Influence of the Radio

When I was a child I lived entirely in a dream world. I sort of drifted around half thinking I was at school and half thinking I lived at Mallory Towers and would be shortly playing a hilarious trick on Mamzelle.

I think my problem is that I get far too involved in what I read, listen to and watch. I am also probably slightly over stimulated and not in a good way. I normally read around 3 books at once (not literally at once, I normally have three on the go at the same time, not holding 3 books and reading a line of each in turn) so that leads to some terribly confusing dreams and day dreams. For example I am currently reading: “The Bolter” – an account of Lady Idina Sackville and her various marriages and love affairs in the 1920s; “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” – about Guernsey during the occupation and “One thing led to another” – about a woman who gets pregnant by her best friend even though they are not together. All diverting and interesting in their own way but when put together leads to some bizarre dreams and makes me believe that I am a pregnant 1920’s socialite living in the Nazi occupied Channel Islands. I like to drive like I am being chased by the Nazi’s whilst secretly being impressed that I, a woman, can drive a car in these days before suffrage.

I also constantly listen to radio 4. A habit I blame on my mother. I could sing the theme tune to “Pick of the Week” before I knew my nursery rhymes. A perfect Sunday morning means being back in time to listen to Desert Island Discs, followed by Just a Minute whilst leafing through the paper. I also leave radio 4 on all through the night so I must be absorbing some of it subliminally, not that I have a detailed knowledge of the shipping forecast or anything but I did wake up a couple of Sundays ago feeling utterly miserable and anxious. It took quite a while for me to realise that I was terribly worried about Shula and Alistair’s break in in the Archers. Now I know what that was I of course think that Alistair really has bought this on himself and maybe now he’ll appreciate the effect a gambling addiction can have on a family.

I have three radios in my house and only really 2 rooms. My two normal radios are supplemented by a floating rubber duck who lives in the bathroom and has a radio in it. You have to turn his head to turn him on and off. I nearly turned in to a prune last week listening to Melvyn Bragg discuss “The Wasteland” on “In Our Time”. A poem I have never read and so couldn’t really follow the discussion. And I didn’t really care either, no matter how dulcet Melvyn’s voice is.

There is a part of me that thinks an over active imagination is healthy and should be encouraged even if you look slightly odd coming out of a stupor to find that someone has asked you a question and you are busy having a row with a fictional character in your head. I went to see my niece at the weekend and was asked to play a game of “High School Musical”. It seemed to involve us asking each other what we were going to wear to the Prom. Well Evie told me what she was going to wear to the Prom and I laughed at her talking in an American accent.

In many ways she is my role model in life. She seems to spend most of her life in character and this normally comes complete with home made costume. She spent a lot of Christmas dressed as Mary and at one point was told by her mother “Evie, don’t do that, it’s naughty”. “I’m not Evie, I’m Mary”. “Well Mary, don’t do that, it’s naughty”. “How dare you tell Mary off, she’s the mother of God”. Which seemed to me to be an incredibly useful get out clause.

However my niece is 5. I am not. Perhaps it is time to turn the radio off.