A Lot To Answer For And Ballater

So we have Bill Cosby, one of my favourite TV dad's. The all American dad, the man in fuzzy sweaters who could make anything funny, is now accused of rape.
 
Not by one woman, or another woman who 'jumped on the band wagon' as some internet trolls like to call victims, but a slew of women working in the business. What does Bill do? He refuses to discuss it. Refusing to speak seems like the best way to avoid discussion. It has been used a million times historically, the best way to avoid a situation is to 'not talk about it' according to Bill.
 
When my daughter was four I caught her throwing talcum down the toilet, the whole thing splattered the loo and the floor. She didn't want to talk about it. I accepted she knew it was wrong as she was four years old and slunk off looking for a teddy bear to be her lawyer who would assure her 'not talking about it' was a great defence. Her face spoke volumes.
 
Bill Cosby's face on the latest Associated Press's video looks much of the same. Except Bill never threw talcum about the toilet to resemble the final scene of Scarface, he is accused of raping multiple victims.
 
When will he speak out? The New York Daily News printed a front cover today saying "It's Time For America's Dad To Talk" so it's not going away.....come on Bill. Speak.
 
I am currently writing this blog from Ballater, me and my pal Shirley are having a week at the timeshare lodge at Craigendarroch. It's basically a huge complex of country lodges beside a big hotel with a swimming pool nestled on the hill above Ballater. It's Royal country, all the shops vie for who has the biggest royal seal of approval above their wee blue door. There are faded photos in windows of Diana clutching a bag of dolly mixtures as she heads towards a car and a wonderful museum dedicated to Queen Victoria in the now defunct railway station, full of wax models and mock up royal train. Very cutesy.
 
I think it must be hard to survive as a business in these small villages, so fair play to them. I love the village of Ballater I have to say. The butcher's has the best meat on the planet and the shops are stocked with everything from gun cleaning fluid to fags and tartan hedgehogs.
 
Me and Shirley have been doing art projects, I love painting and drawing and she has been joining in and encouraging me to draw things I normally feel is out with my talent scope. I even did a landscape and auctioned it on Twitter and raised £150 for Loaves and Fishes food bank in Glasgow. Am very proud and thanks to Stephen K Amos, the food bank got some well deserved cash.
 
The silence is wonderful, and the scenery is stunning. I go and swim most days and just lie in the warm pool and float about, so swimming is a very elaborate excuse for what it is I actually do in the pool.
 
I am missing Ashley, husband and my dad of course but the break is brilliant.
 
Shirley on the other hand, despite being a good pal likes to scare me. She has done this in all the places we stayed from London to Boston. She can stand still in a dark corner for ages just to jump out at me...I battered my arm off the door to the sauna the other night when she did it. Yes, we have a sauna and Jacuzzi in the lodge.
 
I don't like sauna's as to me they are one step above water boarding.
 
We sit out at night on the balcony in the dense darkness and can hear nothing but some birds or animal or something making a weird noise, but it's lovely. I always look at Shirley to make sure it isn't her cawing to scare me, but it's not.
 
Days pass in a lovely haze of swimming, eating and sleeping surrounded by brilliant autumnal colours blazing through the windows and laughing with my pal.
 
This is the perfect time to relax before the busy Christmas period and as we have had this lodge for 28 years, I recall Ashley as a toddler throwing talcum down the toilet in the lodge. Ah...happy memories.
So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans.

Sorry my blog's have been less regular than promised...been hectic.



 

Dapper Laughs and Julien Blanc.

In 1979, I recall walking into work in my boyfriend’s dad's pub in the notorious area of The Calton in Glasgow. There seemed to be not many street lights outside and it felt very dark. The pub was full of drunk, young and old men. The only woman in there (other than me) was an ancient old prostitute who sat alone singing into her glass as the guys looked on laughing.

This was the same bar in the early 80s where some of its regulars had gang raped another drunk vulnerable woman and after getting bored with her, slashed her flesh so much that she almost died. Nicholas Fairbairn the infamous politician had to resign as he declared her gang rape and assault as 'not worthy of a trial' as she was a 'damaged woman'. It took a kind hearted lawyer to bring the first civil law suit to jail my customers and they served prison time. It was the Carol X case. Her rapists were guys who drank in my bar.

What am trying to say is some of the Glasgow men back then in The Calton didn't really respect women much. I witnessed this every day in that bar. Women were treated with utter disdain, abuse and I even witnessed women running away from the 'grabbing' men who all laughed heartily at their 'attempted assault'. The guys openly discussed the size of my breasts and sometimes when I ventured out into the main bar area to clear up they would make an effort to curtail their behaviour as my boyfriend's dad was not to be messed with, so I effectively was 'off limits'. I was safe.

Yet I was constantly shocked at the way they spoke about women, for example I had a guy in our bar who used to say he "Tarzaned" women, which was a reference to Tarzan grabbing a woman and swinging her away. 'Tarzaned' can be equally read as raped. Things slowly changed, the area changed, lots of those original guys became heroin addicts and were now not so cocky and either died or faded away or just gave up on life.

The 80s came along and new customers with families and jobs and self employed business's started using the pub and they weren't as 'grabby' or sexist or misogynistic as their predecessors.

But there was still an element of old school sexism in the air. Good news was - it was changing.

It's 2014 and we now have Dapper Laughs and Julien Blanc in the media telling us how to grab women by the throat for a dating technique or  openly laughing at women and asking to 'smell their gash' and generally being demeaned by men in groups. I thought that was done.

 I had hoped the term 'Tarzaned' was an isolated Glasgow urban myth....but its back and people now pay to hear it. Maybe I should open a 1979 theme bar and have men grabbing women as blokes laugh at the hilarity and we can have Dapper Laughs Vines on a loop, girls can giggle as they are throttled near the juke box and women can scream with pleasure at being noticed as they try to hide the smell of their gash near the boys!

Or men like Dapper Laughs and Julien Blanc can grow the fuck up and people who pay to see them can realise that one day their own daughters, sisters and female pals will suffer from this perpetuated 'lad syndrome' and maybe one day if things change WOMEN ONE DAY can walk into a bar without fear or humiliation from badly raised stupid men.

So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans.

Sorry my blog's have been less regular than promised...been hectic.

Booking a Comedy Club...hence am a promoter!

Wild Cabaret is a stunning venue in Glasgow's Merchant city.

Not your usual comedy venue that boasts a dark cellar and angry hipster barman whose girlfriend looks like a Govan version of Uma Thurman and they argue every time you try to introduce a nervous new comedian or he decides his 'mates band' are playing that night, just when you get a decent following.

