This
past year became a watershed for me. I marked my 50th
birthday in April, and then my daughter celebrated her 21st
birthday within days of my milestone. But these weren't the most
significant events.
At
the end of July, my first love (I guess first crush might be more
apt), Simon Ward died. He was a British actor who was a significant
player in my hopes and dreams for most of my teen years. (My
obsession was a constant nuisance for my family). Within a day of his
passing, I was reading about the death of Angharad Rees, an actress who'd been the
heroine of Poldark, a British mini-series that I'd watched and loved
during this same period.
Then
in December, my beloved 88 year old father had a fall and passed
away within the space of a week. My daughter and I needed to move
out of our house and in with my mother, so that I could care for her
in my childhood home. My past was slipping away and these changes
were brutal and painful for me.
Obviously,
the passing of my Dad was very traumatic. But why did the
deaths of Simon Ward and Angharad Rees affect me so strongly? I
believe it's because it was finally clear to me that the girl that I
was is gone, and all the hopes and dreams that she had were never
going to materialize. A tiny part of me had never stopped
hoping that maybe my dreams could still come true. Now I obviously need some new ones. But I'm
still trying to make my peace with the old ones.
Please
allow me to go back to the beginning. For as long as I can remember,
I have been an Anglophile. Just the
idea that a country existed that had a queen who occasionally rode
around in a carriage and wore a crown seemed proof to me that
fairy tales were not necessarily fantasy.
And
there was dress-up. If we were going to put on costumes and make up
stories, I always wanted to play – as I put it - "old
fashioned." I loved the idea of the past and history. Having
the perfect costume extended to Halloween, of course, and I was
blessed with a mother who sewed beautifully. Of course I had to
be a queen complete with an elaborate gown and crown one year, and
Laura Ingalls Wilder in a prairie dress and bonnet another.
Flash
forward another five years or so. I didn't have much to feed my
obsession until one Sunday night when I was going to turn off the TV and stopped to watch a man gallop his horse across the screen, greet a foreign princess and welcome her to England. This
was the opening chapter in a drama called "The Six Wives of
Henry the VIII" and I was probably the only preteen in America
who would spend the rest of her adolescence watching "Masterpiece
Theatre" religiously.
I
was smitten and mesmerized. This was the closest I was ever
going to get to time travel and that's when I knew this was what I
wanted to do. Even if at that point I thought I was going to do it
all – research, write, design the costumes, compose the music, act
and direct or even produce historical dramas.
A year or so later, I discovered Simon Ward, a British actor
who was the star of a film about the young Winston Churchill. And there was something about him that
I really liked. He was blonde and handsome (at least I thought so)
and looked like an aristocrat.
Up
to that point, I'd never had a crush on anyone. This was the
age of pop stars - Bobby Sherman and David Cassidy, etc. They really hadn't done a thing for me. Granted, with my
obsession, I suppose it was inevitable that it would be
an actor with a British accent. But I remember consciously thinking
that it was about time for me to have my first crush (I
was always in a hurry to grow up) and this guy would do perfectly.
I
spent a lot of time in my room. (My Mom's nickname for me was the Ivory Tower Princess. I decided at one point that my production company would be called ITP productions. Today I have itpwebdesign, instead). In sixth grade, I cranked out a novel
about a young woman named Rachel who was a lady in waiting at the
court of Elizabeth I. It had no plot line. It would be a few years
before I realized that if bad things don't happen to the characters
you love, there's no story worth telling. But mostly I
wrote screenplays, and scribbled out bits of themes for the music,
designed costumes and movie posters, read tons of historical novels and hated doing my homework and
studying for tests.
And I had lots of great music to listen to for my soundtracks. Ralph
Vaughan Williams, William
Walton, Edward Elgar, and eventually George Gershwin and Debussy. And
there was also Rick Wakeman's "Six Wives of Henry VIII" and
Alan Parson's Edgar Allen Poe album. And I can't forget Emerson, Lake
and Palmer. Their stuff was perfect. It was by turns romantic and very dramatic.
Keith
Emerson's Piano Concerto No. 1 (I wish he had written more), was the
soundtrack for my own Poldark adventure. In the summer of 1976
(which was also the year of my first visit to
England), I was a volunteer guide at Rockford, the 18th
century home of General Edward Hand. He lived here in Lancaster, was a physician and Washington's Adjutant General in the American Revolution. I had a beautiful gown
that my mother had sewn for me for the Bicentennial celebrations, and
I wore it for the candlelight tours before Christmas.
But
in my mind, I was the young colonist who had fallen for a British
soldier, one of Ross Poldark's comrades. After the war, we were
unwelcome in America, and ended up on Nampara's doorstep, looking
for a safe haven. My husband was crippled by his war wounds (all of my
characters' names escape me now) and he did not survive long in
Cornwall. With his death, my young American widow was ostracized by
the community, and had to deal with the gossip that Poldark was
romantically involved with her (they were not), while comforting her
in her grief. Unfortunately, I don't remember how her story ended.
In the summer of 1984, I made my second trip to England and finally
met my first love. By this time, I was a college graduate with a
degree in history and still trying to figure out how to launch a
career as an historical researcher and writer. (My dream had almost
been completely crushed by my advisor at college. He told me there
was no such job). At least I was over the worst of my obsession
with Simon Ward (having learned several years before that he was happily married, old enough to
be my father and had daughters my age).
But
he was so kind and gracious and charming. He just smiled politely
when I blurted out that I'd been following his career for years and I
hoped to work with him one day. I still remember my mother's comment
when I showed her the photo my girlfriend had taken of us – "that's
the first time I actually thought he looks handsome."
My last photo is of another bucket list moment in England in 1984. On another summer afternoon I donned an antique nightgown (it looked exactly like a white summer gown from
the turn of the century) and hat, and strolled the grounds of
Crathorne Hall in Yarm, County Cleveland, England. My childhood
friend Linda convinced me to sit down at a table that had been set for
tea for a guest at the hotel (and it hadn't been cleared yet)
and play lady of the manor long enough for her to
photograph me.
In
this story, I was Elizabeth Eshton, the American cousin visiting the lord
of the manor, Colin Hathaway (played by Simon Ward, naturally). Elizabeth's former governess was making life hell for everyone (because she had her designs on
Colin, even though he was married to Amy, a suitable lady). And Elizabeth was going to have
a very hard time making her mind up if she was going to fall for and
marry Colin's younger brother Jack or the young village vicar. Of course now we could say that I was
preparing for my role on Downton Abbey.
Suffice
it to say, I'm trying to come up with some new dreams and get back to
writing while I open a whole new chapter in my life.
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