Before I Go by Cookson Catherine

Author:Cookson, Catherine [Cookson, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781612184210
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2017-07-12T16:00:00+00:00

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6 Founder of British film company the Rank Organisation, and one of the most important figures in the British film industry at this time.

10

In those early days, I was getting more and more requests to give talks here and there across the country. I think I could write a book alone on the people I talked to and my reception by them.

There was the very, very hot day I travelled into the heart of Sussex, as usual not feeling very well. I’d been asked to speak to a women’s group affiliated to a church. I walked about a mile and a half from the bus stop and arrived at what appeared to be a little deserted village. But not quite deserted, for there in the schoolroom sat two old women – really old women – surrounded by a squad of children.

‘Where would I find the minister’s wife?’ I asked.

‘Oh, she be in the fields.’

‘In the fields?’

‘Yes, with the rest of ’em.’

‘Gonna be a storm, see. Couldn’t let the hay lie there ’n get wet, could you, now?’ Was I the wife who had come to give ’em a talk?

Yes, I was the wife who had come to give them a talk.

Well, I’d better get on with it then, hadn’t I?

So I got on with it, but not in my usual style. I just sat chatting to them about my early life et cetera, and at the end I remember one of them, grinning broadly, said, ‘You be like us after all, no better no worse, eh?’

Yes, I was like them, no better no worse. They made me a cup of tea. I travelled a mile and a half down to the bus. I never met the parson’s wife or my audience, or had a thank-you letter.

At the other end of the scale, some years later I addressed almost 2000 people in a hall mainly filled with women from the WI. Why, I ask at this juncture – and I am speaking to the heads of this society – do you not hold a short course to train chairwomen, or chairpersons, or whatever you might call them? How often have I sat on a platform, or below it, waiting to start my talk and listening to a woman yammering on, calling up the knitting circle, sewing circle, the one who was organising a trip to the theatre, or asking who would take charge of stalls at the coming garden fete, or wanting volunteers to organise this, that or the other. My talks would generally be set to begin at three o’clock, and the time allowed was three quarters of an hour to an hour. I always arrived early as I had to travel by train or bus, and many of the places were isolated, with an infrequent service. There I would be, sitting from the beginning of the proceedings, sometimes sweating in the summer and shivering in the winter. And only on rare occasions did I begin at the appointed time.

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