Bad dreams in the night

What is it about Kate Bush and her breakthrough single? I thought she was kind of ridiculous when that song first came out, but I liked it in spite of myself, floppy sleeves, overwrought mannerisms and all. As I got older it came to represent a certain kind of romanticism and female strength, and a connection to ye olde English tales and landscapes. Not just the Bronte connection, but the long tangled thread back to Herne the hunter, talking badgers, lions, hounds, and unicorns. Maybe it was those misty trees.

Kate Bush herself was uncompromisingly individual and unpackaged, and quite apart

Wuthery trees    source

from her sheer musicality, there was the furniture-chewing drama of her videos, the romanticism, the female-centric stories of her songs. Now I can’t tell – is my ongoing fandom ironic? Or am I invested more deeply, retrospectively approving my younger self’s taste; celebrating my own successful transition into adulthood after an adolescence full of darkness and gothic misery.

I expect all women of my vintage had similar struggles as teenagers, sulking alone in our rooms, but this week we all got together in the park, on a bright wintery Wellington Saturday, to recreate the famous Wuthering Heights dance. Thank f*k we made it through, we could be saying with every flouncey spin, because that adolescence could have gone horribly wrong. But here we are: all of us who used to prance around in private, imagining we were as powerful, as confident in our weirdness and our talents, and our silliness, as Kate Bush.

The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever: Wellington.
Photo credit: Joanna Holden

She was only 18 when she wrote Wuthering Heights; no one can say she didn’t own her own twee-ness as a teenager. She celebrated it. At an age where the rest of us were self-consciously trying to hide our more goofy facets, Kate Bush was in full flight, emoting wildly. She was unrelentingly herself, in a way that the cookie-cutter mouthpieces who dominate pop music have never been brave or intelligent enough to be.

While she surely had her influences, you couldn’t say she modeled herself on them, and although there were some great songs on the charts in 1978, in pop music terms she really was out on her own: a unique talent. She might not fit the stereotype of punk but she embodied its ethos more authentically than many a spiky-haired hobby band that followed.

So thanks, Kate Bush, you gave me something to admire and giggle at in the same breath, through some very tough times. And thanks, adolescence, you made me who I am. I hated you (I loved you too).

Predators

This call, said the message, is time critical. If you wish to avoid prosecution you should return this call immediately. Back home after suffering a stroke, my aunty has only recently been able to use the phone again, and it’s a shame she remembered her pin number for this one. She’s always been very canny with the likes of the Nigerian-lottery-winner phone calls, and “your computer has a virus” – in a mischievous mood she might lead those spammers a merry dance before wishing them an ice-cold goodbye.

But now she’s vulnerable. She's part of a generation that sets great store by reputation and this really got under her skin, in a way that’s hard for younger people to understand, with our life-long student debts and bad credit ratings. She knew it was a scam, but it niggled at her, and it’s niggling at me. I’m wondering, did some psychologist decide this was a good angle for targeting the elderly? But then that’s me taking it just as personally as she did.

The scammers don’t know she’s in her eighties, suddenly housebound and no longer independent. They don’t know she has an old-fashioned sense of morality and honour. She’s just a name and phone number on a mailing list that they’ve bought from some low-rate mail order retailer (I told her not to buy that boxed set of The Onedin Line).

Arrest that tree!           Source

I still don’t think she’s reassured, even though I asked her, what might you have ever done that you could reasonably be prosecuted for? Having a tree that’s growing out over the footpath?

Every now and then I suppose these scammers will strike it lucky and call someone who has a dirty secret they’re scared of being caught for. Some old crime or misdemeanor they never confessed to. Oh no, what if they’ve finally been sprung? That would push your buttons.

It made me think of the letter my father got, many years ago: Dear Friend, my name is Maria and I am psychic. I saw your house at [insert target’s address here] in a vision last week. It was bathed in a golden glow, a beautiful light shone from inside your house and I knew that you are a special person indeed, blessed by the universe and about to come into some extremely good fortune. My vision contained much detail that I would like to share with you in order to help you maximise the benefits of your extremely lucky situation, and I invite you to contact me at xxx so that I may advise you.

That pushed dad’s buttons big time, as he came from a family of fey Cornish

I see....the vulnerable...            Source

spookies, and while he didn’t have visions like his mother, he could find water with a couple of bent coat hangers and famously found my brother when he ran away by sitting quietly in the car with a pen in his hand. He didn’t tell us at the time how he knew where to go, just popped his head around the kitchen door and said “I’m off now to go and get him.” But years later when we sold that car he showed me the manual in the glovebox. Inside the back cover was Dad’s scrawly ‘automatic writing’, “main road Makara, turn left under the pine tree” or somesuch. And that’s where my brother was, where his bike had conked out.

For a scientific type, dad was a bit of a spooky. He loved that stuff. When he showed me the letter we laughed about it, but I could see it had got to him, even though he knew it was a scam. I made sure I took it away with me. As his daughter I was so angry that someone had picked on him like that, an elderIy man rattling round alone at home, dwelling on things. I wrote back to Maria, using the address provided. I like to imagine she was very excited, expecting a cheque from one of her targets who believed their house had been bathed in a golden light.

It was just a simple message, on my best notepaper, with no return address. “If you’re psychic,” I wrote, “who am I then?”