The Mayfair in 2012

*The Mayfair: a 50-room hotel in Shanklin, Isle of Wight, where I spent five weeks a year for the first 15 years of my life. Not the posh place in London.

I’ve been overdoing it on the exercise lately and my muscles are not my own. I wince and moan at every movement so arriving at the Mayfair yesterday, I felt like an old person, climbing the stairs, negotiating every step with my bag. The place looked different through pain.

It’s gone even further downhill since the last time I came. When I got to room 17 (now 16) yesterday, I didn’t experience the level of emotion I felt last February. I guess we’d already been reacquainted so the rush of reconnection was missing. In fact, I felt quite differently about the room this time. I was angry.

Any former glory was well and truly gone. It wasn’t even trying anymore. The bathroom was freezing and the wardrobe wouldn’t open and the beds were made with the cheapest covers that smelt of dirty hair. I felt angry that the host of some of our happiest memories had been cheapened to this: an unimpressive shell.

The Mayfair, back in the day

Last time I came here I could almost smell Nana. I could imagine her in front of the window, bathing in the bathroom, choosing an outfit at the wardrobe. This time, nothing. I just felt tired and empty. It’s like I’d exorcised something already and it wasn’t willing to be summoned again.

I was also angry because I’d taken all these happy photos with me. I was sitting on the bed surrounded by them, saying “take me back, Room, take me to a place and time when I was happy and carefree.” What a stupid thing to wish for. Life is not carefree. Life is complex and full and there are emotions we don’t want to face, but we have to. Or we don’t truly live. When I sat in that lifeless little room, I didn’t want to be back on the parquet dancefloor or in the swimming pool now full of concrete. I wanted to be back in that palliative care home. I wanted to be rubbing Evening Primrose Oil on Nana’s wasting arms and singing Calamity Jane songs to her. I wanted to stroke her matted hair and tell her that she was safe and that we loved her. How dare this room sit here, on its laurels, just because it has a link to a time when I smiled the most? She was no less precious to me in those last few moments than she was shining on Hope Beach.

Us lot, looking all happy and that

I didn’t expel the anger before I left, but I did add some worry to it. Why wasn’t I feeling the connection? Why was I numb to the emotions that overcame me last year? Had I stopped grieving? Was I losing something? Had I forgotten her? I went to a nearby pub and ordered a coffee and sat high up on a barstool, looking across the family room where we used to sit. And then this old song came on, and this songbird voice trilled through the speaker system, and it sounded like her somehow. And I choked.

Now I have to put all this, or at least the essence of it, into a live performance. And as with everything I do, I am sitting here overwhelmed by the bigger picture. By the biggest picture of life and loss and grief and dementia and disconnection and memory and her: larger than life, loving, kind, funny, rude, offensive (at times), frail, living, dying Nana. I have spent hours writing and there is no thread. No clarity is coming forward and hugging me up. I just have reams of thoughts and emotions and anecdotes – no structure, no look, no framework, just a meandering line of stories with no sequence.

Watch this space. But don’t hold your breath, ok?

PS Whether I find a thread or not, I will be performing something  at Lincoln Drill Hall on May 30, so if you want to see where I get to and hear more about my funny little Nana, put the date in your diary, won’t you? #MakingTracks

Related posts (that might help make sense of this one!):

Ghosts and builders
Leaving the Mayfair

Hope Beach

What can I say about the sea that hasn’t been said before? Countless people have been humbled by the flowing tides and the crashing waves and the uncertainty of the swell. Lost souls and troubled minds have sought out the sea for perspective; for confirmation that their existence, however hung up on it they may be, is actually irrelevant.

That’s why I’m here, listening to the waves as I fall asleep. That’s why I walk to the beach in the dark and stare at the vast dome of sparkly black above me, wondering if someone else, somewhere else is staring back and watching the universe evolve. It’s because it never stands still that I can.

But as I wait at the water’s edge and watch the waves ebb closer, I wonder why I don’t feel calm. Why the force of nature isn’t enough to make sense of things. I stand beneath meteoroids and meteorites and watch satellites circling and I feel small for a second, a minute maybe. But then I want to break free. I want stimulation from city lights and cultural quarters and poetry and songs and words and paintings. I want to know your interpretation of the scene. I want to know how it makes a man from New York dance. I want to hear how you’d capture this second in a song. It’s not enough just to be here. But tomorrow it might be.

I might even enter a country show next year. Hmm, maybe not.

Lately I’ve been chopping apples for chutney, squeezing lemons for limoncello and cutting out circles of gingham fabric like a right proper homemaker. If you knew me last year you might laugh at this. Back then I shunned domesticity in favour of wine, cigarettes, social networking, sleepless nights and quite a few stupid situations. I feel like I’m in rehab.

