my nutjob Aunty Joan, who was quite obviously high on a cocktail of blood pressure medicine, Night Nurse and cooking sherry. She had called to hector me about:

1. The general illiteracy, aggression and ill manners of young people today. (I am a teacher, therefore it is my fault).

2. The fact that I have not visited her since last year.

3. My inability to find a husband. She attributes this to my affection for jeans, my filthy, slattern-like approach to housekeeping and the fact that I buy, rather than make, Yorkshire puddings.

4. The woman next door, who she believes is a prostitute.

Miss Underscore: Why do you think she is a prostitute?

Aunty Joan: She's got SORTS going in and out at all hours of the day. Oh, and the noises through the anaglypta, they're enough to make Blackie's hair stand on end. (Blackie is her decrepit, one-eyed cat). AND, she leaves her wheelie bin out all week.

Miss Underscore: How does that make her a prostitute?

Aunty Joan: Too busy on her back to bring it in! She's lazy. Her SORT wouldn't help a lame dog over a stile. And, (triumphantly) when I look in her recycling box, all the bottles are BROWN!

Miss Underscore: (innocently) Marmite?

Aunty Joan: BEER!!! For her fancy men, no doubt. Some of them are even (pauses for dramatic effect) BLACK!

Miss Underscore: The bottles?

Aunty Joan: NO! THE MEN! The men are BLACK!

Thank you Aunty Joan. One conversation with you was enough to reaffirm my belief that a weekend of quiet solitude is not actually a bad thing.

Oh, I must tell you my FAVOURITE ever Aunty Joan quote. Some years ago she was droning on about 'young people' again, and how they all need a good thrashing.

Aunty Joan: I was on the bus and there were some girls sitting at the back. Skirts like belts, roots black as their souls. I asked them to be quiet. I was quite polite too. I said 'Dear me, you should be acting like young ladies, not wanton hussies. Could you mind your language please?'

Miss Underscore: What happened?

Aunty Joan: Well, they said something to me. I don't quite know what it means, but I think it might have been rather rude.

Miss Underscore: What did they say?

Aunty Joan: They said 'Oh shut up you dripping cunt.' What does it mean Elizabeth? Was it terrible?

Miss Underscore: No, not at all, Aunty Joan. You could even start to use it yourself, to the ladies at your poetry club. (Aunty Joan goes to a poetry night class, where she writes truly terrible Pam Ayres style rhyming couplet poems about cardigans and battenburg). I am sure you could even write a poem about it.

Aunty Joan: There's a thought, I could! There are lots of rhymes for 'cunt', after all: hunt, punt, stunt . . .

School of Hard Knocks Update

I've got post-OFSTED syndrome. I just can't be fucked. I drove to work on Monday with a vague notion of doing digital time in Maths and ghost stories in literacy. I had no plans written. My afternoon lessons would be decided at lunchtime. We're all feeling very demoralised. Most (not all) of us work incredibly hard and yet, according to OFSTED, we're not good enough.

The report is out. I haven't seen it yet, apparently it is worse than anticipated. I think Pompous shot us in the foot. In his first telephone call with the lead inspector he (apparently) droned on about how we work with the most challenging kids in the city, how our estate is the most deprived in the North East, how our first job, before we even can start to teach, is to deal with horrendous behaviour issues. Those, Pompous blustered, were the reasons our results were so poor. There is an element of truth in that, but, to an OFSTED inspector I am sure it sounds like a trite excuse. Then, of course, when the inspection team were in, the kids were all perfectly behaved and well-mannered. They saw no evidence of challenging behaviour at all.

The good news though, is that Pompous Pilate, the beetrooty buffoon, took last week off. The atmosphere around school was much more relaxed. Even the kids seemed to be a bit more mellow and content (and for once, this was not due to their Ritalin).

He is back tomorrow. I expect we'll be shown the OFSTED report at Monday's torturous after-school meeting. I shall let you know how we fared.

