Dear Seb and Olivia,
Whenever I picture your mum it’s in the sunshine. Ok, there is one memory of wild, bucketing, torrential rain – last year’s camping trip in Berrynarbor – but mostly, I remember sunny days. I see her padding across the tiles to the patio doors in bare feet or in funky flip flops and something loose and summery. She looks gorgeous of course with her blue eyes and kind smile and her hair all swept back casually in a clip. I follow her out into the garden and she’s pouring squash into beakers on the garden table and watching you tear around the garden, hiding things behind plantpots or jumping in the sandpit. Once we even went outside to find you Sebby and Jamie crawling along the scarily high boundary wall. And when your mum realised she couldn’t deter you, she grinned and let you get on with it even though it almost gave her heart failure. She drew the line at letting you join in though Olivia!
Your mum was the first person I met in Portishead and that too was a warm, sunny day, even though it was winter. Late January or early February 2011, I think. You were 2 going on 3 Seb and Olivia you were just under a year.
The Lakehouse Nursery had just opened and Seb, you and Mabel were among its first customers!
As I didn’t know anyone in the town, my friends in Bristol had arranged a sort of blind playdate for me with a mum who had recently moved to the Village Quarter from the same part of Bristol.
That day I picked Mabel up from the Lakehouse and was just letting her play for a few minutes in the nursery garden when I heard a friendly voice behind me and turned to see your mum. I think she’d heard me say “Mabel” and said Sebby had mentioned a little girl of that name.
We got chatting and within about 3 minutes we’d arranged to meet up at the gym academy a couple of days later where there was a free play session for little ones. (That’s where we met Jude for the first time!)
How does your mum do that? Although I’m quite confident and sociable I’m terribly disorganised and wary of rejection so rarely if ever instigate social get-togethers. Charlotte on the other hand is an amazing social organiser. She’ll scoff at this, but over the years, she has been the one who’s got us down the pub, who’s had us over for girly nights, who’s suggested most of the day trips, who got us mums walking to Clevedon and back, who’s organised your Halloween parties and got us camping in Berrynarbor last summer, and doing a first aid course.
When I say ‘us’ I really mean the Tuesday Club, which is to say Charlotte, Jude, Helen, Sarah, me and occasionally Sami. As none of us, except Sarah and Sami, had jobs to speak of, we started meeting up on a Tuesday afternoon for fun and chaos.
But I’m jumping ahead. So that day I first met your mum, I told her I couldn’t talk for long because I had to dash off to the Village Quarter to meet a local mum my friends had set me up with. When I finally arrived puffing and panting at this mum’s house in Wren Gardens, she made me a cup of tea and told me she had a friend who’s son went to the Lakehouse too. “Oh who’s that?” I asked. “She’s called Charlotte,” she said. “She’s got a little boy there called Seb and a baby girl called Olivia the same age as my little one. When I came to live in Portishead, she was the first person I met who made me think, ‘ok yes, I can stay here and stay sane. Everything will be all right.’”
That mum was Jenny, Billy and Daisy’s mum, and I knew exactly what she meant. I’d been nervous about moving from the city to a town, worried that the people would be insular and tediously concerned with the size of their houses and the brand of their cars. Funnily enough, your mum had the house and the car, but she isn’t like that. She knows all that stuff is icing sugar, not the actual cake.
Jenny too had only recently arrived in Portishead, and it’s just typical that of all the people she could have met and bonded with it was your mum. Charlotte is just like that. She steps forward and says hello. She reaches out and engages. I think that’s why she is a successful artist.
Sebby, your friendship with Mabel was cemented a couple of days later over the Buzz Lightyear watches that came free with a magazine Charlotte and I just happened to have bought you both.
You were always trying to arrange to wear these watches to nursery on the same day, but I can’t remember if you ever really did get in synch. It wasn’t just Buzz Lightyear watches you had in common. You both sucked your thumbs and twiddled your hair in exactly the same absent-minded way. Mabel fell head over heels in love with you Olivia. Literally. She was always hugging you until you fell over. I had to tell her off several times for jumping up on you from behind and giving you throat hugs. Your mum was very tolerant.