Some would say I’ve changed. Others would say I’m getting closer to the real me. Either way it’s still hard for an over-analysing, over-sharer like me not to question whether this path is the right one.

Contentment is scary. Just the word conjures images of an ever-expanding waistline, regular shopping days, discussions about wallpaper and kitchen gadgets, nights in front of the TV and severance from the real world (I’m not sure how anyone can be content if they’re fully engaged with politics or economics or even just the way some families in their own town live).

Sleepy island living provides lots of time to stand and stare.

From angst and unhappiness come good stories. Feeling confused about the world brings with it a desire (or compulsion) to question things, to create ways to understand or get a grip on things. It doesn’t bring contentment but it brings debate and discussion. And pain, I think.

So what about when you remove yourself from that, push back, separate, move to a sleepy island away from family and friends and fast living?

A couple of years ago I got swept up in social networking. I discovered twitter and even at the age of 30, didn’t quite grasp the fact that I was living my life, or a version of my life, in public. I started to think in status updates and crave the attention I got there on my feed. I’m embarrassed to write it here but that’s the way it was. I’m still compelled to confess things publicly but I honestly believe it’s because I think there are other people who feel the same and want to relate. Which sounds pretty pompous, I know.

Social networking is weird. It is constant, 24-7 and if you engage in it to the level I was, it stops you sleeping, makes you late and leaves you feeling anxious if you don’t have access to it. It’s like an addiction. It is an addiction.

Tudor England or Tulisa? Most teenage girls I know would probably opt for the second.

Having spent some time with teenage relatives and friends over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed how much it can control them too. Remember what it was like to be distracted in maths by your mates or members of the opposite sex trying to wind you up? Nowadays, that doesn’t stop when they leave the maths class. It never stops. And with a Smartphone in their pocket they can tune into it at any time – which is most of the time, from what I’ve seen. And then there’s the internet, an amazing resource, obviously, but the king of all procrastination tools. With a click of a mouse you can jump from an essay on Tudor England to make-up tips from Tulisa, and other ‘less-innocent’ videos of course. There will be a million positive things that come out of this ability to access networks and information at any time, but I can’t help wondering how those teenagers switch off.

I couldn’t. Social networking along with constant access to emails and no proper place of my own meant life was racing by at 100-miles-an-hour. That’s why I wanted to make a change. And I did. I’ve slowed down a lot and it feels good. But I can’t help worrying what people will think. Leaving Nottingham was emotional and lots of people gave me lovely cards full of messages like ‘stay away from the mundane’ and ‘don’t change’ and ‘what you’re doing is so brave.’ But it didn’t feel brave. I felt like a fraud. I was running away and I felt the weight of people’s expectations. I felt the need to make a splash, to do exciting things, to live for other people. Silly really. Everyone else is living their own life. They’re not really bothered about mine.

I want to lie in the grass but I don't want to close any gates (doors). Does that metaphor work? No? Oh.

But you’re still reading so I’ll try to explain: I do want to do exciting things. I don’t want to spend every evening in front of the TV. But I want to spend some of them there. And I want to paint stones and make lovely (cheap) dinners and lie on the grass without wondering what the rest of the world is doing. It’s pretty scary stuff, believe me. But for the first time I think contentment is within reach. And I think I want it. What’s wrong with that?

Yesterday I was making rock cakes in Mrs Ransom's year seven class. Today I am 32. Oh.

You know that thing they say: life begins at 30 – or 40, or 50, or whatever age it is that you happen to be approaching? I used to think that was rubbish made up to make people feel better about getting old. But now I get it.

This month I’m 32. I’m not quite sure how it happened. One minute I was making rock cakes in Mrs Ransom’s Food Technology class and chasing Martyn Bream’s green coat around the playground, now I’m a fully grown adult, seven years past the age I had imagined as a kid I would start having kids myself.

Life doesn’t begin at 30 – it begins when you’re born – but there are definitely phases, new waves, advents – lots of mini lives lining up, back to back, waiting to start. They don’t necessarily fit neatly into decades; they overlap and intertwine and you have to nip back now and again. But when I reflect, I can clearly see certain years when I changed and life took on another direction.

Somewhat self-indulgently, and to romanticise my little, unimportant existence, I have decided to give these phases titles. So, there was:

Saturday nights in front of Blind Date with the family meant feelings of comfort, contentment and belonging.

