Becky Bananas: This Is Your Life

Sarah says it’s fuddy-duddy. That is an expression she recently read in a book and now she keeps repeating it like a parrot. Everything that she thinks dull and boring is fuddy-duddy. She says that General Practice is for old people. It is true that there are quite a lot of old people in it, but sometimes there are children and that is interesting. Zoë likes it, too. We have thought of writing an episode together and sending it to the BBC.

Favourite Film – Little Women. I have seen it three times and would like to see it again, even though I always drench about ten hankies when Beth gets sick after holding poor Mrs Hummel’s baby. This is because I know that she is going to die, though she doesn’t actually do so in the film. (But I have read Good Wives and that is how I know.) Last time I watched it Mum got worried and said it was too upsetting for me. She would like it if I only watched things that made me laugh, not things that make me weep. I know she means well but you cannot cocoon people. “Wrap them in cotton wool” is what Gran used to say. I don’t want to be wrapped in cotton wool. I want to watch Little Women again and again!

Jo of course is my favourite character. She is Sarah’s too. I think she must be everyone’s. The reason she is my favourite is because she is so full of life. And also because she is brave. Cutting off her hair and behaving like a boy at a time when girls were not supposed to behave like boys.

I wish I were as brave as Jo, but I don’t think I am. If I were, I wouldn’t choose blue as my favourite colour. I would choose … red!

I bet Jo would choose red. Red is bold and exciting. She would probably think blue is a bit boring. Uncle Eddy says it is the colour of peace and rest. That makes it sound like an old person’s colour. Does it mean that I am like an old person?

No! It is simply that I like blue things. Blue sky. Blue sea. Blue flowers. Forget-me-nots and pansies. Harebells, bluebells. And the little trumpety things that Mum calls periwinkles.

Favourite flower – My favourite of all flowers is sweet peas!

I love sweet peas because they are very dainty and fragile. Like butterflies. Gran used to grow them at the end of her garden. They grew up the fence that looked onto the railway line.

Sweet peas come in all beautiful colours. Pinks and mauves and whites and purples. Scarlets and lemons and even a sort of pale orange. But not, I think, blue. That is strange! Fancy having a favourite flower that doesn’t come in my favourite colour.

When I was little I called them fairy flowers. I even made up a ballet for them.

I can’t remember the steps now but I expect they were just skipping and hopping. I was only about four. I didn’t know steps like pas de chat or arabesque.

Let me think of some more of my favourite things.

Favourite Animal – The cat. Mum says cats are like liquid ornaments. She says she’d rather have a cat sitting on the mantelpiece than a Ming vase. I’m not quite sure what a Ming vase is, but I know that it is something very precious and expensive.

Siamese cats are quite expensive.

They are also very beautiful and intelligent, and also they talk all the time, in a yowling sort of way. Also, they have blue eyes!

Kitty had green ones. She was just an ordinary cat. Not like Bella and Bimbo. They are pedigrees. But she slept on my bed and she cuddled and purred. She was my very favourite cat of all.

I shall never forget Kitty.

I am still thinking of favourite things.

Favourite activity – Dancing! When I was young we were too poor for me to go to a proper dancing school and so Gran’s friend Violet taught me. Gran called her Vi but I called her Violet. Even when I was six years old, that is what I called her. She used to say, “I don’t hold with all this formality, ducks.”

Violet was younger than Gran but they’d been on tour together in the old days, when Violet was a dancer and Gran was part of a double act with Granddad. And then Violet had Bobby, who was Down’s syndrome, and gave it all up to look after him. Only she would never say that she had given it up. She would say, “Gave it up? I didn’t give it up, it gave me up!” And then she’d laugh this funny, crackling laugh and light another fag. She always called them her fags.

“Where are me fags? Pass me me fags!”

She used to smoke her fags even while she was teaching me.

I don’t suppose, really, that Violet was ever a very good dancer. She never did proper ballet. I think what she did was called show dancing. But she taught me how to do plies and positions of the feet, and battements tendus and ronds de jambes.

Later, when I went to the Russell, Miss Runcie said I’d had a good grounding, so Violet must have known what she was doing even if she did pronounce ronds de jambes as “rondy jombs”.

I didn’t know what Miss Runcie was talking about the first time she told us to do them. I said, “Oh, rondy jombs!” and everyone laughed and I couldn’t understand why.

And then I realised and I went home and pretended to be Violet saying things wrong – rondy jombs and arabeskys and grond jetties – and Mum overheard me and told me off. She said, “Don’t you ever let me catch you making fun of Violet again!”

Mum said that Violet was a good and genuine person who had had a great deal to cope with in life. So then I felt ashamed and regretted that I had mocked her. I wish I could tell Violet how sorry I am!

Maybe she will be one of my guests.

Then I will be able to tell her.

What are some more of my favourite things?

Favourite dancer – Darcey Bussell! One Christmas Mum took me backstage to meet Darcey and she is really nice and friendly. She gave me a signed photograph and encouraged me to keep up with my dancing. She said that maybe one day it would be her coming backstage to see me!

I’d really want Darcey to be on the programme. If I was going to be anyone other than who I am then I would choose to be Darcey. She is everything that I dream of being.

What else is there?

Favourite season of the year – Summer.

Favourite sort of weather – Sun! It is very sad and depressing, I think, in the winter, though Sarah doesn’t agree. Sarah’s favourite weather is snow! But that is because she likes to go skiing.

Favourite Food – Just at the moment it is difficult to say as I am not terribly into food owing to my mouth being sore, but as a rule I would say it is … chocolate ice cream!

Favourite drink – Pineapple milkshake. For sure!

Favourite place – Covent Garden.

Favourite music – Swan Lake! Because every time I hear it I can imagine that I am on stage, dancing!

Favourite group – The Beatles. Me and Sarah are really into the Beatles. It was Mum who got us listening to them. John Lennon was her favourite Beatle. She says she cried when he got shot. My favourite is Paul. He is Sarah’s, too. Imagine if he was a guest!

I think Paul is the best Beatle. He cares about animals, and I approve of that. I am going to stop eating animals as soon as I can. I wanted to do it when I was eleven but Mum wouldn’t let me. She said it wasn’t the time. Now she says, “Maybe in a year or two. We’ll see.”

I think I will ask her if I can do it when I’m twelve. I am going to do all sorts of things when I am twelve! Going to Wonderland is just one of them. Being twelve is my immediate goal. It is Zoë’s, as well. But I will be twelve before she is! I will be twelve on 14th September. Zoë has to wait until the end of the year.

Sarah will be twelve before either of us as her birthday is next month. But to her it isn’t anything particularly special. She just wants to go out with her Mum and buy a whole load of new clothes, and she could do that any time. Sarah’s Mum is always buying her clothes. And she always gives her a good birthday party, too. One time she hired a bouncy castle and another time there was a conjuror. But Sarah says she wants to be more sophisticated now that she’s going to be twelve.