The carpet doesn't smell weirdly of a deep clean from folk in hazmat suits or even stick to your feet and they have more than an angle poise lamp to light up the stage.....and you get paid in cash on the night! Weird eh?

What is going on with all this professionalism Godley? I hear you ask.

Well Glasgow boasts great comedy nights and there should be sticky carpets and angry barmen and weird lighting, that's how comedy works as well, trust me, it's where I learned my stripes playing.

But Wild Cabaret in Candleriggs is a bona fide cabaret venue with proper posh food and waiters who walk about so well dressed I constantly think they own the joint and keep suggesting new ideas about comedy to their confused faces as they try to take orders. They ignore me and smile. Bless them. I love the place.

It can be a hard thing introducing comedy to folk who are trying to order truffle laden ox blood marrow boned sausages. You are trying to explain a story about mild near death masturbation as they whisper "medium rare please" but we are getting there.

Am joking about the sausages but not about the masturbation joke as there is a white rope above the stage for those folk who dress like cats and do cabaret at the weekend, which I am assured is awesome and it keeps triggering my joke about men who choke themselves during a 'pleasure session'. Some people laugh.

Some Thursday's it's full other times it's not as busy, but we are getting a good solid crowd and it's my job to programme it and am rubbish at that part. I don't mean we haven't had good comics but I wake up at 4am in tangled sheet panicking that I haven't booked any acts that week and so grab my phone and check again and again.

Scottish comics have emailed me suggesting their availability and I forget to put them into a file to get back to them, so now people think I don't like them and you know how well liked I am to begin with, it's a vicious circle.

I am trying to make sure I get everyone on, the pay isn't stunning but at least in these climes of comedy clubs being crap at paying people, you get cash on the night.

I forget every week to announce the line up on social media and then I remember and hastily send it out 500 times just to make sure am annoying people all over the world as well as at home.

The owner of the club is brilliant and takes on board all the suggestions I come up with and even has posters of my giant face around the city centre on bill boards. 

The staff are fabulous and move between the tables like members of the CIA taking orders and rarely shake a cocktail when folk are onstage, in fact one barman shakes his thing in the side kitchen for convenience and often makes cocktails in there as well (BOOM BOOM).

We have awesome deals on like the £15 (was £30) two course meal with a glass of wine AND comedy ticket for Thursday nights. That's a cracking deal eh? If you just want comedy its £8 and you sit on beautiful seats or in a stunning booth!

There are no sight line problems and the toilets are fabulous and don't double up as the acts room, we have a great green room back stage with our own loo.

The problem is, trying to merge posh food and a beautiful room with stand up...they can be weird bedfellows but I don't see why it can't happen.

Why does comedy club food have to be fried and flung at you with cheap cutlery and plastic glasses?

Why can't we eat salmon mousse from beautiful plates and drink from crystal glasses and still laugh?

We will and we ARE! So come down to Wild Cabaret JUST COMEDY on a Thursday night, you will see half price offers on facebook and twitter.

I will be the frazzled panicky woman staring at a white rope above the stage trying to avoid a strangly wank joke.
 
So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans.

Sorry my blog's have been less regular than promised...been hectic.

Swearing

Picture the scene, I walk out of a gig at Edinburgh fringe, it's raining and am laughing and saying goodbye to some folks and I get straight into a cab as someone shouts "Loved the show Janey" and the taxi driver asks "Are you a comedian?" I reply quite proudly "Yes I am" and I forgot in my elation that I usually don't speak about comedy in taxi's as I know what he is going to say next...I forgot and before I could think another thing I heard him say the inevitable "Do you swear?".
 

I have my stock answer "I don't swear anymore than the male comics or less than the local priest".
 

That usually makes them look into their mirror and then I hear him say "Ah...your one of those feminist women" as if the only way I could possibly answer them back is because I have a political agenda and some buckwheat sandals that I wear as I breastfeed foundlings on my lactating pendulous braless titties.
 

"No more a feminist than most of the male comics but usually more than the local priest, have you ever asked a male comic if he swears?" I add and hopefully this will end this painfully awkward corner we have talked our way into.
 

I just pull on my headphones (always great to get out of these situations) and nod to music as he mouths some shit I cannot hear but his eyebrows look knotted and angry.
 

I don't know why 'swearing' is something that female's have to be told not to do. Is it really that bad? Has anyone ever really hated Kevin Bridges, Frankie Boyle and Billy Connolly's language onstage to the point where they discuss with a pursed mouth?
 

Dara O'Briain says the word 'Feck' live on television, we all know it means 'fuck' does Dara get belittled for being an uneducated ill-informed swearer? No, he doesn't he is one of Ireland's most intelligent funny men.
 

So it is a class issue? I have seen very well spoken middle class English women swear in comedy and somehow it is more acceptable, especially if said by 'apparent slip of the tongue' or by the medium of a 'puppet' (see Nina Conti's filthy mouthed Monkey).
 

Does my swearing sound worse because I am a working class Scottish woman?
 

If I was a Oxbridge graduate swearing onstage would it be seen as 'urban and gritty' like a hipster getting angry at a flat tyre but in my accent does it sound really harsh and filthy and all you hear is a slovenly washer woman taking us back years with her filthy language?
 

Recently I attended a "Vote Yes" event for Scottish creative's.
 

All lovely people, authors, musicians in a Glasgow basement.
 

The male author swore, the musician had some choice language in his songs and not a word was spoken, but the female (who spouts the values a gender equality independence group) got up to introduce me she told the audience...
 

"Next up is comedian Janey Godley, she might use offensive language so if you are easily offended, please bear this in mind".


I walked to the stage so angry. I know she didn't do it to hurt me but despite being part of a gender equality group she was hardwired to apologise for a woman before that woman spoke. She never apologised after the men onstage swore. I never got that chance. The audience were told I was probably going to be offensive.
 

One day this will end.
 

So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans.
 

Edinburgh and the rain

Edinburgh and the rain
 
The rain featured heavily at this year's fringe festival, it was everywhere and everyone was talking about it. Bloody rain, doesn't need to pay PR yet gets front page news and was the word of mouth around town. I saw the rain ruin my favourite Underbelly's VIP bar The Abattoir. Am sad.

 
You see it doesn't matter how many minor royals attended your house party- the Scottish rain will batter you and soak your temporary garden centre for artistic type smokers and it will do it relentlessly until your ceilings bow and pretty girls in tea dresses and men in winged collars and top hats have to sit on a damp chaise lounge. I sat there as the water ran down my sad face near a petrified stuffed fox and wonky piano. It left me with trenchfoot.
 

It's Scottish rain, it's a sign of freedom, it will never stop until we all grow gills.
 