Childhood (0-13)
(Characterised by caravan holidays, windbreaks and watermelon on the beach, velour tracksuits, family Christmases, cokes with three straws, ham sandwiches on a Saturday, shell suits, Blind Date and Noel’s House Party, the 1990 World Cup, Hedgehog birthday cakes, makeshift fairgrounds in the garden, power cuts and the arrival of Partners the stationery shop).
Mood: optimistic, oblivious.

Liam and the lads.

Survival (13-18)
(Characterised by hormones, acne, dark school corridors, greasy sausage rolls, school plays, PE pants, shaving, veiny white skin, exercise books, a beating on the school field from a gang of older girls, Hooch, Reef, Bacardi Breezers, self-hatred, Stanislavski, bad poetry, bulimia, boys, Blur, Oasis, Spin Doctors, Spice Girls, house parties and puking).
Mood: rollercoaster.

I stayed at the Pizza Factory for two weeks. There's only so much pepperoni you can sprinkle.

Chaotic (18-20)
(Characterised by insecurity, confusion, jobs (firework factory, pizza factory, greeting cards production line, warehouses), Australia (three months with a mate – first time abroad), alcohol, starting university (and leaving university due to falling in love).
Mood: headstrong but confused.

The wedding was booked but it was not meant to be. It would have looked just like this. Everyone running and stuff.

Romantic (20-25)
(Characterised by love, domesticity, overseas holidays, student loans, reading, mobile phones, cars, cooking, Spain, tapas, mussels, fillet steaks, Weight Watchers, the gym, big shops, graduation x2, grief, engagement, wedding planning, Big Brother and finding and losing a best friend).
Mood: content and unquestioning.

I wrote Bones in this phase. Does creativity rely on a certain mood?

Awakening (25-31)
(Characterised by stimulation, self-reflection, social networking, sex, art, anger, confusion, love, discussion, learning, acting, singing, writing, grief, developing, failed domesticity, and finding and losing a best friend).
Mood: madness.

And that brings me to the present – the latest phase – although I think it started a while ago; in 2010, just before my 30^th birthday, when my first play was produced.

Where I live. Sort of.

Not long after that I lost my beautiful Nana, who was a massive part of me, ended a long-term relationship with one of the loveliest people you are likely to meet, and later chose to leave my brilliant job and colleagues who knew me well to start a new life in the Isle of Wight.

And here I am, working as a waitress in a restaurant where nobody knows my name. I am back to being 18 in one of those warehouses. We are all equal. There are no grades, no levels and no one cares if you’ve got a masters in journalism; if you can’t carry a case of wine while wiping down a table and appeasing a posh man who’s found a baby crab in his mussels then you’re a ‘retard’ (and if you want to survive, don’t tell them that their choice of language offends you).

Living on fries and traybakes and cultivating the junk in my trunk.

I am living on traybakes and fries and my aching feet keep me awake at night. But something about this new life is making me feel alive. I like getting sweaty and physically tired. I like darting around the restaurant keeping customers happy and chatting to them about their lives. Something about this simpler existence is good for me at the moment. I wonder what this phase will be called. For now I shall just try and live it.

First rule of starting a new life - purchase adequate shoes. These are currently preventing me from crying in a locked toilet mid evening shift.

It’s a weird feeling, being uprooted. I’m 31 and this is only the third time I’ve lived away from my hometown; although the other two times – a three month trip around Australia when I was 20 and one semester at Aberystwyth University, which I left because I was in love – don’t really count.

I’ve been here three weeks now, on the Isle of Wight, but it feels like forever. The first week was a whirlwind. I got here late on the Friday night and started work in a busy beach restaurant at 9am on the Sunday. Four back-to-back 14-hour shifts followed and I was quickly immersed in my new life of mopping, making toasted teacakes, getting covered in coffee and baked bean juice, aching hands, throbbing feet and rain. Oh yes, it rains here too. My childhood memories belied that.

Some of the girls I work with look like this. This isn't one of them.

I work with a diverse group of people, from 19-year-old girls who look like models, wear Jack Wills and drink 55-quid bottles of champagne, to young men working 80-hours-a-week to pay the rent. There are customers who treat you like family, and customers who seem to think you were born only to serve them. The distaste on their face if you dare to ask them to pass their empty plate is similar to what you’d expect if you were to suggest frying up their mother’s liver and leaving it out for the foxes.

As I walk quickly to their tables with huge heavy bowls of mussels and whole sea breams staring up from their polished porcelain graves I make up stories about myself that I could tell them. I imagine complaining about the electronic tag on my ankle irritating me as I lean over to pour their Chablis, but I haven’t plucked up the courage yet.

The view from where I work.