Interweb Dating Update

I am sorry to say my interweb dating experiences are not improving. Let me tell you about two of yesterday's emails. This one was surprising for several reasons,

i saw your profile and thought you sounded really nice, sort of in vogue with a hint of elegance, also confident with an unpretentious perspicacious side, i also thought we may have a bit in common, hence my decision to ask you how your weekend is going so far?...

Here is a cove who can't be bothered to use an apostrophe, or capitalize his 'I's (if he truly is that tardy then what chance of him putting the wheelie bin out, or indulging in foreplay?). BUT he used the words 'hence' and 'perspicacious' in his email. Very unorthadox. I must confess, dear reader(s), I didn't have a clue what 'perspicacious' meant. My first instinct was to assume it was related to perspiration, and that I was being insulted. I had to look it up in the dictionary.

Next I got an email from an awfully handsome Italian chap. He is something of a swarthy rogue, I can tell. He had posted about 80 pictures of himself on his profile, he is obviously terribly vain. It was an endearing email though,

Hi !!! I was reading your profile...you are very charming with a sweet smile! Also if we are a little too far, i'd love to meet you!!! I 'm italian single man with some hobbies(theatre,atletics and cooking). Meanwhile i send you my greetings from Rome!! P.S: sorry x my English because isn't very good also i've been in England last year!

I did like his 'greetings from Rome!' he sounded like a presenter on the Eurovision Song Contest. I generally, as a rule, only accept one exclamation mark in a dating email. As you know, my preference is for dour and sardonic men. I don't want to end up with Keith Chegwin (shudder). There were other reasons to discount Claudio though. Firstly, he is too far away. Secondly, he specified he wants a girlfriend who weighs between 8 and 9 stone (the only time my bathroom scales read a single-digit number is when I am weighing Cecil, the Maine Coon, for his worming tablet). Thirdly, the cove enjoys 'singles parties'. I am not sure I know what a 'singles party' is, but I have visions of the tawdry horror of Eyes Wide Shut. 'Singles parties' will undoubtedly involve nudity, Venetian masks and Ferraro Rocher. The very thought has me reaching for the Rescue Remedy.

I was tempted to reply to Claudio though. I noted, with interest, his comment about visiting England last year. I started typing a response,

Did you make it as far North as Newcastle? We have a greater number of Greggs per capita than any other city in the world. Pretty impressive eh? Put that in your Spanish Steps and smoke it!

I didn't send it, of course. My so called humour is frequently lost on English men. Italian rogues, with pidgin English and an love of gratuitous exclamation marks, stand no chance of 'getting it'.

Rochester Update

I still have neither heard from Rochester, nor rang him. I think about ringing him every night. Sometimes I pour myself a large single malt and sit with the phone in my hand for hours. It is a agony. But, my phone phobia is too severe. I just can't do it.

I was reading I Capture the Castle yesterday (possibly my favourite book of all time). I found this line of Cassandra's very moving.

Everything in the least connected with him has value for me; if someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me.

I started the blog, exactly 2 years ago, because although Rochester and I had split, I still felt brimming with love, warmth and affection for him. It was an affection that I needed to talk about. I couldn't talk about it (I am too reserved) but I could write about it. That is the heritage of Parma Violet Tea. When I read the Rochester posts on here, especially the accounts of our time together, it strikes me that they're my best pieces of writing. I think I capture him very well; his sardonic and ramshackle charm. They're written with love. That's the reason. It is both ironic and tragic that, two years down the road, I am in exactly the same position I was when I started this blog.

Other forms of boredom advertised as poetry

The restorative power of a new haircut

I have still been struggling with the holidays, pinging from contentment to despair. My spirits have been raised by a rather wonderful new haircut. It's a bob. Forty years old and I am enjoying my first bob, my first fringe. I love it. I feel like an aging, Mackem Louise Brooks. I had been growing my hair, you see. And to complement my more earthy, natural longer locks I had bought a new wardrobe of maxi dresses and peasant blouses. None of which will work with a chic, 1920s bob. Sigh. Now I am craving simple cashmere sweaters and pencil skirts. But, until Aldi or Poundstretcher launches a range of cashmere I shall have to live without.