I will always picture your mum sitting on a blanket in the sunshine on the grass above Battery Point. I think we had a picnic that day while you scooted and gallivanted around us. Then we all went down into the shade of a huge tree near the swimming pool and you played underneath. Everything was an adventure; your mum has always tried to bring magic and adventure into your lives – like swimming in the rain at the outdoor pool and taking you on a gorilla hunt.
I will never forget your 3rd birthday party Seb, the Octonauts party. Your mum spent ages planning it – your Captain Barnacles costume, the bouncy castle, TWO cakes with sparkler candles; she even set you a treasure hunt with a real treasure chest. It was amazing and, of course, it was a sunny day. Your mum looked absolutely beautiful in a retro orange shift dress.
In those days, you and your friends were obsessed with the Octonauts show on CBeebies. We all were actually. Charlotte loved it too, even though it recounted the extremely unlikely adventures of a polar bear, penguin, a pirate cat, a dog, a rabbit, an octopus, an otter (what the heck was Shellington??) and some weird blobs called the Vegimals who lived in an underwater spaceship.
If, at one of our Tuesday afternoon sessions, all you kids were overdoing it with the tears or tantrums Charlotte would nip it in the bud by sounding the Octoalert. “Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!” she’d shout. “Octonauts! To the launch bay!” And you’d all come running. Then she’d set you a challenge. “Octonauts,” she’d say. “We’re in deep trouble. We’ve lost our dollies in the ocean. Take the Gup A and go and find those dollies. Quick, quick quick. Whooop! Whoop! Whooop!” And off you’d run to the playroom to track down the missing dolls, or find five red objects or four modes of transport of what have you.
And that would give her just enough time to plate up the shepherd’s pie and make a jug of squash.
What I love about your mum is that she is just a little bit bonkers. And as I am too, it has been quite a relief to find her.
Didn’t your mum go on a course once to learn how to be a clown? I’ve seen the picture and I’m not surprised.
Take, for example, the day when I was hosting the Tuesday Club and Jamie wouldn’t eat his tea. His poor mum Helen had tried to coax and cajole him with bits of butternut squash, peas and pasta. She’d tried disappearing into the kitchen and leaving him to it. But he was having none of it. No way was he eating that food.
Then Charlotte tried a bit of reverse psychology. She said something like “I hope Jamie doesn’t eat any of his peas because it makes me go all wobbly and I end up falling over. You won’t eat them will you Jamie? Please don’t.”
Well, of course Jamie immediately popped a pea in his mouth. Your mum went crazy, shrieking and flailing her arms about. The next moment she was lying on the floor with her feet in the air.
All the kids burst out laughing. George was particularly tickled I seem to remember, and his laugh was so loud and so infectious that it set us all off.
Charlotte tutted. “Jamie, promise me you won’t do that again,” she said, getting up and dusting herself off. “No more peas, please!” To which Jamie flashed a huge grin and shovelled a spoonful of peas into his mouth. Your mum howled with alarm and was soon back on the floor shaking her legs in the air.
I was doubled over with laughter. The kids couldn’t get enough of it. I think your mum rolled around on that floor a good five times. “Not butternut squash Jamie. Noooooooo!” Jamie cleaned his plate. Mission accomplished. Captain Barnacles would have been proud of your mum.
You must be very proud of your mum’s art. I am totally in awe of anyone who can make a living from a blank canvas.
I loved going to the Affordable Art Fair at Temple Meads with her, and doing the North Somerset Art Trail. That was how we ended up taking you to Anchorage, the house with the dragon in the garden. Charlotte and I got talking to the bloke there. We asked him about the dragon and he said it was a prop from a children’s TV drama he had directed. Wow! It was only the bloomin prow of the Dawntreader wasn’t it? From the Chronicles of Narnia on the BBC. I’m sure you will read these amazing stories one day if you haven’t already. We asked him if he was still directing now and he said he was semi-retired but had recently directed 40 episodes of a CBeebies programme. “Ooh! Which one?” asked Charlotte. In the Night Garden, he said. Charlotte and I gave a little squeal of delight. “In the Night Garden!!! Our kids LOVE that programme! It’s their favourite show.” we both shrieked. What we should have said was “It used to be their favourite show, like, a year ago when they were still dribbling and wiping their noses on the sofa, but now they’ve moved onto the Octonauts.” But it was too late.