I’m not shocked by how seriously some people take themselves but it does make me sad. I’m not incompetent but I get made to feel so at least once a day by people who are so far away from what I would ever want to be. And yet they impose their supposed-superiority on me by ignoring me at the table or rolling their eyes when I explain my crazy computerised ordering machine is playing up. I don’t mind. It’s all interesting, finding out what they find annoying; what can ruin their day.

It’s opened my eyes to family life too; how differently people bring up their children. Depressingly I have waited on more than a handful of families where the children have failed to look up once from their iPads, even when ordering. One 13-year-old tapped at his touchscreen as he ordered:  “fillet steak, blue. Oh, and what are the vegetables?” I explained the vegetable selection to his bowed head, to which he screwed up his face and said “No,” dismissively. And that was the end of our exchange until I delivered said steak to his table and his parents finally told him to put the iPad away while he indulged in his expensive steak (he left half of it. It was distracting him from his game).

The Dog and Duck in Shardlow - host to many Christmas eves for the young Upton family.

Inevitably it makes me think about my own childhood. We rarely went out for meals and when we did it was a huge treat. Christmas eve was one such occasion. Every year we went to the Dog and Duck in Shardlow. My brother, my sister and I were allowed to choose from the kids menu and we had Texas Burger and chips every time. It was the cheapest thing on offer but we loved it. As we got older we started to push for the adult menu and a coke each, rather than one with three straws. And that’s when we stopped going.

When we came here, to the Isle of Wight, for our summer holidays we looked forward to seeing the waiters and waitresses at the Mayfair Hotel. My grandad was the biggest charmer. He’d treat them like they were made of gold and they loved him. Mealtimes were an occasion. We dressed up in our best summer clothes and all met in the bar to go down for dinner together. We’d order oxtail soup and prawn cocktail in stainless steel bowls, roast beef and spaghetti bolognaise, Peach melba and apple pie and knickerbockerglories.

The waitresses fussed over us and we had photographs with them before we left. Hazel was our favourite. Larger than life and with a dirty laugh louder than the foghorns you hear here on misty mornings, she made every morning a special event. We knew how lucky we were to be there.

As I’m darting round the beach restaurant serving sailors and DFLs (down from Londons)and iPad addicts, I think of Hazel and it makes me smile. I hope some of the kids who still get excited about sitting in a restaurant by the sea remember me when they look back.

On the way to Scotch Corner

On Good Friday in 1965, my grandad died. It feels weird calling him grandad because I never met him. Arthur Reynolds.

He was out driving a truck when he died. It was early in the morning, about 3am, when he had a heart attack at the wheel and drove his lorry off the motorway. Dramatically, it rolled into a huge ditch, cargo smashing everywhere, smoke pluthering from the engine. And my grandad died there, alone, in the cab.

Or so I thought.

From the age of 10 until late last year, that’s how I believed it happened. Noone told me that. I’m not even sure how I’d created my version of events. I knew he was a truck driver. I knew he died at work. The rest I must have made up myself.

I found out it wasn’t true because of my Making Tracks project. It prompted me to talk to my mum. One day last November I said to her: “It must have been awful when your dad drove his truck off the road. Do you know who found him?”

She looked puzzled and then set me straight.

Mum at Scotch Corner services where she thought her dad died

She told me that he hadn’t driven his truck off the road at all. That actually he’d fallen ill while driving, close to Scotch Corner, so he’d stopped at a greasy spoon café, ordered a big mug of tea, sat down and had a heart attack at the table.

Or so she thought.

For 46 years, since she was 11 years old, she’d believed that story. She’d never questioned it. Every time she’d driven past Scotch Corner services, she’d imagined her dad dying at a café table. And for a month last year, that’s how I believed it happened. Until Boxing Day when I said to my auntie: “It must have been awful when your dad had a heart attack at that café table. Do you know who found him?”

She looked puzzled and then set me straight.

She told me he hadn’t had a heart attack at a table at all. That actually he’d fallen ill while driving, stopped his truck, and another driver he knew had gone to help him… which is when she got confused with the details and her husband stepped in to tell us that the other driver had given him a lift in the passenger seat of his truck. Which is actually where my grandad had a heart attack and died.

It's strange when you do a project like this because weird things strike you - in the ladies toilets, a man was arranging flowers and it made it look like a funeral parlour

My mum’s brother later admitted he’d never been sure of how it happened either. For over 40 years they’d all harboured their own version of how he died. They’d never swapped stories or even questioned the truth behind the tragedy that changed their family forever.

Last week, my mum, my uncle and I went to Scotch Corner service station, to the place where my mum thought her dad died. There is no greasy spoon there. We sat in Costa instead. My auntie didn’t want to come because, even after all this time, her feelings about her dad’s death are still raw. She was 21 with an eight month old son when he died. It must have been awful for her. For all of them.

