Vacationing with the Gay Mother in Yorkshire

Vacationing with the Gay Mother in Yorkshire – Slight Guilt

Thursday 28^th October 2010

The Gay Mother’s all right on food, although I was knocked down when she ordered Deep-Fried Brie Wedges at Hardwick on the way back from Yorkshire. But frockage has always been a battle since my birth 52 years ago. Essentially I’ve had to take it over and wear it all myself.

We went to the much-talked-about Jorvik Viking Centre in York which turned out to be an old-fashioned automata show with dusty powder-paint scenery. The Viking look was wraps in shades of porridge, very similar to what is being worn today, according to the Gay Mother. ‘They all look such a mess,’ she declared. ‘I hope I don’t,’ I said. She made no reply.

We went to all the department stores in York, the GM in quest of good warm trousers and some ‘shirts’. At the Clinque counter in Fenwicks she bought a new foundation. Well, that was something, but Clinque is for beginners, i.e. teenagers – like Clarins. She spotted a French Connection and bowled in. ‘They had lovely shirts here before.’ ‘That was in 1982,’ I said. ‘Shirts are not being worn this season. How about a fun fur?’ ‘What would I do with that in Milton Sowerbutts?’ she said, that being her village.

Hovering by the bras I began to feel self-conscious. ‘Are you buying a skirt?’ some speak-as-I-find Yorkshire bag said in passing. Maybe the Gay Mother would have preferred grandchildren rather than a son in a Prada mac with a face by Institute Esthederm. Perhaps I should have left the family long ago. I could have been Prime Minister by now, or the Head of Shell. I say to the Gay Mother, ‘You’re like Mrs Hammond in “The Brothers”.’ You won’t remember it. It was a TV drama series in the 70s about a dynasty. Their family business was road haulage. It ran for several years. Mrs Hammond was the matriarch.