I have also had to buy new reading glasses. When I discovered how much they cost I wondered if X-Ray vision came fitted as standard. Don't I look intellectual? Don't I look like I should be running an chic, intimate Parisian second-hand book store? I look very 'left bank'. Left bank of the River Wear, of course.

A dolt from the blue

Suddenly and unexpectedly Rochester has been flitting in and out of my inbox. It's nice to have him back, albeit only over the interweb. He does make me smile. You may recall his literary Nom de Plume is 'The 60 Second Poet'. I wonder if he has adopted the '60 second' approach to all aspects of life. I think he may have. He only ever writes me one line.

This week he reported that his colleagues have started to call him 'Don', a reference to Mad Men's alpha-male character Don Draper. I pointed out that, in reality, Rochester is more of a Roger Stirling type. Rochester lacks the tortured, existential angst to be Don. Don agonises over his life, his fanny ratting, his career, his place in the world. Cynical, louche, dog-with-two-dicks Roger is much more Rochester. He is a care-free, conscience-free cad. I don't think the swarthy one liked that.

I have been accused of a few things in my time, but lacking in existential angst is not one of them. My raison d'etre is in constant conflict with my joy de vivre.

I was amazed to hear that Rochester did not enjoy the Gainsbourg film. He went to see it on my recommendation but walked out after an hour. I thought it would be just Rochester's cup of brewn ale. But, on reflection, maybe it made the rogue uncomfortable. Maybe Rochester was intimidated watching a Premier league fanny rat at work. Maybe Rochester realised he will only ever be a Conference league lothario.

A visit to Aunty Margaret

I do feel very much an orphan. Well, I am an orphan, no mother, no father, estranged from my brothers. The only member of my family who I am close to is my feisty 90 year old Aunty Margaret. I have blogged about her before here.

Aunty Margaret has a turn of phrase that is 50% Alan Bennett, 50% Dorothy Parker. We chatted about her nutty sister-in-law, my terribly selfish and self-absorbed Aunty Doris.

Well. As for her. She wouldn't help a lame dog over a stile.

We moved on to discuss Uncle Stan. Recently widowed and of the generation of men that simply cannot cope without a woman (he has lived on jam and bread for the last 18 months), he has set his flat-cap at a devout 84 year old Christian lady called Mabel. Aunty Margaret is not impressed.

I'm telling you, Elizabeth. Mabel has had two breasts off, a hip replaced and wears an eye-patch. The last thing that she needs is to be putting up with the likes of him.

I love this picture of Aunty Margaret. She looks like she should be knitting under a guillotine somewhere!

I told Aunty Margaret about Rochester's re-appearance.

Me: A couple of months ago he wanted to meet me for a drink at half past nine.

Aunty M: HALF PAST NINE! What kind of a filthy beast is he? What kind of lady goes out to meet a man at half past nine!

Me: I turned him down Aunty Margaret. So he rang up and offered to come over. This was at half past 11.

Aunty M: (frothing at the mouth) HALF PAST ELEVEN!!!! What kind of heathen visits a lady at half past 11!!! You know what he was after, don't you? I wouldn't trust that man with a bonny dog.

Me: I didn't let him come over, Aunty Margaret. (pause). Apparently, he has a good job now. He has made his fortune selling pegs door to door.

Aunty M: Ha! Don't believe a word of it! He's a liar! No better than that brother of his. He's just trying to impress you. You mark my words, he'll be propping up bars and chatting up hussies all day. Work is a four-letter word to the likes of him.