And they all have their own story to tell. In Costa, my mum and uncle took it in turns to talk to a video camera, on their own, about their dad – how he died, how they found out, what they miss, what he was like, how his death affected them.

Watching the videos back was fascinating. Listening to my mum talking about her childhood, how lonely she felt, how she would tell her dad she loves him if he were here now. All things she’s never said before. And my uncle – how he was winched from his navy boat to a carrier and flown home in 24 hours at the age of 16 to share in the surreal aftermath with his shell-shocked family.

Uncle Stephen and Mum making their way home

It’s amazing, once you start talking, how much you learn about the people you’ve known all your life. My mum and uncle told me things that day that helped me make sense of my own life, my own feelings and who I am. We talked about lots more than just their dad.

The older I get, the more I realise that things are rarely what they seem. I hope we keep talking. For me, family stories are just as fascinating as any book or film.

Find out more about my Making Tracks project – Finding Nana

Below are a couple of clips from the videos we took at Scotch Corner. When I get time I want to edit the footage into a short video but for now here are some very rough bits.

Mum talking about her dad - what was it like after he died?

Stephen the day he found out - how my uncle reacted to the news that his dad had died

Note: as if to illustrate the point about memories and versions of the truth, since I wrote this, my sister called me to say grandad didn’t die on Good Friday at all. I was confused. He actually died in August 1965. Just so you know the truth.

Looking back from Freshwater

Yesterday I tried to drive out to Freshwater to watch the sunset. Freshwater is a beautiful little town on the coast. A rugged road takes you there – to the place where Tennyson used to live.

It’s about 20 miles from where I’m staying and usually a stunning drive. But yesterday was grey and the mist grew heavier as I got closer to the town. In the end I turned back. I couldn’t see a few feet ahead, let alone the incredible view that I knew surrounded me.

I love this 1950s holiday map

Wherever I go here, my Nana’s state of mind is never far from my thoughts. The way it was when she died. The whole island could be a metaphor for that. I see maps of the island everywhere. On postcards, tourist leaflets, even a 3D version in a little paddling pool on Ventnor front. I keep imagining it is a picture of the human brain. Nana’s brain actually. All the little roads and towns are times in her life, trains of thoughts, events.

The road stretched out in front of me and my little car

Today I attempted the drive again. This time the sun was high and the view stretched out in front of me. On a day like this, I defy you not to lose your breath as you look out over Tennyson Downs and Freshwater Bay.

The landscape is rugged and wild; a far cry from the close-by seafront towns with modern arcades and faded attractions. Here, on this road, it seems the same as it always was. But as you go on, you notice bits of the road that are crumbling under the weight of time and a viewing point that has half slipped into the sea.

View of the sunset from the coast road

I stopped by the road to photograph the scene. The sun was dark orange as it set, like an egg yolk slowly being swallowed by the sea. It reflected on the water and offered atmospheric light to the inhabitants of the nearby rock pools. I wanted to stay there.

As it disappeared, I drove through the dusk to Tennyson’s town. There was a hazy light over the downs. Some boys were playing rugby on the grass, their silhouettes dancing against the last of the sunlight. Running and laughing where Tennyson once walked.

This would have been Tennyson's view

Some people have asked me why I love the Isle of Wight. Some who have actually been here but only seen a small part of it. When I tell them about the beauty of the landscape and the way the sun sets on the sea, they nod but seem cynical, as if I have a sentimental view of the place because I’ve spent so many happy times here. It reminds me of the way people used to talk about Nana. The doctors or the staff in the home she was in right at the end. I tried to tell them that she had been sparkly and intelligent and funny, hilarious sometimes. That she had seen a lot. They nodded and attempted to understand, but to them she was just another ill old lady with little hope. And I was just another granddaughter with sentimental views of her old Nana.

Just me

Driving back to Ventnor, it was pitch black. The view was shrouded in a blanket of darkness, lit only by a picturebook moon and lots of tiny bright stars. If I had just landed there, on that road at that moment, I wouldn’t have known that the sea was lapping at my heels or that lush green downs were sloping towards me.

It was difficult driving in the dark on such a windy road, hitting corners and having to slow right down. Sometimes another vehicle would appear up ahead, full beam headlights shining in my eyes, and I’d have to hold on tight and keep my nerve as I passed, my little car clinging to the crumbling road.

