So, I went to visit my Nanny today.
My Nanny Daph is not someone you would ever forget if you met her.
No kidding, people who have met her once 25 years ago, will still ask "How's Daphne?"
She is the kind of person who is on a constant safari. She hunts stuff down. People, places, facts, fun.
We used to play a game with her where we would try to think of a country she hadn't been to.
We never could.
She was born with adventure in her blood. But not aggressive adventure. Magic carpet type adventure. Along for the ride adventure. World travel was just a way of life for her.
She loves people.
And no one is safe from her.
Sit next to her on a bus and you will be completely interrogated on where you came from, who you are, where you're going and what you think.... And she listened. Really listened.
It's a wide eyed curiosity you just don't see much. It's rare and beautiful.
We didn't so much go for walks with nanny as children, we went for skips.
And as we used to skip along, if she saw something that took her eye, like, people in their own backyard, doing their own thing.... she liked to investigate.
Nowhere was out of bounds.
I remember her driving along one day, and she spotted a truck in traffic. She said "he looks like he knows where he's going, lets go and see...." And we followed that truck all over the place and finally into David Jones basement delivery dock. Embarrassed much?
Crying with laughter? Absolutely.
When we got older, and my cousin, my sister and I stayed at her place, she would take us driving around King's Cross to look at the "Ladies".
And the soundtrack. There was, still is, a constant soundtrack.
She knows all the words to all the songs from 1927-1967 (that's a guess)
She once told me modern music is:
"I want ya, I want ya, I want ya, I want ya. I got ya, I got ya, I got ya, I got ya."
This was accompanied by a disturbing thrusting dance.....
But you get the idea.
She noticed stuff and she was interested in everything.
There is no end to her knowledge, if she was on one of those game shows with a specialist subject, hers would be 'Everything'
So, I went to see her today.
She's in a home.
Actually she's in a dementia ward.
A locked dementia ward.
When I got there, Bing Crosby was blasting while all the ladies sat in their comfy arm chairs with far away looks in their eyes. Some of them waved at me like they'd been wondering when I was coming. One lady told me Sandra would be here in a minute to tell her how the show was getting on without her.
Nanny looked up at me with watery eyes and said unremarkably, 'Hello, Love.... how's your mother? I've just been making some clothes for the boy's"
I hope with all of my heart that all of those ladies believed they were debutants, dressed in their silk gowns they and their sisters just finished stitching late last night, sitting in the town hall at a dance, waiting for hansom Jonny to ask them to dance. And that when they saw me, they thought I was the nice lady chaperone from the church.
The slow disappearance of a bold and highly decorated character is a deeply sad and heart-breaking thing. There is so much history and life and love and mystery all wrapped up in one fading package. It hurts my heart when she asks me for the 22nd time if I knitted the jumper I'm wearing.
She would have told me to hoppy-uppy and sung a song about a 'boy she once knew' if she suspected I was upset.
But apparently next week, she's take me on a ferry ride.
I just feel proud and lucky to be part of her rich, brilliant tapestry.
