Jill Sparrow

We had a sort of Roll of Honour board for former head girls at Manning. One was a Katrina Sparrow so, of course, people tended to assume we were related. Not to my knowledge either then or now. However, it was often alluded to, especially as I speedily acquired the reputation of not exactly being the most team-spirited, sociable or even remotely interested girl in the school. My father was a bit put out at the thought of a Sparrow getting into a position of leadership where they'd be expected to toe the line and provide an example to other girls. Our Sparrows run like hell from anything like

I was looking for information on Garden Street in Radford and up popped Nottstalgia! It was brilliant. I think you are all wonderful!

Yes, Chulla, Manning Girls also used Noel Street baths for weekly swimming. Trekked there and back in all weathers we did. Hated it! The smell of chlorine mixed with mints and vending machine hot chocolate rushed out to greet you in the entrance lobby. Not that we were allowed to partake of that. There was no eating and drinking whilst wearing the school uniform in a public place! Manning girls didn't wear conventional ties but had red and white striped Petersham ribbon instead. To show one's pride in one's house, one was expected to wear a house badge of the appropriate colour. This had to

Also remember the annual traipse to Victoria Baths in Sneinton for the swimming gala. Having the distinction of the only girl in the entire school who never learned to swim, my services were thankfully not called upon. However, the rest of us were still required to sit in the gallery and watch. I can still recall the acrid stench of the starting pistol which mingled with the stifling aroma of chlorine. Terminal boredom! There were those who, carried away by it all, hung perilously over the balcony, yelling their support for various girls but I was content to loiter at the back and read a book!

I also recall house games, immediately prior to the Christmas holidays. Gathering in the school gym, together with house mistresses, we all sat on the floor and played pass the parcel, charades and other such activities. I remember feigning illness and sloping off to the sick bay where, wrapped in a brown Witney blanket, I had a nice snooze on the Dickensian looking couch and left the silly beggars to it! That sort of thing didn't appeal to me!

The Manning Grammar School, during my period of incarceration at least, sported four houses: St David's, yellow; Armagh, green; Canterbury, red and Edinburgh, blue. Prior to my arrival, there had been more houses, including Ely, but these were defunct by 1969 when I darkened their door and existed only on the various Rolls of Honour of earlier female achievers dotted about the place. I was allocated St David's and we were all supposed to wear a daffodil on 1st March! St David's was noted for achievement in the Arts. I won the speech and drama competition several years in succession but was

During a rare ten minutes when there was time for a chat, my colleagues at work and I got onto the subject of our parents. I was saddened and at times horrified to hear some of the comments they made. From being tolerated only because they provided free childcare to complete avoidance because of childhood abuse, some of their stories made me wince. It also made me realise how very lucky I am to be able to say that my experience was totally different. At Christmas, I often overhear people moaning about having to invite a parent round to share the festivities or feeling constrained to go and v

Molly, likewise. Only those with impeccable references, six tins of tuna and a large bag of IAMS need apply.

I wouldn't ask him round again. Moggie obviously doesn't like him!

While lunching in Derby with my sister recently, she said she needed to go to Waitrose for some shopping. I told her there was no Waitrose in Derby city centre but would she have it? We walked round the shopping centres looking for Waitrose, no luck. There isn't one, I said. Then she started asking random shoppers where Waitrose was. There isn't one, they said. Next she approached the centre manager who was toddling off for his lunch. No Waitrose in Derby, he informed her. So she asked at Boots. There isn't one. Ten people in all, not including my good self, told her there was no Waitro

Mercury dancer, you are in my thoughts too, as is your mum. My parents were married for 57 years and parting, when it comes, is extremely traumatic. If you are very fortunate, you are born to good parents who love you and do their very best for you. Sadly, good parents are not as common as we might hope, so you...and I...have been blessed. You only have one dad. Mine was very special. Always there, although not a demonstrative man. He never interfered and only ever gave me one piece of advice: "I don't mind what you do, as long as you're happy...and you don't follow the herd!" He wasn't a f

Been to Derby today to have lunch with my sister. I'm not an eavesdropper, but my hearing being pin sharp, I can't help overhearing other peoples conversations, especially if they insist on shouting down their ever present mobile phones. I don't know about "when you're dead, you're dead," but I often wonder whether some of these folks are alive, in more than a physical sense! Now that sounds arrogant and judgemental but, ye gods and little fishes!! I like this one... He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him. he who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Wa

Eight years ago, we took on a feisty ginger female. Where she came from no one knows but she had 6 beautiful kittens in tow. We found good homes for them but no one wanted their mother, so we kept her. For a while, she lived with me. I've still got the scars! Then she went to live with my partner, Richard, with whom she has a love hate relationship. We named her Molly Whack It because she attacks everything in sight and likes nothing better than to hide behind a chair, stick a furtive ginger paw out and trip you up as you pass! The other cats hate her but we've noticed recently that she's s

My good friends Chris and Jane lost their 19 year old cat Missy yesterday. Both are devastated. They break your heart but that's the price we pay for love. The more I see of people, the more I love my cats!