Nana with her sisters

I remembered Nana, a couple of years before she died, when her memory was bad. We’d go and visit and make small talk about everything and nothing. Someone might tell her that her sister Lily had been asking after her and she’d say, ‘who?’ and look completely confused. They’d say, ‘Lily, your sister, you remember.’ She didn’t remember. And suddenly she’d look scared. Like she knew she should recall this person. She’d sit, rubbing her head, while everyone waited for a flicker of recognition or something that would suggest the reality wasn’t quite as bad as it seemed. It was like those bright headlights were being shone in her face. Eventually she’d say, ‘oh yes, Lily,’ and then she’d change the subject or break into a little song. I’m not sure what she remembered really. Lily was definitely there, somewhere, in her head. But she was probably a child, playing in their little family house, not an 89 year old woman with white hair and a nose just like Nana’s.

Nana in the old people's home on Valentine's 2010 - her memory was bad then but she always smiled for the camera

People say ‘focus on the good times’ and ‘take comfort in the memories’ and ‘it doesn’t do to dwell.’ The good times will always be there, for as long as my memory holds out. But at the moment, I don’t want to forget the Nana that was terrified of not knowing anymore. I played along when she pretended because I thought it helped her. To preserve her pride or something stupid like that. But I wonder if she wanted me to say, ‘I know, Nana. I know you are scared. I know you don’t remember who that person is. You don’t need to pretend. I am scared too.’

I never did. But I’m still not sure she would have wanted me to. Pretending helped her hold onto something, I think. And she was always Nana, right until the end.

Find out more about my Making Tracks project – Finding Nana.

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Once there were eight - out on the promenade

The other night I went for a moonlight walk along the promenade. It is a hilly path, high up on the clifftop, that stretches from Shanklin Old Village to Hope Road. You can see the sea at all times.

Less light pollution and the fact you’re surrounded by the sea somehow makes the sky seem bigger and the stars brighter.

I like to think the hotels were watching and whispering as I walked by - 'haven't we seen her before?'

I walked slowly, past the clifftop hotels that have seen me a hundred times before. I almost stopped to show them photos and tell them stories of the old days. But they are just hotels. And they might not recognise me on my own. There used to be eight of us.

I walked on past the old lift that takes people from the beach to the clifftops. We used to catch it sometimes, in the evening, if we’d been to the arcades or playing bingo on the front.

This is where we used to play bingo, and the 2p machines, and put 10p on the 'next great tram race' - but it didn't look like this

This wasn’t like Gala Bingo. It was these funny light-up cards on plastic stations. You’d sit on a stool, put 20p in for a game, and then the bingo caller would start reading the numbers. He did it all - funny voice into the mic - ‘Legs eleven’, (wolf whistle), ‘Maggie’s den, number 10’, (boo!). If you won, he ripped a few old-school fairground tickets from a roll and gave them to you. You could save up for anything in the cabinet. Electrical goods, tea services, cheap jewellery, pedal bins. I was impatient so always swapped my tickets pretty much immediately. Usually for a cheap little ornament that I’d then carry around with me all week.

The cliff lift in Shanklin - despite its concrete shell and blunt design, I think it's beautiful

The lift was also 20p. You queued up by a fence and then piled in, handing your ticket to an old man who cut a hole in it with a metal machine that hung round his neck and smelt of oil. He gave it back to you too. Not sure why. When we got home from our holiday, we’d find those little tickets in bags and pockets for weeks afterwards.

Once up on the clifftops, it was a short walk to The Mayfair. I remember it was always balmy as we meandered back. I’m sure it wasn’t. We could always see the moon and the stars and a calmness descended across us that we didn’t seem to have at home.

One of the views from Eastcliffe Promenade - sort of - that's Sandown pier in the distance

When I walked there the other night, that feeling came back to me. Contentment I guess. I didn’t actually feel it, I just remembered how it sits, deep in the pit of your stomach, almost like an ache. I think I realised, that night as I walked along the promenade, that although I thought I’d come back here to find Nana, I actually came to find that feeling. Or at least to work out how to get it back.

The next day I went for a drive through villages and out onto the coast road. As I passed one of many huge old houses I noticed a girl sitting on a fence stroking two funny little horses. There was something about her that was compelling. She had bright red hair scraped back into a bobble, a coat with a fur neck and white trousers, which I later realised were pyjamas. It wasn’t the way she looked that stopped me in my tracks, it was the way she was holding the horses and talking to them with pure abandonment. She was in the moment, completely, giving herself up to just being there.

I couldn't capture the way she looked as I have no idea how to use a camera

I drove on but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. She seemed to have that feeling I was looking for. If you’ve ever left someone without saying what you meant, or driven past a stunning sunset with your camera, or even just seen something in a shop that you really, really wanted but couldn’t afford, there is that time, those minutes immediately afterwards when it could go either way. The more the minutes pass, the less likely it is you’ll go back. Sometimes you shouldn’t go back. But that day, I did a U-turn on the country lane and drove to find her again, hoping hard that she’d still be there. She was. She looked up as I approached and smiled and immediately I was glad I stopped.