I love how Aunty Margaret can be so opinionated about someone she has never met. The thing is, I have never said anything remotely unkind about Rochester to Aunty Margaret (or anyone). But, she is a bit of a pit bull. He broke my heart, and she can't forgive that. She wants to sink her false teeth into his ankle.

Rochester, there is at least one lady on this planet that your silken Geordie charms have failed to seduce. Tell me, you proclaim yourself to be a 'demi god' amongst salesmen, do you think you could sell any pegs to Aunty Margaret?

(The wonderful title to this blog is a line from the Leonard Cohen song Field Commander Cohen.)

Darling Mum

My beautiful mum died 32 years ago today, when I was 7. I can still remember the chilling knock on the door that roused our sleeping household. I remember sitting at the top of the stairs in my flannel nightie, listening to the policeman and my dad speaking in low, hushed tones in the sitting room. I remember my dad showing the man to the door and then the agonising wait for him to come back upstairs. I imagine now that he must have had to compose himself, before he came to tell us the news. That he must have run through the words, rehearsed how he would explain to his 3 beloved children that we would never see our mother again. Knowing my dad, how brave and selfless he was, he would not have given much thought to his own grief and loss.

He took us all into my brothers' room, sat us on the bed and told us that our mum had died. Jonathan didn't believe him, typically he was angry and kept shouting that my father was lying. I remember Dad telling us things would be OK. I suppose rationally I knew that my mum had been ill, she had been in hospital for many months before she died. But, the lack of explanation about why she died, and the mysterious appearance of a policeman at the door began to feed my imagination. I began to think that she had been murdered. The specter of that murderer would haunt me all through my childhood. I absolutely believed it. I became introverted, scared of the dark, scared of going into rooms on my own. I was plagued with nightmares. The reality of my mum's death was much more prosaic. She'd simply died of breast cancer. She'd found a lump and had ignored it. Now it is the specter of breast cancer is the ghost that haunts and terrifies me. I am very aware that I am now the age my mum was when she fell ill.

The day after my mum's death, in the briskly stoic way typical of our family, I was walked to school as usual. I remember I was the first one in the school yard. Our kindly, white-haired headteacher came out to see me, to find out why I was at school so early.

'It's because my mummy is dead.'

I remember that moment clearly. The school yard was surrounded with huge and beautiful mature elm trees. The day was wild and blustery and the branches of the trees were swaying and rustling in the wind. I remember being quite irked that I'd been sent to school. It seemed cruel. I should have been allowed to stay off, I thought to myself, crossly. I got my wish the next day though. My 8th birthday. My mother's funeral. I was cross about that too. I distinctly remember thinking

'This isn't fair. What are they thinking? I'm far too young to go to a funeral.'

I've never liked birthdays. I suppose that is the reason. From being a child, birthdays and Christmases were associated with loss, they were defined by the absence of my mum. Special days before her death were magical: tea parties, home-made birthday cakes, party dresses, sing-songs around the piano. My mum lived for her family - all she wanted in life was a cosy, comfortable home and a husband and children to love, cherish and look after. Those distinctly feminine values and aspirations sadly seem ever so archaic and outdated now. That's a shame, I think. We could do with more gentleness and nurturing in the world. The sad truth is, my mother's warmth and love was just too big a loss for us all to bear. We all suffered it in different ways. I suffer it still.

Ghost in the machine

There have been some frankly spooky goings-on at Chez Underscore of late. I think I have a poltergeist. He lives in my washing machine. The other day I washed all my undies and strewed them across radiators to dry before putting them away. The next morning I was surprised to see that the pair of knickers I had reached for had been cut through the gusset, with what looked like jagged scissors. I pulled another pair out - and found the exactly same thing. On checking 12 pairs of knickers, all but one pair had been cut this way. All through the gusset. I am sorry. I know that is twice I have referred to the 'G' spot - but there is surely a clue to the ghoul's troubled past in this violent, gusset-savaging modus operandi.