My mum had cataract surgery on both eyes some years before she passed. At one point, we virtually lived at the QMC! I stayed with her on the second occasion and even went as far as operating theatre ante room before squeamishness overcame me! She was much braver than I when it comes to needles. The drops were a bit of a pain. I think my technique resulted in mum getting more up her nose than in her eye but it was amazing the amount of new jumpers, dresses and carpets I acquired after her first op. "That's new. Haven't seen that one before!" Well, yes she had, just not with the clarity she h

Still no takers, Chulla? Thought they'd be queuing up by now.

There was a whole ethos of snobbery around washdays when I was a child. For instance, the moral standards of a family would be judged on how clean their washing was and the fashion in which it was pegged out! Woe betide anyone who had the temerity to wash on a Good Friday or New Year's Day! That was an indication of a dubious character indeed! Much the same went for the state of people's doorsteps. If it was a widower, left to do his own washing after the demise of his wife, there would be expressions of sympathy. "Ah, look at the way he's pegged that shirt out!" Or "Those towels aren't fit t

What a memory, Benjamin 1945! Talking of Sunlight soap, my mother had a miscarriage in 1953 and was rushed off to Peel Street Women's Hospital in the early hours of the morning. She never forgot the way in which she was barked at by the snotty female obstetrician for getting her out of bed at some unsociable hour to carry out the required surgical procedure. She never forgot, either, the callous way in which a young, unmarried woman who had dared to carry out a do it yourself termination was left to writhe around in agony, berated by a starchy ward sister whilst mum was given the best of atte

Dolly tubs and ponches! Brings back childhood memories. Monday washday, Sunlight soap, the kitchen copper boiling away and my mother doing the washing. Gosh, did she love that old mangle? In later years, she was forever bemoaning the loss of the copper, mangle and dollytub. No washing machine in existence could produce anything to rival the old way of doing things. When my older sister was born in 1950, terry nappies were...like most other things... still rationed. No more than a dozen were permitted. Not that mum was any good at nappies. When she picked her babies up, they usually fell off!

Poor Crystal doesn't understand the concept of birds. Obviously, she can't hear the sounds they make but she still likes to sit on the windowsill chattering at them! Being a mutton Jeff moggie, she is only allowed out on a lead and harness but it's obvious from her facial expression that she finds the world a confusing place. Deaf and with a meow of foghorn proportions, everyone adores her but in the brains department she's a few crunchies short of a full packet unlike the moggie who lived near to me when I resided in Brinsley for a number of years. He gloried in the name of Einstein! His owne

I reckon Tarquin fancies his chance as a postman. Since he arrived, I discover items of mail all over the house, hidden away and sometimes torn up. The same applies to Avon CATalogues, Bettaware brochures and anything else the two legged brigade are daft enough to post through the door when I'm out. For months, I couldn't understand what was going on and then, one Saturday morning, I caught him, half way up the stairs with a Christmas card in his mouth! I've got a tabby and white cat with a mania for carrying mail. All I need now is Postman Pat!

A friend of mine recently gave me a longcase clock. I have always wanted one and readily agreed to give it a home. It strikes on the hour and, a few seconds prior to doing so, you can hear the works inside gearing up for the hammer to strike the bell. My youngest moggie, Tarquin, is mortally terrified of this process and literally flies out of the room and upstairs until it's over! No amount of reassurance will placate him. On one occasion, he was unable to vacate the room as the door was shut, and did irreparable damage to the wallpaper near the door in his frantic scrabbling to escape. All t

I'm convinced that cats regard us mere humans as an embryonic life form, suitable only for catering to their every need and whim. They don't require that we understand the more complex questions of existence, just that we open tins and packets when required and mind our own business as to the more highly evolved feline species. I know my place...or should that be plaice?

I too will have to wash the kitchen floor because Sparrow's cats have knocked over the mealworm tub again during the night. They were obviously unable to sleep due to the complexities of cogitating expanding universes and other dimensions...where IAMS grow on trees and it rains cat treats, no doubt! I'll bet good old Schroedinger didn't have this sort of problem!

In my experience, cats always get their revenge. Mine tend to do it by breaking into bags of cat biscuits in the early hours of the morning or upending large tubs of dried mealworms (hedgehog food) all over the kitchen floor! Then they look at you with that innocent, angelic, wide-eyed expression. "It wasn't me, mum. Honest!"