It also completely soaked the mock Tudor castle pancake/burger area at Gilded Balloon. People sat near a fake English roundhead soldier/archer in his plywood castle (no idea what that has to do with the Gilded Balloon or comedy) and they ate noodles smattered with rain.
 

It wasn't fun anymore and nobody could control it.
 

The BBC Potterow area was drenched, like the Scottish clouds somehow knew that hardly any Scottish comics featured on their big live line up shows in our own capital city and so in one last attempt at sticking two fingers up to the London BBC - it pissed gallons of water on it. Like Salmond himself was standing atop a monstrous inflatable sheep and emptying his giant bladder over the soft southern media types who insist in their blogs that we still eat deep fried mars bars and can't impregnate a panda.
 

The rain was awesome this year, am going to even say it was a mark of feminism (just to ensure some click bait).
 

But this was the year of THE FREE SHOWS.
 

Finally we witnessed the tremors of tingly fear of losing money from the big venue owners (this sleepless fear is normally assigned to comedians who are brought here by big London Agencies who ensure they are indentured slaves for the next six years as they work off their Edinburgh debt).
 

Yes some shows sold out fine, the ones with people 'aff the telly' and 'famous and young looking' did as well as can be expected. But the hundreds of other peripheral shows that prop up the rent/staff charges and are the backbone of the actual artistic end of the fringe (depending on your view) did not get the audience it expected. The FREE SHOWS were there to plug the gap.
 

The Free Shows were heaving and buckets were full of brown coloured Scottish notes. I went round 7 free shows on a Monday night, they were busy and watched comics rake in £90-£800 on a weekday night.
 

The BBC Potterow is also a 'free show' as it cannot charge for tickets therefore it's all day events sucked in thousands of people daily to its many shows. Their pay off is "we showcase many artists on the fringe and encourage people to attend shows" yes...but not if you are a Scottish comedian as they rarely had any of my Scottish comedy contemporary's on -but maybe Scottish people's licence fee cash isn't important to BBC? Who knows?
 

Some canny eagle eyed pundits of the fringe have said that many Scots in this year of referendum went up to The Stand ( a Scottish stalwart on the circuit and all year round Scottish comedy club) and spent their money there, in an act of spending their political pound - whilst they still have it.
 

I would like to find out if there is any truth in that theory and ask if the 'other side of town' got as much rain as the Bristo square area as a backup for the answer.
 

Me? I don't think it has anything to do with the referendum. I think for many years the fringe had outgrown its tag as the 'slightly edgy brother' to the elitist Edinburgh Festival and now has became too corporate for its own good (this has been said for many years now).
 

So organically as always happens in the 'arts' the FREE SHOWS have spawned their own 'freedom of expression and free to you' events and they have award winning comics to back it up.
 

When I mentioned FREE SHOWS on social media, people got back to me and said things like "I saw great shows and utter crap in the big paid venues but at least in the FREE SHOWS you can decide if you pay for that crap".
 

Some big venue owners have hit back with an amazing 'good question’.
 

"Well how do we know the comics collecting all that bucket cash are paying tax on it?"
 

My answer is two fold- if you are worried about the morals of comedians paying tax then make sure you never hire a comic who has a specific tax lawyer on their pay roll. That should salve your tax moral dilemma problems right there.
 

Secondly, who are you to worry about who is paying tax? Is this your new job?
 

So there we have it. Tax worries/ ticket worries and rain.
 

Next year after many years at paid venues I am coming to the fringe with a FREE SHOW.
 

A few reasons, we already do a podcast and ask for donations every week and the investment from people is amazing. Also I have noticed that my audience over the years are mainly older people (which is cool) with younger folk assuming my comedy is not accessible for them.
 

The other reason is, I want to support the FREE SHOWS and see how that grows up against the 'Fringe Festival'. Social media has changed everything, we can let people know where the gig is and even have a paypal link for shows? Who knows?
 

I think the FREE SHOWS would open me up to a wider age group with younger people taking more of a chance and if you listened to our podcast 'Janey Godley's Podcast' you would know my comedy is ageless and not some cupcake, knitting catalogue of grumpy observations.


So there we have it. Tremors have been felt, next year "we need a new business model for the fringe" is the latest buzz phrase.
I think we need a roof.
 

So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans.
 

My dad

"I just don't feel right" My dad says to me. I know he doesn't feel right, he stupidly got old and unlike most of my family he has managed to stay alive until the age of 82, I say 'stupidly' got old as that's what being old is...a bloody stupid yet amazing thing.

We start decaying the minute we are born, we are basically human croissants and we all have a shelf life, I myself look like I am slowly defrosting, I can see it in the mirror.

"Those neighbours killed my cat" he splutters. "Dad it was their cat and he got old and sick, he just was a constant visitor and liked your carpet to rub his back on" I remind him.

"Well he was my friend as well and now he is dead" Dad says as he gets out his fresh cotton hankie to rub his nose. My dad doesn't do 'paper hankies' they are for stupid people and ignorant folk that probably kill cats that like visiting my dad.

Dad has his own funny way of doing things and I have realised that as his 'carer' and daughter, I have to not change those things. He will for example never stop collecting dead batteries, pens and junk mail and stuffing them in drawers. They are 'his' drawers and he has ever right to stuff them with dud light bulbs and tiny screws that I have no idea where they originated from. I suspect the tiny wee screws come from the broken spectacles he collects or they belong to the tiny people who live under the stairs and are waiting to head back to Lilliput as soon as they get them back.

 I have no idea why he needs to rip off the bit of red tape I have secured to his remote control to remind him where the volume buttons are, but I know he likes to call me five times a day that he can't work his TV.

His penchant for snipping the cuffs of all his socks as they "dig into my ankles", drives me insane, he cannot be convinced of the fact that Lycra exists and he doesn't have swollen of fat ankles!

So he now has 40 pairs of baggy ankle socks that look tatty.

My father has a collection of fancy baseball hats that would rival 50 cent or Jay Z and refuses to throw any of them out. One of his favourites is a Compton hat that has basically a Los Angeles gang slogan on it, he loves that one the most. He refuses to wear old man 'bunnets' like other old men, not for him the tartan checked flat cap, he prefers his gang totting rap gangsta hat to head to the doctors for his blood works to get checked. He likes a dapper waistcoat and refuses to take it off even in blistering heat.

He still makes a face when the Germans and Japanese are mentioned, having lost one brother in WWII and another brother who spent many years in a Japanese POW camp, he doesn't forget these things easily. Yet has a deep hatred of racism and shouts at the UKIP party when they grace his TV screen. Then he tries desperately to turn the volume down and calls me to 'fix his telly' when he can't figure it out.

