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#266 Christine Bewell Don’t Let Me Put my Foot in it!

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And so she came up, and I was still on my knees, in these old clothes, nose a bit runny, looking proper scruffy.

Christine Bewell

My son, at long last, got a girlfriend and I was wanting to meet her but you’ve got to mind your own business haven’t you when this happens. And so I was out in Meanwood Park gathering acorns. We were raising money for Meanwood Church of England school and someone had seen a tiny little advert saying somebody wanted these acorns for replanting oak trees that had been taken down for the First World War. You could get £1.50 for a bucket of acorns. We raised £500 one year and £750 the next. So here I am in my old clothes, without a handkerchief or anything, and suddenly I spied my son and this girlfriend coming. I sent up a quick prayer and said ‘Oh Lord, please don’t let me out my foot in it!’ And so she came up, and I was still on my knees, in these old clothes, nose a bit runny, looking proper scruffy. And my son comes along and says ‘This is Jane’ and ‘Jane, this is my mother’. So that was the first encounter I had with her. And now they’ve been married about 30 years. So I wasn’t that bad!

Precis

The beauty of being in a company of older performers is the kaleidoscopic range of real-life experiences that they bring to the table. These experiences cover everything from the vivid and strange world of childhood, to the unexpected late awakenings of old age. Take our newest batch of anecdotes, for example. These new stories are delightfully diverse: from the earthly, sensual joy of baking bread, to the cosmic dreams of outer space; from an unnerving encounter with a poltergeist, to the risqué glories of adult pleasure products and burlesque. Running as a rich theme throughout, is the possibility of love, and the simple wonder of human connection. As one writer tells us, in her story of funeral rites and flirting, “Amidst death, life goes on”, and indeed it does, delightfully so.