saw
Genevieve
together, and all three of us found that very funny indeed. Biddy said she thought Kay Kendall was beautiful. I thought this strange, because Kay Kendall had short dark hair. I didn’t think you could possibly be beautiful unless you had blonde fairy-princess hair way past your shoulders.
Harry quite liked musicals but Biddy couldn’t stand anything with singing, so Harry and I went to see
Carousel
and
South Pacific
together. I thought both films wondrously tragic. I don’t think I understood a lot of the story but I loved all the romantic parts and all the special songs.
When Harry was in a very good mood, he’d sing as he got dressed in the morning – silly songs like ‘Mairzie Doats an Doazie Doats’ and ‘She Wears Red Feathers and a Hooly-Hooly Skirt’, and occasionally a rude Colonel Bogey song about Hitler. But now he’d la-la-la the
Carousel
roundabout theme tune while whirling around himself, or he’d prance about in his vest and pants singing, ‘
I’m going to wash that man right out of my hair
.’
I can’t remember who took me to see
Mandy
. It was such an intense experience that the cinema could have crumbled around me and I wouldn’t have noticed. I was
in
that film, suffering alongside Mandy. She was a little deaf girl who was sent away to a special boarding school to try to learn how to speak. There was a big sub-plot about her quarrelling parents and the developing relationship between Mandy’s mother and the head teacher of the school, but that didn’t interest me. I just watched Mandy, this small sad little girl with big soulful eyes and dark wispy plaits. I cried when she cried. When she mouthed ‘Man-dee’ at the end of the film, I whispered it with her.
I wanted to be Mandy’s friend in the film and make her plasticine necklaces and play ball with her and comfort her when she couldn’t sleep at night. I was old enough now to understand that the film wasn’t real. Mandy was played by a child actress, Mandy Miller. I thought she was wonderfully gifted. Biddy showed me a photo in the
Sunday Mirror
of the real Mandy at the premiere of her film, and I realized she was much more glamorous in real life. She still had the spindly plaits, but instead of the pleated skirt and tartan windcheater she wore in the film, she was wearing a sophisticated silk party frock with puffed sleeves and a broderie anglaise collar and velvet ribbon at the neck and waist. She was even wearing
white gloves
.
I had a third Mandy in my head from then on, not the deaf child in the film, not the real actress. I had
my
Mandy, an imaginary friend with big eyes and dark plaits, and we were inseparable for years.
Biddy took me to see every Mandy Miller film that came out, though I wasn’t allowed to see
Background
because it had an over-twelve rating, probably because it was about divorce. People thought so differently about divorce in those days. They frequently
whispered
the word. It was considered shameful, barely socially acceptable. It was the reason why so many incompatible couples stayed together. They didn’t want to go through the public disgrace of a divorce. I thought this odd even then. In fact I used to pray my own parents would divorce because there were so many screaming fights now. Sometimes I was caught up in a quarrel too, both of them yelling at me, appealing to me, while I begged not to have to take sides. Sometimes I simply listened from my bedroom while they argued endlessly, whipping each other with cruel words, then slapping and shoving, hurting and hating.
Perhaps this was another reason why Mandy’s films meant so much to me. She was in one or two child-centred fun films like
Raising a Riot
(about a family living in a windmill), but most of Mandy’s films were about unhappy, anxious children living tense lives. My favourite Mandy film was
Dance Little Lady
, a colourful melodrama about a beautiful ballet dancer, her unscrupulous impresario husband and their only
Genevieve
together, and all three of us found that very funny indeed. Biddy said she thought Kay Kendall was beautiful. I thought this strange, because Kay Kendall had short dark hair. I didn’t think you could possibly be beautiful unless you had blonde fairy-princess hair way past your shoulders.
Harry quite liked musicals but Biddy couldn’t stand anything with singing, so Harry and I went to see
Carousel
and
South Pacific
together. I thought both films wondrously tragic. I don’t think I understood a lot of the story but I loved all the romantic parts and all the special songs.
When Harry was in a very good mood, he’d sing as he got dressed in the morning – silly songs like ‘Mairzie Doats an Doazie Doats’ and ‘She Wears Red Feathers and a Hooly-Hooly Skirt’, and occasionally a rude Colonel Bogey song about Hitler. But now he’d la-la-la the
Carousel
roundabout theme tune while whirling around himself, or he’d prance about in his vest and pants singing, ‘
I’m going to wash that man right out of my hair
.’
I can’t remember who took me to see
Mandy
. It was such an intense experience that the cinema could have crumbled around me and I wouldn’t have noticed. I was
in
that film, suffering alongside Mandy. She was a little deaf girl who was sent away to a special boarding school to try to learn how to speak. There was a big sub-plot about her quarrelling parents and the developing relationship between Mandy’s mother and the head teacher of the school, but that didn’t interest me. I just watched Mandy, this small sad little girl with big soulful eyes and dark wispy plaits. I cried when she cried. When she mouthed ‘Man-dee’ at the end of the film, I whispered it with her.
I wanted to be Mandy’s friend in the film and make her plasticine necklaces and play ball with her and comfort her when she couldn’t sleep at night. I was old enough now to understand that the film wasn’t real. Mandy was played by a child actress, Mandy Miller. I thought she was wonderfully gifted. Biddy showed me a photo in the
Sunday Mirror
of the real Mandy at the premiere of her film, and I realized she was much more glamorous in real life. She still had the spindly plaits, but instead of the pleated skirt and tartan windcheater she wore in the film, she was wearing a sophisticated silk party frock with puffed sleeves and a broderie anglaise collar and velvet ribbon at the neck and waist. She was even wearing
white gloves
.
I had a third Mandy in my head from then on, not the deaf child in the film, not the real actress. I had
my
Mandy, an imaginary friend with big eyes and dark plaits, and we were inseparable for years.
Biddy took me to see every Mandy Miller film that came out, though I wasn’t allowed to see
Background
because it had an over-twelve rating, probably because it was about divorce. People thought so differently about divorce in those days. They frequently
whispered
the word. It was considered shameful, barely socially acceptable. It was the reason why so many incompatible couples stayed together. They didn’t want to go through the public disgrace of a divorce. I thought this odd even then. In fact I used to pray my own parents would divorce because there were so many screaming fights now. Sometimes I was caught up in a quarrel too, both of them yelling at me, appealing to me, while I begged not to have to take sides. Sometimes I simply listened from my bedroom while they argued endlessly, whipping each other with cruel words, then slapping and shoving, hurting and hating.
Perhaps this was another reason why Mandy’s films meant so much to me. She was in one or two child-centred fun films like
Raising a Riot
(about a family living in a windmill), but most of Mandy’s films were about unhappy, anxious children living tense lives. My favourite Mandy film was
Dance Little Lady
, a colourful melodrama about a beautiful ballet dancer, her unscrupulous impresario husband and their only
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