My dad has a story about being an evacuee during WWII and it is utterly heart wrenching and makes me proud of the Granny that raised him as she basically rescued him from an evil farmer. Every day when I see him, he has a new story to tell me and I will never stop being amazed at his sparky spirit.

 

"So dad tell me why you don't feel right?" I asked him.

He looked at me and said "I think my socks are too tight, can you get me the scissor box out of the drawer so I can snip the ankle cuffs off?"

So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans.

I Am My Mother's Daughter

"Mammy, can I have ice cream?" I was stood outside a shop in my home town of Shettleston pointing at the Walls Ice Cream display as the scorching sun slowly melted the tar on the pavement and stuck to my brown plastic sandals.


My mammy shot her head round, like a gun had gone off and gave me the stare that said 'Do not ask for stuff in front of people when you know I have no money' I was six years old, I knew the rules, but the sun was so hot and the ice lolly looked so inviting I thought I would take a massive leap of faith and imagine she had money for ice cream in her purse. The thought of sucking on a fruity iced lolly made me almost hallucinate with excitement. I stood there with my angry frequently vicious dog Major, gripping his red leash in my sweaty hand.


My mammy's bristling anger could be physically felt as she carried on talking to the woman, even Major's tail dipped between his legs and he whined, and he was scared of nothing. I was in trouble, there was no way I could argue my way out of this. In fact you couldn't argue with this, we didn't argue with our parents.


You see back in the 60s we didn't know tantrums existed, wee poor working class kids thought 'tantrums' were imaginary, like DisneyWorld, we knew it might be a real thing, it might exist but we didn't know anyone who had gone there. We didn't know kids who screamed at their mammy to get what they wanted by kicking or swearing at her, that didn't exist in our life time, that was something drunk daddies did when they came home from the pub and spent the next day really sorry.


Who shouts at their mum? Nobody unless you had a mental illness or a death wish. As kids in the poor inner cities of working class Glasgow (which was all I knew) we never went against our mammies wishes, we knew she was poor and couldn’t buy stuff willy nilly and we also knew that everyone was pretty much in the same boat.


I once saw a girl with ribbons in her hair push a really expensive shiny dolls pram and asked my mum "Can I get a doll's pram like that?"


Mammy laughed out loud and said "Her mummy only had one child, if you want I will have another two and you can push them all you like in a real pram, and I will have more babies to love" then she wrapped her coat tightly around her skinny frame and walked off laughing. I was in a state of shock, I was the youngest child of four and didn't want a new baby in our house and immediately burst into tears, my mammy turned round and shouted "Changed your mind Janey?" and hugged me. My mammy used psychological powers to dissuade me wanting stuff.


It was the same with food, you got served ‘a dinner’ and if you didn't like that style of food you ate bread and jam, as my mammy didn't cater for six people's individual culinary tastes.


Back in the those days, you ate turnip, potatoes, butter beans and a wee bit of cheap meat, if you refused to eat that you were made to feel like a spoiled prince who killed his own people with a pointed spear to the eye. Someone at our table would immediately take it off you and pick away at it and you went to bed hungry. Quite rightly so, who could afford multi menus in the 60s?


The reason I bring this up is I witness on my daily travels -young kids scream and demand stuff from parents. Maybe the kids have behavioural problems but they all can't have that! I accept some do, but the sheer cheek and indolence they serve up to their parents shock me, maybe am getting old.


I recall Ashley bringing home some friends from school, they were about ten years old. One girl asked me could they eat crisps before dinner and I simply said "No" and carried on making the pasta. The wee girl pleaded in a mock whiney voice "Please, please pretty please" just then I heard Ashley whisper "Don't do that my mum doesn't like that, she said no and that means no" I smiled as  I knew I was finally my mother's daughter.


So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans.

Are we Humans Addiction and Attitudes ?

It was a busy day Friday 30th January, I called my 82 year old dad, like I do every day, there was no answer on his landline and he lives alone.


My heart clenched, I called his mobile trying hard to stem images of him lying at the bottom of his stairs in a crumpled heap, he quickly answered and I could tell he was in a busy 'outside' place.


He informed me he had got in a cab to go get a 'much needed haircut' his words. He is practically bald but let's not get into silly details, he basically escaped into the freezing cold with a thin jacket and a walking stick, the stick was tokenism (he uses it as a street pigeon sword not as a walking aid).


I told him to stay put, I was coming to meet him, I chose my words, for saying "I am coming to get you" makes him annoyed. I can see why, he fights for his basic independence and I get that, imagine you had a sign up at your door that said "DO NOT GO OUT ALONE" and you didn't have any other illness other than being a bit wobbly and old? You would fight that eh?


Anyway I jump out of the car at the shopping area, the sleety rain slashing me sideways, I leapt over flooded pavements and got into the barbers. It's a proper wee old Glasgow mans barber and there were four old blokes cutting four older blokes hair in a small room. I rushed in and quickly scanned the faces...no dad.


"Excuse me, was there a wee man just in, probably wearing a waistcoat, tie and suit combo?" I blurted out.


My mouth was dry, where was my dad? Was he lying in a street face down in a puddle surrounded by pecking pigeons bleeding from a head wound as the sleet landed on his dead body?


The barber closest to me smiled and said "Was that a wee dapper bloke with a lovely smile and ..."
I shouted interrupting him "My dad, where is he, was he here? Shut up with the long winded story..wee man in a waistcoat?" My frantic eyes must have been swinging wildly round the room.


The old men all look scared, I wasn't up for barber chit chat....where is my dad? The bloke behind him wielding a comb over a pensioners head quickly said "Your dad was here, just left two minutes ago."


I ran as I banged the door behind me and spotted the MacDonald's beside the barbers and ran full pelt nearly knocking people over at the bus stop. Where was my dad, was he lying in the car park? Was that family of foxes that reside there eating him? Then through the big glass windows I spot him, sitting banging his mobile off the table with a wee red face and very shiny head. Through the doors I go.


"Dad" I shout and he looked up.


"This mobile is rubbish, I tried calling you am ready to batter it to bits" he yelled as he ripped the phone off his neck and shoved it at me.


"Dad, why didn't you call me and I would have taken you to the barbers, its freezing out there and am worried" I blurt out.


He looked at me with his twinkly blue eyes that belie his 82 years and said "Janey, I once ripped up the cinema seats when a Bill Haley film came to the cinema in Shettleston so I could make room for the women dancing, I drove a tank in National Service and spent my childhood hiding from German bombs, if I want to go for a haircut nobody will stop me." He is right.


I am glad he still has that spiky streak inside him, he recently recovered from a stroke and I suppose I should be grateful for his determined grit, as I am my father's daughter. As we drove dad home, he pressed the button to play the radio and by utter coincidence my comedy monologue was on BBC Scotland. Dad sat quietly chuckling away at my story about an elderly woman in Glasgow "you are funny you know" he said.