Now, my utterly nutty Aunty Joan once was convinced she had a poltergeist. This was a very troubled spirit who toyed with the dithery spinster by moving her corn plasters about, willy nilly. I should make clear, these weren't the corn plasters that were on her corns (no self-respecting spectre would want to actually touch my Aunty Joan's crusty hooves). No, the naughty ghost kept moving the PACKET of corn plasters.

'I put them down somewhere, and then I just can't find them. Then, just when I have given up hope of ever seeing them again, they turn up. Oh, he's a wicked spirit, this one!'

'Are you sure you just haven't mislaid them, Aunty Joan?' I asked soothingly.

'No of course not, you silly girl. Are you saying I am ga-ga? That I've lost my marbles and have distemper! Do you want to have me committed? Is that your plan Enid?' she snapped.'

'I think you mean dementia Aunty Joan. And it's Elizabeth, not Enid.'

'Anyway, I have more proof. Joanna Lumley has confirmed it. I have mysterious pools of water that appear from nowhere on the carpet. Joanna Lumley was talking to that charming, handsome Richard Madeley the other day, and says that pools of water are a conclusive sign of supernatural activity.'

Hmmm. I glanced at the politically-incorrectly named Blackie, Aunty Joan's skanky, flea-ridden and malevolent tomcat. He was skulking away from a spreading damp patch by the pouffe. I think I had found the source of the mysterious pools of 'water'. But never mind that. Hadn't Joan just referred to Richard Madeley as 'charming and handsome'? Dear God. Maybe she did have dementia after all!

Anyway, I digress, back to my knife-wielding, knicker-ripping poltergeist. What could the explanation be? After finally finding a pair of knicks that were intact I grabbed a freshly washed bra. The straps had been cut. What would Joanna Lumley say about that, I wonder?

Chatting to McF the other night (who is actually called Giovanni, would you believe - an Italian fireman - it really is every woman's fantasy), I mentioned the time Madam Noir and I visited our local Spiritualist church. We had both recently lost a parent to cancer: Rachelle had lost her mum, I had lost my dad. We were more than a little nervous about the whole thing, but had been reassured that it was a very relaxed and informal vibe. So, you can imagine our unease when we turned up to find the church was a creaking Victorian ruin lit by hundreds of flickering candelabras. I hadn't seen that many candles since Meatloaf's 1980s music videos.

Things got worse. I nervously sat down in the gloom and immediately felt a rough, meaty hand on my shoulder. A man's voice gruffly muttered the words 'spotty dog' in my ear. Dear God!!! I spun round and was relieved to see a familiar face in the candlelight: a kindly, bearded neighbour who always stopped to chat and pet my Dalmatian dog, Kipper.

Anyway. Just as Madam Noir and I were getting used to the dark, gothic, funereal ambience we were suddenly plunged into dazzling brightness. Every light in the building unexpectedly came on, without warning. I almost screamed in terror. Then I heard some rough mackem accent cut through the silence.

'I've figured it out, like. It was just the fuse.'

A swarthy and unwashed workman burst through a doorway, brandishing a fuse. It turned out, the candles were not a regular part of the service at all, but a necessity brought on by a power cut!

I never got a message from the other side. I went back to the church a few times. I think I lost hope when Madam Noir got her first message. It was from Sally. Sally was her mum's dog. You know: mums, dads, friends, family. . . all 'in spirit', all waiting to communicate with their beloved who have been left behind. . . and who gets in there first? The bloody dog! Well, Sally did have a bit of greyhound in her, didn't she Madam Noir? No wonder she was first out of the traps.

Speaking of communicating with the dead, Rochester has gone deathly quiet again. I find that so fucking rude and trifling, to be honest. After an eternity of silence, he turns for some inane lezza chat and then fucks off again. Maybe I need a OUIJA board to communicate with the flaky fanny rat. I know what it would spell out.

Y O U ' R E A C U N T E L I Z A B E T H