Welcome to Story Street – a monthly newsletter from children’s author and illustrator Jane Porter. This issue is a special tribute to my mother, who died in January, and is all about how she inspired me to make things from the very start.
It’s been a difficult and sad start to the year: my mother died at the beginning of January, aged 92, after a short illness starting on New Year’s Eve. This picture, taken only a couple of years ago in Devon, captures her perfectly: inquisitive, intelligent, stylish - and very, very fond of cats.
Needless to say I have not been able to do or think about anything else much, so this issue of Story Street is going to be a tribute to Mum. Without question she was the source of my creativity, and I am very thankful to her. She was a teacher professionally, but also a poet, potter, papier-maché queen, puppeteer, playwright. In short, she was an inspiration.
Here she is with me as a baby. I seem to be sporting some impressively frilly knickers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she made them herself. And just look how glamorous she is in the picture below from the 1950s (she’s second from right, with my aunt in the centre). It’s highly likely she made that beautiful dress too.
Mum brought me and my sister up to be makers right from the start. She had a healthy scorn for ‘craft kits’.
“We don’t need that,” she’d say, “We’ll do it our own way.” And we did.
We had drawers full of interesting fabrics to sew with, scrap paper to draw on, nasturtium seeds to plant, and encouragement to try things out and be inventive rather than following anyone else’s rules. We were very lucky.
I remember some thrilling projects. Once, we had some polystyrene packaging, and Mum heated a skewer to a glowing red on the gas stove, then sliced it fearlessly into interesting shapes. Another time we had a tray of sand, and poked sharp objects into it. The tray was then filled with plaster of Paris, and when it was set hard we inverted it, brushed off the sand - and were left with a wonderful, textured moonscape.
I treasure this cat she carved in the 70s:
and my house is full of other things she made, ranging from papier maché pigs,
to ceramic goats on a mountain, and a Clanger crafted from an old sock when I was little and a huge fan of the TV show.
During lockdown, when Mum was in her late 80s, I had the idea to start a creative challenge on zoom because I thought she’d need something to keep her busy. Each week we picked a theme, and family members responded with whatever we had to hand - no shopping was possible, and we loved that constraint. We made wigs, puppets, dioramas, bridges, little houses, railways and more, using cereal boxes, sandpaper, knitting wool, old clothes…. All 20 of our challenges are still on YouTube if you’d like to take a look at what we made.
Each week we had barely ended the zoom call before Mum was getting ideas and gathering materials for the next challenge. She was brilliant at lateral thinking, and seeing possibilities in the most unlikely of objects - such as the old handbag that turned into a hippo hat.
Family Creative Challenge videos
Mum also made dozens of bags, masks and hats during that strange time when we weren’t allowed out. They were for key-workers, organised through Little ARK, and later she also made tactile books for the Clear Vision project. She created over many years a wildlife garden from wasteland at the London Museum of Water and Steam. She was absolutely unstoppable when given a project, and tackled all tasks with energy, imagination and skill.
Margaret Mackay Wallace was born on the outskirts of Glasgow in 1933. (It’s only in writing these words now that it occurs to me that’s why I’m so drawn to Orkney poet George Mackay Brown: we’re practically related!) Her father’s family were deep Scottish, going back many generations, and it’s her grandfather’s fiddle (made in Aberdeenshire in 1885) that I learned to play on - and still play nearly every day. After university Mum came to London and trained to be a teacher, and met my Dad at Scottish dancing (which would explain why I love a ceilidh so much, and so does my sister).
It’s been a comfort to me since Mum died to look through my diaries and remember funny or touching moments we shared. Here’s where we went to a school reunion and two of her former pupils came to say hello. (Mum used to make amazing soft toys for the school fairs).
I’ve been finding all sorts of conversations I’d forgotten. Mum had a healthy contempt for convention…
and a certain disrespect for revered figures: here we are watching the Coronation a couple of years ago…
She had no time for Trump or Putin - here we are enjoying political discussion over ice cream at Fouberts in Chiswick:
She loved feeding birds too - and I really wish we had done more to realise this plan…
The day after Mum died, I went out for a walk. And without thinking about it at all, my feet found their way into a department store, where I bought a new bra and had tea in the cafe. That’s when I realised: I was on a tribute outing. Mum LOVED department stores and often met her oldest friend in John Lewis where they’d do the ‘triple’ by going to THREE cafes. Here’s what happened when we went to the furniture department a couple of years ago looking for a new armchair:
That chair is DANGEROUSLY comfortable. Mum also loved bra shopping, and a few years ago bought one that she was so delighted with, she wrote it a poem. It was shortly before her birthday, and both me and my sister made her bra-themed cards that year.
When Mum moved into a care home a year ago they asked about her favourite things. I told them she loved listening to countertenor Hugh Cutting, male soprano Samuel Mariño (you can see them singing together here), watching early episodes of crime drama ‘Shetland’ (while Dougie Henshall was still in it), Charlie Bigham’s fish pie, and kittens. Thanks to her ipad, she was able to listen to lots of music at the home, and there was even a ‘pet therapy’ day where kittens (and rabbits and guinea pigs) were brought in for handling.
She had been diagnosed with dementia. Her words disappeared with frightening rapidity, but she still understood and enjoyed hearing stories about her own life. Luckily, around nine years ago I sat down with each of my parents and made a PDF of their life story. I am SO glad I did. Reading extracts of this memoir to her always brought a smile, and it felt like giving her a little bit of herself back each time I visited.
If you have an ageing relation, I heartily recommend talking to them about their life story, and writing it down. Don’t put it off, do it this weekend! I learned so many interesting things along the way too - for instance at university, Mum had a boyfriend called Robert Burns.
A lovely illustrator friend asked me to tell her all about Mum a couple of weeks ago - she was curious to know if that was where my creativity came from. “100%!” I said, and told her some stories to prove it. “No wonder creativity for you is your oxygen. It’s what you were fed,” she said, and that is so true. I actually feel a little bit suffocated whenever I have a few days when I can’t make anything - and I think Mum was the same.
Here we are in Devon a couple of years ago with my sister on the left. We were visiting Coleton Fishacre, and when we got back we had fun creating an imaginary character of that name. Mum even drew a picture of Sir Coleton, with handlebar moustache!
I’ll really miss Mum - her practical problem-solving, her unique take on life, her inventive mind. I’ll miss showing her things I’ve made, talking about family history, and looking at old photos (here she is looking at an album with my daughter):
One thing that has been an enormous comfort these last few weeks is reading old family letters - we have a HUGE boxful, including some Mum wrote to her parents as a new student in the early 50s, and others that my Dad received from his parents as a young man. I was really amused to see these notes on the back - he must have left them as messages to his flat-mates. ‘Gone to sea, back Thurs’ sounds like the kind of thing Moominpapa would have written, but Dad really did frequently go to sea as a young marine engineer.
Well, I’ve spent the last month thoroughly steeped in the past - but jumping right to the present, Hourly Comics Day is fast approaching! I’ve just discovered it’s now the 8th, not the 1st February, though I might do a warm-up today anyway as I have some interesting adventures planned. You can find out all about it, and the reason for the date change, with this button:
Last time I mentioned I was going to write a ‘Story Street Special’ about my take on the picture book industry. Well, that got derailed by events - but it will come, I promise.
Make sure you’re subscribed for this, and more. See you next time! And if you’re with family in reach of Herne Hill, south London, on Saturday 7th, February, do come along to my session at Stepping into Stories. It’s at 11am, booking details through the link below - and do check out all the other brilliant author/illustrator events that are part of the festival.
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