The day got better, my daughter Ashley could finally announce that her radio sitcom pilot has been commissioned and it was her one year anniversary of doing stand-up comedy as well. Both of us were onstage at night on different parts of the city.


I was at Glasgow Jongleurs and the crowd were amazing, I had a great night. I love the home crowd and after the show, I stood outside waiting on my lift home. It was still very cold and the icy rain slashed at my face.


The people outside the club were gathering as the show was over, at that moment a small skinny guy in a thin jacket wandered over to me. He stood shivering and whispered something in my direction.


"Excuse me, I can't hear you come closer" I said. He walked nearer, he had sores round his mouth and his eyes were dead looking. "Can you spare me some change, sorry for asking" he said.


Now, I don't know nor care for anyone else's policy on the street beggars but I always ask them their name and offer a few coins, as it's my money and I don't care if they spend it on drugs, as I used to own a pub and never told alcoholics how to spend their cash and in Scotland booze kills more people than drugs.


"My name is Davey" he mumbled and thanked me for the cash. He then moved very discreetly onto the crowd coming out of the comedy gig and a few guys shouted and pushed him away being really abusive. "Ya Junkie, beat it" they yelled.


Well, my hackles went up. I stepped into the crowd and grabbed Davey by the arm and put him behind me and shouted "Guys, really? This is how you treat people? You don't have to give him money but you don't have to give him abuse, he is someone's son, his mistakes are his business but don't abuse him."


The wee crowd immediately noticed the wee woman in the big parka was the woman just off stage and they all wanted to tell me how much they enjoyed the show. They forgot about Davey and drunkenly wanted to shake my hand and be nice which is cool but I was still annoyed at the abuse he got.


"Thanks for enjoying my comedy but please don't abuse this wee guy or any other homeless or person begging on our streets, please be a wee but humane eh?" I asked them. To their defence they apologised and Davey slopped off into the rain, shivering. My heart was like a brick in my chest, I know you can't fix people and you can't cure the begging and drugs etc, but you can be polite and humane can't you? My brother and my cousin both died as a result of drug addiction and half my relatives were alcoholics, it affect us all.


I got my lift home and wondered how Ashley got on at her gig four streets away. It was a gig that had a predominately a gay audience.


She came home 40 minutes later and told me she had a brilliant time onstage, she was glowing as she told me all about it and was buzzing, I know that feeling and I smiled as she recounted the show. Then she added "Mum, a wee guy in a thin jacket wandered round and was begging outside the gig and he was so cold looking and had sores on his face, I gave him some change and the gay guys from the audience were so kind to him as well, one of them gave him gloves and a scarf."


You see humanity exists in Glasgow, they may not be the same as us, they may have different life choices but the homeless and the beggars on the street don't deserve to be abused, you can ignore them, you can step over them, you can get concerned if they are Eastern European begging gangs...I get that... but please don't abuse them. When famous people die of drug addiction, the world views it so differently and there are outpourings of 'wasted life' well, they are ALL wasted lives then. It takes us all to make a wee difference.


So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans.

A Christmas Shelter

"Mammy, look there's Santa" the wee girl said as she stared at the big tinsel dressed window. One mitten fell off her hand and she struggled between the leather clad shoes and big boots to pick it up, a red mitten trampled into the slush and snow, her wee white fingers snatched it up and shook it fiercely, 'don't let mammy know it's wet' she thought, mammy is sad today. Her mother was busy trying to push the big pram with William wrapped up inside, through the crushing city centre, full of people with boxes, and bags all getting ready for Christmas day. Wee Julia wanted to run up to Lewis's window and take in all the colours, look at the dancing toys, the Tippy Tumble dolls, the Hula Hoops the lights, but she knew her mammy was upset and in a hurry to go somewhere.


"Come on Julia" her mammy shouted as the wheels of the big pram slid and slipped through the dirty slushy snow that had been churned by the many Glaswegians who flocked to the city centre to get their shopping done. The lights in the city were fascinating to Julia, the red and green flashes glinting off the chrome suspension of the pram as she gripped on tight with a damp red mitten. "Where are we going mammy?" Julia asked...secretly hoping her mammy would say 'Santa, we are going to see him and let you sit on his knee and get William a big car and a doll for you' but she knew that wasn't what was happening.


Last week when her daddy never came home and the women up the same close gathered round and hugged mammy and made her tea, she knew something bad was happening. In her stomach there was that tight feeling, it was the same feeling when she wet the bed in the night, a slow scary feeling of life draining away. It was her 'daddy and the drinking' she heard Mrs Woods say so, and mammy just sat there with William on her knee. Mrs Woods let Julia into her house to see the American man land on the moon in the summer time, she was a nice woman who made big dumplings and gave them to mammy, now she was holding mammy as she cried. Maybe daddy wasn't coming home this time, he promised her a budgie from Santa. Would she still get a budgie?


"Can you move the pram please" an angry red faced woman shouted at Julia's mum as they tried to cross the road at the bottom of Argyle Street. Julia's mum grabbed her mitten hand and tried to get the big pram across the busy road but all the blankets and bags underneath and on top were making it hard to push in the snow. Julia was scared of the busy traffic.


After what felt like hours, they made their way right up into the West End of Glasgow with the snow slashing into them sideways. Julia vaguely recognised the streets, she remembered her Granny McClure lived up here, she was her daddy's mammy and had a big front door house with a garden. She was scared of her Granny McClure, she wasn't like Mrs Woods who hugged and kissed you and let you pet her wee dog Prince. Granny was skinny, angry and wore fancy shoes that made loud clacking noises on the tiled kitchen floor where she seemed to keep Julia and William sat when they came to visit. Julia hadn't seen the rest of the house but she knew it smelled of floor polish.


Julia's mum bumped the big pram up the five white washed stairs at the front of the house, the two white columns that stood either side of the broad mahogany door were entwined in thick vicious looking holly leaves and a tall tree twinkled in the big bay window. "Look mammy, a big tree!" Julia clapped her damp mittens in excitement, but her mammy was too busy trying to keep the bundles of clothes from falling out of the pram.


Julia bit on her wet mittens as she watched her mammy fix her brown coat and quickly drag a hair grip into the side of head where the brown curls escaped, her mammy had beautiful curly hair, but it looked messy and damp today.


Her mammy lifted the door knocker and rapped on the door. Julia felt scared, she didn't know why, but her mammy's nervousness was spreading to her, why was her mammy worried?


At that moment William screamed and tried to sit up, but the bundles of clothes seemed to be suffocating him. Julia's mammy quickly pulled them off the top of the pram and eased the fat faced baby up into a sitting position as the door was flung open wide.


