Yesterday I watched a most enjoyable film, “A Royal Night Out” in which the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret get permission for once in their lives to leave Buckingham Palace and spend an incredible night in a London full of revellers celebrating VE Day. They quickly get separated from the chinless wonders who are supposed to be chaperoning them but they also lose each other. Much of the humour comes from Elizabeth’s long chase after her young sister through the streets of London and after the film I started remembering things that happened to my own little sister.
Most amazing to recall in today’s climate is Sheila’s porridge rebellion. One day when she was maybe three years old she rejected the porridge that came at breakfast, so our mother put the same dish of uneaten porridge on the table at lunch time (nothing else to eat until the porridge was eaten). The porridge made a third appearance at tea time and Sheila still refused. So there was no evening meal for her. It is hard to say who won that battle. Sheila was strong willed but then so was our mother. She never gave up insisting we start the day with porridge. I wonder if the climbers will have porridge on Mount Kilimanjaro?
From the word go Sheila was a determined person and very brave. If she wanted to stand up on the back of my tricycle she’d do it. She was warned not to, and certainly not to ride on the back bar of a friend’s trike when he was pedalling at top speed along the pavement but she did and as she has already recounted in a previous blog, she fell off and broke her arm.
As we know, the experience certainly didn’t put her off bikes. She was always on the go and for the first ten years of her life, at least, had permanently bruised limbs and knees covered in scabs. Even today her life is an adventure. She refuses to play it safe and she has NEVER been afraid of a challenge. I am full of admiration for my courageous sister and not in the least surprised she agreed to climb the highest mountain in Africa with Jae and Oscar. It would have been more of a surprise if she had said no.
Note from Jae:
Ha Leslie! Ma used to read us “My Naughty Little Sister” stories when Gwen and I were little; it almost always ended with her saying, “Ooh, that reminds me of the time when I…”