I asked if I could take her photograph and we spoke for a while. She was a musician, in her pyjamas because she was writing an album and rarely leaving the house. She’d come out for some air and to visit the horses in the field. It wasn’t her field, but she was bothered about them being lonely so she’d come out to ‘check on them.’ When she said that, she looked a little lost herself. She told me it was ‘stunning but lonely’ to live here. She had such a magnetic kindness about her that it was hard to leave. I asked if I could put her here, on this page, photo and words. She said ‘of course’ but to use my discretion when it came to the pictures because she had no make-up on and was in her pyjamas and hadn’t seen daylight for a few hours. She was beautiful.

Beautiful lady

I am not a photographer. I had no idea how to capture what I saw. That scene on the fence. There is no abandonment in my picture. The magnetism is lost in the still.

It’s like that feeling. The one I was talking about before. It’s there. Somewhere. But it’s so hard to capture and keep.

Find out more about my Making Tracks project – Finding Nana.

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I got my white shades from a shop in the Old Village - I was pretty proud of them. And the chord.

Before I left Shanklin today, I took a little tour of the town. To see what had changed.

Some evenings in the summer, me and my family would walk into the Old Village together and have a look in the shops. Not very often, admittedly, because Mum and Dad couldn’t stand us begging for tat. To combat this sort of scene, when we were a bit older we were given spending money at the beginning of the fortnight and had to choose wisely what it went on. The deal was we weren’t allowed to ask for any more. ‘When it’s gone, it’s gone.’

I frittered mine away on ice creams, arcade machines and bits from the beach shop. Somehow, my brother Jono managed to save his until the very last day, when he would buy himself something special. A really nice football from Sporties, or this cuddly turtle toy from the card shop that we both wanted.

Sporties is still there. Jono will be pleased to know.

I was always jealous as I clutched my shrapnel and watched him slowly selecting his purchase. I don’t know how he did it. I’m pretty sure old ladies who thought he was cute bought him Fabs and slipped him coppers for the 2p machine. I also remember that he rarely took his money to the beach and learnt phrases from the adults like ‘I don’t really want to break into a note’, which he often trotted out when we were standing at the ice cream hatch.

Whatever his secret, he always had a crisp tenner left as the last weekend approached. Usually curled up in one of those weird tubular purse things you used to wear round your neck at the seaside. The ones you could wear for swimming. I had one but I don’t think I ever wore it in the sea. I left it under my towel instead. People didn’t steal stuff in those days. Ha.

The brilliant Shanklin Rock Shop - you want a cooked breakfast modelled out of rock? Well look no further.

The town hasn’t changed that much, particularly the old part. There are still thatched roofs and quaint tea shops. The Rock Shop still stands proudly on the corner in all its retro glory and the pretty Crab Inn waits for customers as if it’s captured in time.

I walked through the Old Village to the newer part of town. Some of the shops are the same. Piggy Wiggies is a gift shop where I used to spend ages looking at shell animals, stick-on earrings, kaleidoscopes and snap bracelets. Once I recall finding an ornament of two skeletons having sex in a coffin – inane grins on their faces. With some urgency, I whispered across the shop to Jono, demanding he come and look at this magnificent find. I wonder how many they sold. My spending money wouldn’t stretch.

I have purchased many a gift item from Piggy Wiggies in my time

Sporties is still there too – Jono’s favourite. I once saved some of my money, like him, and bought a baseball. I wanted to get in the school rounders team so I paid £3.99 for the heavy white ball with red stitching and asked Dad to give me catching practice. It nearly broke my hands. Sporties wasn’t really a shop for me.

I carried on, past Shanklin Theatre where Frankenstein the Pantomime was playing, and down the quieter suburban street towards Hope Road. If I could choose any street in the world to live on it would be Hope Road, just for the name alone. I walked past houses that were there long before I came to visit. The same houses I have seen many times. Possibly the same owners. Past the little antique shop and round the corner to Wight News, the paper shop where I used to go each morning with Grandad before breakfast. My brother recently reminded me how Grandad would greet everyone he met on the way, and how he’d breathe the sea air deeply and say to us, ‘fill your lungs.’ You got the impression he was always grateful to be there. He never took that holiday for granted. None of us did I don’t think.