A formidable thin woman in a pink two piece cardigan set and calf length tweed skirt stood staring at them. Her hair was set in tight curls and her glasses were perched on her sharp nose.


"You need to call me before you visit Eileen, I have the church ladies round for tea" the woman spoke with a hint of venom as she quickly looked over her shoulder and stepped outside and closed the door behind her.


"Donald has left me and the kids are hungry Elizabeth, he is your son and these are your own grand children, we have nowhere to go and he spent the last of his wages on the drink, we have been evicted" Julia's mammy said quickly but with more conviction Julia had ever seen her use when she spoke to Granny McClure. Julia stared up at her granny and smiled, she reached out one damp mitten, took the woman's hand and said "can I see your big tree Granny?"


The thin woman recoiled and shook off Julia's hand and hissed " You listen to me Eileen, I told him not to marry you and get involved in your drunken Irish family, this is not my problem, Donald is up in Inverness now staying with my sister, he deserves a better start in life, go back to Donegal and find your own kind" and with that she slammed the door.


Eileen, Julia and William walked through the streets of Glasgow until night time came. The Christmas lights twinkled down and the people spilled out of pubs and folk were heading home to their warm hearths. Julia watched her mammy make some phone calls from the big train station in Glasgow and finally sit down on the benches and wrap both her and William up in the blankets. Julia climbed into the pram with her brother and even though she was too big, they cuddled up together.


Eileen sat homeless and cold in Central Station that night, and as the Salvation Army played Christmas carols to the people thronging back and forth, she pulled her brown coat around her body and pulled out the dumplings wrapped in greaseproof paper to feed the kids in the pram.


"Excuse me, you can't sleep here with your pram missus" the policeman said. Eileen blinked and slowly pulled herself to her feet and quickly grabbed her bags "sorry sir" she muttered and pushed the pram back out of the cavernous train station and its shelter from the driving snow.


"Hang on" he said as she tried hard to stop the pram from slipping from her grip into the main road.


Eileen didn't want to hang on, she knew full well a homeless Irish woman with two kids would only get the authorities onto her case and take her precious babies away. She skittered and slipped and tried to make off with as much grace and speed with a lumbering pram. The police man put his hand on her shoulder and Eileen froze, she wept silently and turned to face him.


The next thing Julia recalled she was in a bus in the early frozen morning light. She must have slept all night in the pram.


"Where are we mammy?" she asked as the bus bumped along and cut through the frozen countryside. Julia sat up and looked hard for red mittens in her wee duffel coat. William was sitting on her mammy's lap and eating a big slice of cold ham. Her mammy's face wasn't as tight and pinched, in fact her mammy looked happy for the first time in ages and was smiling at Julia. "We will be going on a big boat to Ireland and you are going to meet your Granny Coyle, she will be so happy to see you both."


"Does she have a big tree like Granny McClure?" Julia asked.


Her mammy smiled and hugged her close, she put William over her shoulder and patted his back and stared across the snow covered fields near the ferry terminal.


It was a frozen night in Glasgow on December 2013, the young woman with brown curly hair pulled on her red mittens as she wrapped a big coat round her and crunched into the frozen snow and headed towards the West End. Her friends waved her off and made promises to meet up later at The University Cafe on the Byres Road. The snow came at her sideways but her strong legs kept her going.


She walked up to the big brown door and smiled at the glittering tinsel covering the white portico and heard footsteps in the hallway as she banged on the door knocker. It was all newly painted, just renovated and ready for the coldest season.

A wee elderly woman with curly hair and soft round cheeks opened the door holding a plate of steaming dumpling.


"Granny Eileen, am here to help out." The young woman said as her granny pulled her in the warm hallway "We've got a full house tonight Maggie, lots of people needing a hot meal and a warm bed." the old woman said indicating the bustling sitting room and crowded dining room either side of her.


"Can I see the big tree first Granny?" Young Maggie asked, her face lighting up just as her mothers had done all those years ago, her Mitten covered had reaching out to her hard working Grandmother.


"Through in the big room, I've left the angel for you... away up that ladder and stick it on." Eileen said smiling, as she watched her tall granddaughter bounce, all long limbs and a daft grin, through the crowd of strangers to put the angel on the top of the tree.


Eileen turned wistfully to a brass plaque and pulled a duster from the waist of her apron, she rubbed the lettering carefully and couldn't help the small devious chuckle that emitted from her lips:
The Elizabeth McClure Homeless shelter, in honour of a Christian woman


"Merry Christmas you old cow." Eileen uttered before clearing her throat and turning back to her house full of 'guests' "Right who wants dumplings?" she called before heading back to the kitchen.


So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans.


Please help the homeless this Christmas, many children in Glasgow spend the season in temporary accommodation, click the link and help them this year http://scotland.shelter.org.uk/  
 

The Underbelly Fringe Ghost of 2003

"This venue feels really creepy" My daughter Ashley said to me when we stumbled over the wet cobble stones up to the main door of the Underbelly venue in Edinburgh. It was the fringe 2003 and the Underbelly was a giant four or five storey building (depending how you viewed this ancient monument) that stretched from Victoria street down to the Cowgate in the old bit of town. Rumours that it housed the dead during a plague didn't do it any favours, but a venue is a venue when it comes to the Edinburgh Fringe, so there we went, up the cobbles with boxes of props and a heart filled with hope and excitement.

The ancient walls had red rusty liquid running down its internal bricks, like it was bleeding slowly from the inside and that week at a photo shoot a huge boulder unhinged itself and almost killed Charlie Wood, the posh English custodian of the venue - the building didn't like being disturbed.

The techies had explained how the day before they had wired the performance spaces and gaffer taped them down, yet the next day after the place lying empty overnight, all the tape had been violently ripped up. Nobody could explain this. We all carried on and giggled about the 'apparent haunting', it gave the venue some character.

 All year the place had lain empty and was now full of fairy lights, wannabe actors and lighting rigs. The brick monument looked like an old whore being dressed up for a bad wedding and it wasn't ready to give in easily.

Ashley and I walked through the myriad of rusted damp smelling archways and found our room, posters of comedians, actors and shows festooned the walls, but always somehow they slowly peeled off, as if the walls were shrugging off this forced shroud of happiness and hated the thought of having it's crusty veneer touched.

Nothing felt right. The atmosphere in every room prickled the hairs on the back of your arms and no matter how many times you walked into a space, the soil (yes some rooms had a soil floor) beneath your feet somehow always shifted.

Stages sat a slight tilt, despite repeated repairs and chairs always creaked and moaned as you walked through our performance room. It was an ancient building, what can you say?

