Saturday 7 April 2012

Little Boxes

There's no picture to go with this blog, it's just a trip down my memory lane.

There's an advert on the Telly at the moment with the tune 'Little Boxes' by Pete Seeger.   I just have to record in this blog that I love this song,  I have known it all my life.  My earliest memory of it is my mum singing it in the kitchen whilst dying home spun wool (from our own sheep) with onion skin to make it yellow.  I also remember her dying wool with berries to make it purple, but maybe she wasn't singing at the time.  She always used to say that the song reminded her of the people on the estate where we lived.  I must mention that my parents were not typical of the people on the estate.

I can't help thinking that somehow I failed because I went to 'the university'with full encouragement of my mum. I certainly live on an estate of 'boxes all the same' and work with the people who came out all the same.  I try not to be quite the same, that's why I make my own clothes.  I also talk to my daughter who at 13 is not 'the same' as most of the other girl's her age.

Despite my mum's singing, she wanted us to be the same but I'm not and nor is my daughter.  We insist on being noticed for who we are and what we do.