The director dude looked pleased and asked you which of the In the Night Garden characters were your favourite. We looked at you eagerly, willing you to say Makka Packa or Iggle Piggle.
What did you say? Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse and Postman Pat, I believe. Ha ha! We were mortified…. for about five seconds.
Incidentally, I think it was there that your mum bought a ceramic circular fish that lived in your downstairs toilet for a while.
Charlotte told me that her A-level art teacher marked her down when she came home from Palm Springs because he considered her work ‘too commercial’. What an idiot. People love her budfields and oils and are willing to pay for them. But too commercial? Nothing could be further from the truth. Your mum was approached by the publishers Washington Green to turn some of her pieces into limited edition – but mass market – prints. She turned them down. One day, while I was washing up, she told me she’d been approached by a textile manufacturer who invited her to make a range of haberdashery prints for major major retailers like John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, Laura Ashley, Wilkinson and the Range. (I might have got some of those wrong but you get the picture.)
She was granted free reign to do any design she liked and was even allowed to use a pseudonym if she was worried about it having a negative impact on the Charlotte Latham name.
She turned it down because, in her heart, it was not what she wanted to do. She had never set out to be a textile designer and didn’t want to waste her time doing something she didn’t feel strongly about, especially when it was time she could be spending with you two.
I thought she was absolutely nuts. I was thinking of the money and the kudos and kept raving about what an amazing opportunity it was. But she just said she was blessed, because of your Dad’s job, that she didn’t have to make those kind of economic decisions. Too commercial? Yeah, right.
I think your mum has always known that she is blessed to have the comfortable lifestyle that she has enjoyed in Portishead. She doesn’t just give stuff to charity; she gives a bit of herself. She gets excited about it.
She didn’t have an easy time growing up, and appreciates what she and your Dad have built together, both emotionally and financially. It’s one of the most endearing things about her. I remember her driving me home one night (where from? Dirty Dancing at the Hippodrome I think) and she told me how lucky she was to have met your dad, her soulmate. All mums whinge to each other about their husbands, but your mum hardly ever did. The only criticism I can remember her making of your dad is a sort of affectionate exasperation with his love of 80s pop. ;o)
She is a very generous and genuine person, always there with a hug and a cup of tea and a listening ear and an offer to babysit…or a bit of a kick up the backside. She has always encouraged me, especially in anything creative, and I’ve absorbed her energy and gone with it. Last year I was planning to write an article for the Daily Mail, but it all started to go pear-shaped and I was on the brink of scrapping the whole thing. Charlotte told me to go for it otherwise I’d never forgive myself. So I did. I was brimming with pride when I sent her the press cutting a few weeks later.
And your mum is so, so proud of you both. You and your dad mean everything to her. I remember her gasps of encouragement and delight when you were learning to walk and talk Olivia. How we laughed at the wonderful and clever things you came out with. And at how you and George stubbornly toilet-trained yourselves a good year before your elder siblings had been out of nappies (Sorry to embarrass you but hey, it’s impressive.) And how strong and capable and independent you have been from such an early age Olivia.
And Sebby, when you conjure up jetpacks, Tree Fu Tom belts and light sabres out of cardboard boxes, a bit of foil and some sticky tape, your mum laughs and rolls her eyes but she is deliriously delighted by them. And I wish you had seen her face when you got on your bike and went flying down the squiggly path at lightning speed only a couple of days after the stabilisers came off.
You are both amazing people and a credit to your mum and dad – taking after them in so many ways but also taking off on your own wonderful, exciting journeys. Come and find me anytime if you ever want to talk.
All my love,
Ruth xxx
