Benefit Street, Brighton.

                                                                          I don’t think I have gone through a learning process as intense as the current one, which started in the days after arriving in China in 2006. But, though China, of course, never ran out of surprises, I did come to terms with Chinese society.  I came to understand Chinese social mores, and the horrific historical baggage which so many still carried on their backs. While I deplored many aspects of my life in China, I understood too the causes and attitudes under which these had come about. I knew adulation and utter contempt; but knew exactly where both were coming from. And I knew what my value was to that society. In retrospect, learning to urinate squatting over a hole, facing an open-weave basket full of discarded, unwrapped sanitary napkins, used toilet paper and excited blow-flies, with my students , caused less anguish than coming ‘Home’ did. The things I’m learning now that I am a full-t

                                                          I have just spent most of my weekend with Wildfire Women and my blood is still tingling.  For the first time I 've been in a gathering in the UK at which I didn’t feel like the World’s Greatest Imposter. Nor did that Girl in The Bubble feeling overwhelm me. (I must assure you that I really was a girl when I named this feeling). And –bonus- I got to dance. Bit of a misnomer that – I just got up and made an arse of myself as has been my lifelong wont. And for the first time in far too long I did it without feeling anyone gave a damn. And its been far too long since I’ve done that. I didn’t, at first, even get what Wildfire Women was all about; which I deftly translated into massive guilt which consumed me for the greater part of the first day. It was true that all these other women appeared to have been on the bones of their arses; or been traumatised in their past; or battled illnesses both mental and physi

A few minutes ago I did something absolutely stupendous.  I don’t expect anyone noticed.  In fact a couple may have done that shuffley thing many English women do when they start off being embarrassed and metaphorically shake themselves, remembering that it’s ok to talk about mental illness now. (Not being snide – I find it endearing). See, it’s one thing to talk about it, but it’s quite another to throw it casually into the conversational pit. Especially when that conversation is public and with people one’s never met. Oh, I’ll sit in front of an audience and tell a few hundred people about mental illness. I’ll write articles about it and get interviewed about it quite happily. Literally - because I’m always so happy to get people engaging and talking freely. Especially the one’s who’ve gone all their lives thinking they were the only ones. But socially – well it’s pretty much the kiss of death.Try sipping your glass of complimentary wine, when someone says over

I once turned down an invitation to have tea on The Britannia with the Queen and Monty and all;  in order to go on a first date excursion, picnicking up in the mountains. In to-day’s Britain this factoid would bring down one of two reactions. The first would be hearty claps on the backs and “I should think so too!”. The other is “OMG! Are you insane? What were you thinking?”. (Mind you, in my current incarnation, the average reaction would be “Havin’ a larf, are we?” At the time I was 18 and I could legally please myself! As I was only a scant few weeks out of boarding school  this freedom was heady and still rib-ticklingly and foot tinglingly novel.  I couldn’t be cajoled into compliance, nor ordered to obey.  No-one could ever expel me again. Or forbid certain ways of doing my hair! And no-one would, ever again, make me wear the same clothes, day after day after interminable day. Nor make me leave a nice warm bed at 4.30 in the morning to stand around for h

                                                                                                                                                                                                            All my life I have been frightened of old people. My parents, thankfully,  didn’t turn into old people though both died in their 80’s. I haven't ever been particularly familiar with old people. In expatriate communities everyone is of working age and younger. I do remember a kind grandmother I met once, but she had extra toes on her feet so I was a little disconcerted by her. The other Grandmother whom I had spent a little time with, was a shocker. And when I was living in a small fishing village in South Africa the old people ran amok and were in control of the footpaths, the roads, and the entrance to every shop in town. Scary people. All of which is probably why I was pretty late in coming to the realisation that one day I too would be an Old People. I k

Discovering that impostor syndrome really was a thing, is probably the  most astounding fact Twitter has so far taught me. (Well, that and the fact that Mary Shelley kept Percy’s dead heart in a silk pouch.) Accordingly I now feel I owe the Sisters of Mercy in Rockhampton, Australia, an apology: although you absolutely did, in the literal sense, do my head in, it seems that it wasn’t you who are responsible for this particular defect: - even people who have never been near a nun in their lives have it. Guilt now. Guilt I know gets poured into every person along with the holy water at Catholic Christenings. Though I was only Catholic from the ages of 11 to 14, I got exactly the same amount as those whose baby-eyes first focused on the black crucifix above the crib. So I knew for absolute certain I wasn’t alone with that one. But this feeling of fighting the impulse - in public - to rip the clothes from ones back and confess to  heinous deception; is not mine alone! We

                                                      My middle name is Arabic. In modern Britain I’m one of many millions. However in a series of convent school in Australia in my dewy days of youth,  my very name was considered an act of wilful sedition. Until Yrs. 11 & 12 I had never come across a nun who didn’t consider it rather uncouth not to have a “dacent” name like Mary, Ann, Elizabeth or, if one wanted to go foreign, then  the Italian “Maria” should satisfy all yearning for the exotic.  Opting for Arabic however, was very definitely OTT. Despite any question of the fairness of the thing, the logic involved in nuns taking against me for my parents transgression escaped me for many years. When I came across the “sins of the father’s” meme it finally became clear. The nuns, it must be said, took against me rather helplessly after about Yr 1, when I had already been expelled from ballet classes, Krafts!, Brownies, and my cousin’s trainspotting gang. (No.  R

The black dog that crawled back up on my shoulder 2 years ago has been a teacup  Chihuahua until recently.  About ten days ago I realised he’d morphed into a good-sized Labrador. I think now he’s going for Irish Wolfhound. Now that black dog is not exclusively the property of Winston Churchill, or Robin Williams or even National Treasure, Stephen Fry. Without even having it explained, every bi-polar person instinctively understands what it means the first time they hear it. Because, perhaps, that feeling of carrying an actual physical burden is so familiar?  At times it feels like a sack of wheat on one’s shoulders which is pretty grim – but an old, familiar dog? Smelly and noxious nowadays maybe, but intimately known: - he ain’t heavy, he’s my black dog? Now, even before I was clinically diagnosed at the age of 12, I knew what it was like to feel weighted down – until finally one ends up supine; unable to rise up high enough to get out of bed. But I ne