The Hills are Alive – a guest post by Jean Wilson (formerly Wishart)

Why is it that whenever I think of Sheila’s Kili adventure the picture that unfolds is of Sheila in a long cotton skirt dancing over a green pastoral hillside, singing at the top of her voice and throwing her arms in the air.  At first I thought I was just thinking about the old film ‘The Sound of Music’, which has been getting some publicity in the run up to its fiftieth anniversary.  However, the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I was seeing Sheila as a latter day Maria von Trapp!  My case is as follows.

Sheila was always a bit harum scarum, seeming more so when judged against the perfect behaviour of her elder sister Leslie.  Sheila was in the year following Leslie at school, where she was friendly with my younger cousin Lucille.  A few years ago Lou and I were reminiscing about Sheila and she told me how all the teachers, including many older ladies of the strict and proper ‘old school of teacher’ type, regularly reprimanded Sheila for not matching up to the high standards of her sister.  Can you imagine a gathering in the Lady Teachers Common Room, with the odd chorus of ‘What are we going to do about Sheila’?

As Sheila matured she still had the ability to see things through rose tinted glasses and just get on with what was necessary.  And as we have read in her blogs, she has ‘Plenty of Favourite Things’.  And many times in her private and professional life she has fought for the rights and freedoms of friends or family – and her ability to transform objects would stand her in great stead when it came to making outfits for all comers from any spare pair of floral curtains.  My case rests.

What is of greater interest to me now is how Sheila’s trip to Kilimanjaro will pan out.  It is a certainty that she will adopt the porters and guides and any of their families who are round about.  She’ll spend time in between climbing by knitting them warm sweaters and bobble hats while explaining the Bill of Human Rights.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she decided to stay on, setting up a café and gift shop at base camp.  There her skills learned cooking at Catching Lives would be very useful and, to provide the stock for the gift shop, she would teach all the women and children to knit and crochet or to make pebble jewellery and candle light holders from jam jars.

And to entertain all the customers who are bound to flock to such an attraction, Sheila would teach her helpers Line Dancing.  And thus Sheila would rise to great fame as she and her troupe, the Miller Family Line Dancers, travelled the world, winning first prizes at international Line Dancing Competitions.   My goodness, they might even make a film about her.

I think I should go and lie down.

Note from Sheila:  In 1966, when I spent a summer working in Jersey in a children’s home, another worker and I did actually make an outfit for each of the twelve children in the home from a length of chintzy material we found in a cupboard. I hadn’t seen The Sound of Music at the time but, given that it came out in 1965, I guess Julie Andrews just beat me to it!