Lk mos people I lived for a long time with my mother and
~her liked to watch the wrestling， my mother liked
My
father
tow~stle;it didn t matter what. She was n he wh e corner and
that was that.
She hung out the largest sheets on the windiest days. She
~n ed the Mormons to knock on the door. At election time in a
Labour mill town she put a picture of the Conservative
candidate in ~he window.
She had never heard of mixed fedings. There were friends and
th~re were enemms.
Enemies were: The Devil (in his many forms)
Next Door
Sex (in its many forms)
Slugs
Friends were: God
Our dog
Auntie Madgc
The Novels of Charlotte Bront6
Slug pellets
and me， at first. [ had been brought in to join her in a tag match
against the Rest of the World. She had a mysterious attitude
!owards the begetting of children it wasn t that she couldn t do
it+ mo~ that she didn t want to do it She was very bitter about
th， Virgin+ Mary getting there firs So he did the next best thing
anm arranged fo a oundling That was me
We had no Wise Men becau e she didn t believe the e we e any
tcannozrecallatimewhen lddno know hat l was special.
wL+ men， but we had sheep One of my earl est memori
~ ，+ ~ng on . t es is me
!~ Sactfi asheepatEase wh le she told me the oyo he
SLlclaa..，~ Lamb. We had it on Sundays with potato
+hol~d~I d s h day of the
mah g~k; we had a tad g t h h tmposmg
~ura)ly w~dListefaedBt~kt~e kghth indue. ~ut ohn
3