Peter Pan

I have many happy memories of my dear Dad he was a really kind and gentle man, who never in his 86 years of being on this earth hurt me either physically or mentally.
I loved the time I spent with him on our own at his allotment, on holiday we'd go off together scouring the rock pools and beachcombing.
He taught me a lot about nature, and the countryside.

I also have happy memories of my Uncle who would take me to the pictures with him I loved the Disney films.......not so keen on the cowboy ones!

The film that always stayed with me was Peter Pan and my intense dislike of Hook and my feeling of closeness and identification to the character Smee, although I never knew why.

Because of my mother's narcissistic personality disorder (I'll explain more about this at a later date) I ended up in therapy for quite a few years......

In 1999 all my 'family' went to Disneyland Paris in December for a few days, as we walked around I caught a glimpse of the character Mr Smee, I felt very excited and wanted to get close to him, which I did and had photo's taken with him.

I felt SO happy that my 'life long friend' had had his photo taken with me!
In December 2001, we all went to Disneyland Paris for Christmas...........I saw Mr Smee again and I didn't want to go anywhere near him.....this was because I had recovered and healed SO much from the identification of the character that he didn't 'mirror' me anymore!
Having looked at the video of Peter Pan through different eyes now I can so clearly see why I kept him in my heart, he was shouted at by Hook and then treated with 'kindness' to get his own way with Smee..........in other words he was a BULLY, just like my mother!
Also there's a scene with Wendy when she sings to the boys something like just like a mother, this also brings it home just how much my mother wasn't like a mother.

I've read the script of the film on the net (Hook and Smee) and it just reads like my mother how she would be shouting at me one minute and being nice the next, the identification I've had from it is quite uncanny.

Grandparents

Mango's Musings

I've decided to start here as it feels right and relevent to my story.

I knew my grandfather although not well even when he lived in the same house as my aunt and we'd visit her he was always quuite aloof, not grandfatherly at all.

He lived with a woman called Marie and as a child it didn't occur to me to ask why she wasn't grandma.

When I was about nine years old he passed away, I seem to remember my mother being a bit flustered at the time, sadly I don't think it even really registered with me.

A few months after that I answered our front door to see a grey haired lady standing there and I can remember wondering who she was thinking perhaps she lived somewhere along the road. So I was very surprised to hear her say "Hello I know you don't know me I'm your Grandmother".

What I've found out since is that my grandparents separated in about 1936, my grandmother went to live with her middle daughter and my grandfather must have gone to live with Marie.

The Aunt that my grandfather lived with in later years was only 7 years old (there was 19 years difference between her and my mother) when they seperated, this is where my mother's 'traits' first shows itself.

There was a custody case in court and apparently my mother told lies so that she could get custody!

She even lied to my Aunt letting her believe that it was until she was 21 when in reality it was 16, my mother told me this herself.

So in a kind of twisted way I was an only child yet not as my mother had raised a child although not given birth.

Recently I found out that my mother had an arguement with my grandfather the day before he died, he told my aunt that lived with him "I don't want to be bad friends with anyone".

The next day 2/9/1956 he commited suicide by gassing himself in the kitchen.

R.I.P James Benjamin Pittam.

Here Go's!

Mango's Musings

I was reading Gildy's blog and clicked on to Ows blog and read with interest about only children as I'm one myself.

I listened with interest to the program's on Radio 4 last week one of the most interesting things said was by a lady who said something like she got upset when people didn't listen to her when she was speaking as her parents had given her a lot of attention.......that was strange for me as I feel the same way but for the opposite reason I didn't have enough attention, in fact it was very little.
I belong to the only child group and Ann asked if she could use a quote from on of my posts, this is it below..

'Spoilt' well for me I never knew the meaning of that! I certainly didn't have what others thought I did. I think the most isolating feeling has been not having a 'witness' to my childhood and what happened in it.

So this was the first thing that inspired me to start a blog, the second person was Six writing about the grief of losing his Mum, I found this really sad to read, but at the same time admiration for him to put his feelings 'out there' for all to see, then all the supportive comments from others

I lost my Mum 3 years ago this July the greatest sadness for me is all the grief I had gone through for years before she died because she never was a Mum to me in so many ways.

On Mags blog she talks of how she wrote to her Mum and how she carries the letter everywhere she goes, I did a similar thing and it wasn't acknowledge and I guess she just threw it away.

Inspiration!

Being as I've not done this before I'm going to make it very short!
Hopefully I will write more soon and say just who/what inspired me to start this.