Grandad on Hope Beach - loving every minute

Wight News was an Aladdin’s cave of gifts, postcards, sticker albums, sweets, chocolate, rock, newspapers and magazines. In about 1989, one of the Red Tops was doing a special series on Neighbours. I bought the paper every day and sat in the beach hut cutting out pictures of Scott and Charlene for my specially crafted scrapbook (a load of old bits of paper, tied together with ribbon). I was in love with Charlene. Not so much Scott. And I had no principles regarding Red Tops then. I didn’t even know what they were. To me, red tops were what we got after a day on the beach.

Now, Wight News is broken down, locked and empty. An A4 piece of paper in the window reads ‘advertise here for just £1 a week.’ I feel sorry for the little shop, so far from its former glory, someone desperately, embarrassingly almost, trying to find a use for it.

Wight News now

There is something sadder about it standing there, broken and peeling, but harking back to what it was. I think it would be easier if it wasn’t there anymore. Just gone. So we could keep the memories and forget the reality. But life’s not like that, is it?

Find out more about my Making Tracks project – Finding Nana.

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One last sit on the Mayfair steps

Today I leave The Mayfair. I remember exactly how this felt 20 years ago. The last night was always heartbreaking. Saying goodbye to everyone, hugging, promising to write. Usually, Dad and Grandad would request an early breakfast so we could leave in good time. This meant the dining room was empty except for a few of us. The usual morning bustle and anticipation was replaced with a sense of dread and sadness. For another year, it had come to an end.

I remember standing in the corridor, hearing the request, listening and begging silently that they would change their minds and say, ‘do you know what? It’s once a year. It doesn’t matter if we get stuck in traffic or back late. It’s worth it to have one last breakfast with everyone.’ But they never did. As a child you are powerless in a situation like that. You have to do what everyone else does. So we ate early and left.

Noone waved me off today. I said goodbye to one of the builders who was painting a window frame but he was busy.

Usually everyone would gather in the car park anyway, after our breakfast and before theirs. Sometimes there were tears. I always cried when we got home, alone in my bed, Nana back in hers. The only comfort was that I had tacky souvenirs to give my friends. A full English breakfast made out of seaside rock or a pencil with a spooky smuggler clinging to it as if it was a mast. I’d usually take them out of my suitcase, lay them out and look at
them before going to sleep.

Although today is not the end of my trip, leaving The Mayfair still feels sad. Being here, alone, out of season has made me more emotional than I could have imagined. I feel guilty for leaving. I’m moving somewhere with space and peace. But I feel like I’m cheating on my family somehow, and on Nana.

Where are you Nana? When I took this outside Room 17, I was hoping she'd pop up behind me in the mirror.

Earlier, I asked if I could take one last look at Room 17. I wanted to write this in there. The owner told me it was occupied. Until today, I was the only guest. There are over 40 rooms. Why was Room 17 occupied? I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I had specifically requested that room and was told it was uninhabitable. Now someone else was taking our space. They were sleeping in our beds and taking our view for their own. They didn’t know what it meant. I considered asking how much it would be to buy Room 17. Forever.

I wanted to go and see who was in the room. To get a look at them. I started to imagine it was Nana in there. That she’d faked her long drawn out death so she could go and live in Room 17 and look out to sea, uninterrupted. I went up to the corridor, to use another room across the way, and I kept an ear out for the sound of the grey metal catch opening. I would orchestrate a ‘chance meeting’ with the new inhabitant of Room 17. Try to explain the situation. I don’t know what I was doing really. The door never opened. Noone came out.

Me and Nana in the sea

It’s weird, because I came here looking for Nana as she was, back then. Nut brown, coated in oil, soaking up the sun, eating ice creams, laughing and singing, seemingly carefree. Actually I feel closer to the fragile old lady, with the furrowed brow and the lost look. I am here, where we were, but I can’t get to her. Everything is closed and empty. The mist is heavy and the roads are being mended for the summer season. I feel like she’s here, but trapped somehow. Rattling around this hotel. Watching it change but with no power to stop it. Afraid and alone.

Closed doors and corridors and small rooms make me think of her in that old people’s home. I’d arrive and find her walking the walls. Asking anyone who’d listen why she was there. Telling them that it was a mistake. I’d sign in and see her there, through the glass, in the corridor, bag over her arm, knees bent from the pressure of constant walking. She’d be angry at first. Why was I late? Why hadn’t I come earlier to get her? Then we’d sit in her room, have a sherry, do a crossword or look through a photo album, and she’d calm down. Usually.

I used to think this corridor was so long

Now here I am, in a different corridor, trying to picture her in one of her handmade suits, whistling, scooping me up in my smart dinner clothes, dropping me on the bed next to hers. But somehow I can’t see her. Not today anyway. I wish I wasn’t going.

Find out more about my Making Tracks project – Finding Nana.

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