It had about eight or nine venue spaces, I had one long room for my play 'The Point of Yes' which was about heroin addiction.

There was no backstage area, just a big thick black damp curtain (everything was permanently damp) which ran in front of a sticky back wall that managed to leak the red sticky rusty stuff, which incidentally I never found the origin of.

I had to stand behind that curtain every day in the windowless, airless room in the pitch black and wait on my entrance music in the dark.

It made me feel unsettled.

I hated those 3 minutes standing with my face near a wall that was hundreds of years old, which managed to constantly weep and wait for the stage lights to go up. My play was pretty harrowing and 'deeply moving' according to critics, based on a true story about the murder of my mum and the many deaths by drugs in the East End of Glasgow in the 80s.

So I had a lot to concentrate on as I stood there holding my breath.

The play went great, despite the weeping walls, the constant doors falling off frames in the room, the floor making a noise that nobody could trace and the chairs creaking through the quiet parts of the show. Until one sunny hot day.

Edinburgh during the fringe is a stunning exciting place, you can't deny the beauty of the town and the buzz created during the festival. Millions of tourists pour in from around the world and get to enjoy the plethora of arts on display. 2003 was a sticky hot fringe, or maybe it was just that day...I can't recall...it always felt hot and sticky in the Underbelly and as I was doing a play and a comedy show....I don't think I left the place much.

That hot damp afternoon will stay with me forever. My tech Gary gave me the thumbs up and I took my place behind the curtain, I faced the wall, smelled the damp sour stuff and closed my eyes. The stage went dark and the soft house lights went up. I could hear the audience come in. The chairs creaked, the room moaned and I concentrated on my first lines, I had a whole hour of words to get through. This was a one woman play, I played the two characters in the piece and I had a lot of harrowing, difficult dialogue to get through.

Am not a trained actor, I wrote this and I was determined to do this good.

We were getting near lights up and the room plunged into a thick hard darkness when I felt this strange tickling prickling feeling on my bare arms. I brushed them down as I stood behind the curtain as I was worried an insect had landed on me, Oh yes...did I mention the wee flying things that occupied the place? No? They were wee tiny lightweight flies...and always annoyed me.

So I waited and rubbed my arms. Where was the stage light? Why were the house lights down? What was happening? We didn't have a system where I could be told if there was any delay. I assumed it was just front of house letting late comers in.

Then in the pitch darkness behind the curtain right beside me, I heard a voice whisper "hey.....Janey" and I thought the staff were trying to get my attention, so I turned my head towards it and there in the velvety darkness was a pale face near mine. I gulped and stared.

My heart was pounding with pre show nerves and adrenalin pumping through my veins. Was this the Dutch girl who was front of house? I couldn't tell.

I leaned towards it and said "what is it?"

Nothing happened. The face stayed there, it smiled. My pupils adjusted, shrank and focussed. The stillness and time seem suspended. It was an older face I had never seen before. What was happening?

Had I missed the cue lights? Where was the music? The face got close enough for me to feel an icy breath tinged with a low stench of decay. The hairs on my arms sprang up and I caught my breath, my legs felt like lead and all the blood in my body rushed to my heart. The face quivered and then somehow floated against the wall, all the while maintaining eye contact with me.

What was happening? How can so many people be fifteen feet away from me and not know what was happening back here in the dark.

 The face smiled and stared at me, I shivered again and almost cried out for help.

It was level with me and the hoarse voice whispered right at me...."Janey" it said again. I literally froze on the spot, my body shook and I felt sick. It was a constantly shifting shape. I knew this wasn't human, it wasn't anything my brain could make sense of.

As my brain quickly tried to figure out what was happening, the face immediately disappeared and the stage lights came up, the music started and it was time for me to get onstage.

I walked right through the space where that face had been and went on to shakily deliver my opening line. My mouth was dry, like I had swallowed a cup of sand, my brain was all over the place, how was I going to get through this whole hour?

I don't think I have ever performed that play with such a high level of adrenalin, my heart was pounding and I was totally aware of every single skin cell on my body surface. I managed the play fine, the words all came out and back then in the play I used to go backstage to change character and come out with each scene change.

Every time I had to change character, I walked back behind the curtain for a few seconds, I kept my head down and closed my eyes for fear that face would reappear. It didn't....or at least I don't know if it did, my eyes were shut tight and I couldn't hear anything.

When the last line was delivered and I walked behind the curtain at the end of the show, I heard the audience leave the room. I looked around behind the curtain, I searched the sticky wall with my eyes agape. I heard the staff shout "show down, well done guys".

The place fell silent and I walked out onto the stage and shouted to my techie "Gary, I heard a weird whisper before we opened, did the staff come behind the curtain? What happened to the music and the lights at the top of the show"

"Sorry, Janey, but just before we opened I couldn't get the lights or music to work and there was a slight delay, that's why we started a few minutes late, sorry...., I will check the desk just now and figure out what went wrong" he shouted from the back of the room.

I started to pack up the props as the next show started to come in.

We never found out what happened, and neither the face nor the whisper made a stage appearance again during that whole run.

That was until that last night of the fringe. The shows were all done, the building was being slowly being stripped of posters and lighting rigs, the performers were all gathering their props and getting ready to party their last night away. I suppose I kind of forgot about the face behind the curtain.

 I went in to my empty performance space, I looked around full of emotion, glad I had done my first play and headed in to clear out my props in the room next door to the stage area. It's always quite poignant leaving the place after such intensity of performing every day for a month.

The walls still leaked....the room still felt damp and the soil feeling still shifted beneath my shoes....and as I stood there alone packing up my stuff I heard a whispering noise behind me.  I scanned the small room, there was nothing there, just the jumbled boxes of props, old army uniforms, chairs, a big paper mache owl and strewn clothes beneath a clothes rack. My nerves started to kick in again, I could feel my mouth go dry.

I tentatively stood up and walked towards the theatre space and creaked open the stage door, it was pitch dark in there with only the light from the props room throwing a shaft onto the floor.

"Is anyone in here?" I shouted into the darkness. I could hear the pounding music from the bar downstairs. Nothing, there was no reply, just dense darkness.

As I moved to close the door and walk back into the light of the props room, I heard a faint whisper, I couldn't make out what it was. Fear gripped me, my insides ran completely cold, my legs felt watery and I could hear my heart banging like a jack hammer in my ears. I went against all my instincts, threw out a shaky hand and pushed the theatre door wide open and let the dim light flood the room.

There was nothing there but faint dust motes dancing through the thick air, then something grabbed me from behind, a cold hand yanked me backwards. I think the utter shock made my heart stop, I felt faint and screamed as loud as I have ever done in my entire life.

"Calm down mum, it's me, why are you screaming like that? Move it, this place scares me without you screaming like a banshee, get the props, dad is waiting downstairs" Ashley stood there staring at me in shock.

As I let the stage door bang shut, somewhere from inside the room I heard faint laughter fade away and blast of fetid air smacked me in the face.

I never looked back, we both headed down the back stairs, skittered over the damp cobbles and headed home.

It was the fringe of 2003, the year I will never forget my back stage pal at the Underbelly venue.

So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans

 

 

 

 

When it's hard to do comedy

"That's my big brother just died" I said as I looked at the Facebook update his daughter posted. Would have been nice to have been told in a more intimate or sensitive way about the passing of my beloved bro, but hey-ho this is my family we are talking about. It was New Year’s Eve 2011 and I was about to go and do a gig to a sold out celebration comedy crowd. I couldn't pull out at the last minute on New Year's Eve....and do what? Stare at the Facebook update?

So, I pulled on a smile and dragged some lipstick across my sad mouth and headed into the club. It all went amazing, but my chest and lungs hurt with suppressing the shock and sadness. I kept staring at the laughing crowd thinking 'my brother is dead and I can't even get time to digest this' but they needed to laugh and he would have loved that I didn't cancel a show for him.

Comedy is one of those jobs, where you can't wear your pain on your face or express it in your work place. Jokes have to be done and a sparky demeanour has to be adopted.

I have done a comedy show right after a close family funeral, a child abuse trial and the night my daughter landed in hospital.

I know there are many jobs where personal circumstances have to be dampened and priority is given to the workplace, but not many where you have to tell jokes and hear people laugh as your soul feels like lead inside.

You can't tell the other comics about a recent death, unless it's another comic onstage, then tell that story in minute detail. If it's an actual family bereavement, you hush as you don't want to be the joke killer...you have to grin and bear it. Not everyone wants to witness a sad clown backstage...it's seen as unprofessional. Despite my comedian friends being the most bitter, twisted cynical bunch of folks you can find, they are also the most supportive and the way they convey their touching attitude is funny as well -

"Is your brother still dead Janey? That's a shame, is your mammy the one that was flung in the Clyde? Yeah...that's a funny story...anyway go out there and do your shizzle, see you on the other side" We bond over the gravity of life.

I am proud of my fellow comics, who have been through marriage breakdowns, cancer diagnosis, car crashes and yet immediately stood on stage and delivered the goods.

We are a hardy bunch of people and as I head to the Edinburgh Fringe with my daughter I want everyone to know that we comics put our heart and soul into our shows. We want everyone to have a good time, so come out and bring your laughing gear with you - hopefully nobody in my family dies the first week of our run.

So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans

 

 

STAYING MUM UNTIL DAUGHTER FLIES THE NEST

"MUM, can you get my washing out of the machine and hang it up?" my daughter Ashley asked at the weekend. She is 27 years old and still lives at home as a self employed comic and writer. It's good fun.

 

My husband and I had made all sorts of plans for our 50s. We love travelling. Toronto, the Netherlands and Los Angeles are just some of the destinations we have visited in the past with my comedy act, but we were going to do so much more.

 

These plans have been scuppered, as Ashley doesn't like her dad going with me. He is her full-time father and she is not about to let that go.

 

Underneath her pretend adult facade is a wee girl who likes having her daddy around.

 

I inevitably end up going on tour alone, husband stays at home and Ashley commandeers all his attention.

 

Ashley lives a charmed existence - one that requires no real decision- making, except which shoes to wear or what kind of shellfish to have for tea.

 

I am not underestimating her abilities or work ethic.

 

If only I had had an easy life when I was 27 years old.

 

My mother died when I was 21 and I accepted her death and assumed I didn't need a mammy anymore. In my head, I was all the woman I was ever going to be. How wrong I was, and still am. I was just a child playing at being an adult.

 

I was already six years married at 27 years old. I was a mother, managed a bar and a home. I was just a kid, yet I dealt with wee drunk Glaswegians who spent ages trying to figure out if you liked King Billy or the Pope.

 

Sometimes they challenged you to a boxing match or sex - it depended on the day, really. You learned skills you never knew you had, like speaking Spanish to confuse them or being handy with a bleach spray.

 

Life in the bar was hard work, especially in Glasgow's tough East End. I am sure Ashley would have coped admirably, though I am glad she didn't have to go through such experiences.

 

We left the bar when she was eight, and by then she had seen enough scary stuff to ensure a few years in therapy when she reaches her thirties.

 

Her CV is mainly performing in comedy. She had a "one-woman" show at the age of 13 on the Edinburgh Fringe and went on to help run a comedy club in Glasgow at the age of 15.

 

We both had very different job experiences in our youth. I did work she would hate and she entered a career that I would never have dared to step into or had the confidence to carry off at that age.

 

But, despite her admirable self-assurance, she is not leaving home.

 

I encourage her to stay within my wee nest. Having a child at home, despite her full formed adulthood, means I get to be a mother for all time, no date-expiration on my parenting skills.

 

I am needed, I am wanted and my child is nurtured and loved. Empty-nest syndrome will not be added to the litany of my mid-life crisis problems.

 

I still check on her as she sleeps, I ensure she has her breakfast and I grump contentedly as I fold up her freshly laundered clothes and lay them on her bed.

 

I suppose I will have to adjust quickly when she starts bringing guys over to stay. Maybe that will be the time when her bags are packed and she learns how to pay a phone bill.

 

Then husband and I will finally get jiggy on the sofa at teatime, run naked through the house and play Jackson Browne on full blast without the Iphone plug being ripped out of the wall.

 

I am looking forward to that golden age, but who will show me how to download music without crashing the PC, cook bread that doesn't taste like a raffia mat or apply eye-shadow that won't make me look like a victim of domestic abuse?

 

I suppose I have to conclude that there are skills I still need to learn - and letting go of my child is only one of them.

 

Maybe next year? Meanwhile her Star Trek fanaticism drives me nuts. 

 

I AM sick to death of Star Trek episodes. My husband and Ashley, love everything sci-fi and I grit my teeth through every show.

 

To me, every episode has the same format.

 

Each week, the crew let some sexually alluring woman on to the ship and the visitor turns everyone into a tree and then they finally expose her as a Cardassian death lord and, by the end of the show, they all agree to never let that happen again. Of course, the next week they invite yet another scantily clad woman aboard!

 

Ashley screamed: "Mum, there has never been an episode where people get turned into a tree! I checked, so shut up!"

 

To make matters worse, Ashley wants to buy her dad the entire box set of Star Trek: Voyager.

 

I am going to go live under the sea.

 

So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates.