Vivienne’s Diary: April

Tues 1 April: I had thought after all the work in March for 2 collections I might have a pause but, no, straight into one last print needed for Red Label and catching up with this and that. I must read the first draft of Ian’s biography on me and make some notes. One of the things I’m keen to get right are my motivations and what drives me.

I have read half of the book and I think it’s good. There are a few surprises from people who love me, things I didn’t know or realize.

Tuesday 8 April: My birthday. I don’t usually celebrate because I don’t fancy the fuss. At home, flowers arrive, beautiful, quite a lot by the end of the day. Thank you.
At one o’clock Ian arrives and we work through the book. He comes again on Thursday,we work from 10a.m. to 6.30. In between the special events this month of April is taken up with some work for Red Label – mainly correcting and finishing the knitwear samples we received from Italy, fittings and fabric choice for Red Carpet and no work on Gold Label – always left till last though it’s our most important collection. Cynthia is snowed under working with Cindy on Climate Revolution, I manage to join in some of the discussion especially “We Need to Talk about Fracking”. 

I managed to attend only one of our weekly meetings of Q v Q which aims to concentrate and reduce the size of our company and product. Any spare time is taken with checking the first draft of my biography with Ian.

Wed 9 April: To Juergen’s place to discuss the idea for our next campaign – publicity, most important aspect being who to choose as the model.

Evening: dinner with our friend Lawrence who brought John along. They both work in the same company which is linked to the cyber giants. I had asked Lawrence and he gave it to me: a very personal CV. leading up to what he does and why. He wrote it in the third person and I have posted it on the Climate Revolution website. As far as I understand it Lawrence and John locate social groups who they consider would benefit from the acquisition of mobile phones. Lawrence’s main aim is to empower women and phones are a tool for them to control and organize their lives, for example through banking and microfinance.

He tells me of a women who through using her husband’s phone found a programme by which she taught herself to write, then taught other women in her village and is now the head of a big company – something to do with communications I think.

Inevitably the conversation passed to the evils of the internet. I thought of Lila aged five who was sitting next to her mother (she had to bring her to work – with us), killing time before they could go home. Lila had a computer! This was the task. She had to organise coloured shapes into this.

It doesn’t look so bad hand drawn. I never saw anything so ugly as the neat graphic on her screen. I said, “That’s really boring isn’t it? Anybody knows the difference between blue and red, or a star and a circle. I suppose it’s a programme for a two year old.” (God forbid!)

“This is my favourite programme.” She responded, activating the standard game of Little Hero avoids or kills all the shit that comes streaming at him. Nadir of human experience, nothing of beauty or aspiration.

A parent once defended these games saying it was good for reflexes; as a child I played wonderfully exhilarating games: skipping, juggling 2-balls or 3-balls against a wall or a door, marbles and table tennis is great for reflexes. If I’d been Lila I would have been reading or drawing.

Pressing buttons instead of thinking, non-stop distraction, no focus, alienation from reality.

Another inevitable discussion we had is that social media enables protest. This is good and we really need to build on this. And how useful are on-line petitions? Wikileaks and other NGO’s have revealed the difference between fact and propaganda. People don’t swallow the political propaganda so easily anymore which is a reason why some of them turn to racist political parties. (Or Islam)More of this later.

It’s very good talking to Lawrence. He asks the kind of questions – we talk about the things which are important to me.

Sat 12 April: After yoga we took a taxi at midday to the home of Gordon my brother and his partner Geraldine. We drove to Glossop in the Pennines where we were born. I took one of Geraldine’s books which I began to read on the motorway, a biography of Rudolf Nureyev. We were on our way to our cousin’s golden wedding celebration. I haven’t seen my cousin Edith for many years and when she phoned to invite me she told me something I had heard but forgotten. Her husband Ken had a stroke which paralysed him. For the last eight years Edith’s life except for a game of golf once a week has been looking after him. The way she puts it – “ I have to sort him out.” It must be harder for Ken, but how people love life despite difficulties and of course I had to go. Edith told me I (aged 13) and a little boy were the two guests on the wedding photo still alive.

It was a lovely ceremony, a really good buffet and good speeches. We met  our cousins and friends again.

We were in the hotel for two nights. My cousin Hazel, her family and my old school friend Mike came to see us. I enjoyed being with Gordon, he’s full of information. And I loved talking to the teenage grandchildren Leigh and Sky and her boyfriend Sean. I told them my philosophy of life, you have to follow your deep interest. I remember when I was at school there the glamorous job ideas for girls were be a nurse or a teacher, otherwise you had to be a secretary or an accountant; It’s the same still, I suggested to Sky that she could study history of art.

Andreas had never been there. He “did not know England could be like that.” It’s very beautiful and it’s my home. I think we all love best the place we’re born. The Londendale Valley set amongst hills. From our home we could go in three directions all different: the green hills of the Derbyshire Peak District, the Cheshire woods, the Yorkshire moors.

We drove Andreas over the moors to Holmefirth (Last of the Summer Wine), quite spectacular built up the rocks, a one time wool town, factories built amongst the hills in the middle of nowhere to access the water power. We would like to have gone to Mytholmroyd two hours away across the moors to a clog factory but we didn’t have time.

On Monday we walked with Hazel and her daughter, Paula through Swallow’s Wood and down to Devil’s Bridge as we used to. The families would stay on the bank of the stream, pic-nic and talk while the children played in the water. Andreas loved it and we came back “over the top” where we were followed by a new lamb who wanted its mother and then found her. It was a boy. So he gets killed soon – Paula said she feels so sorry when the lambs are taken away, you hear the mothers bleeting all night. Then we drove over the spectacular bare moors and back down to London.

Fri 18 April: To St. John’s, Smith Square for the St John’s Passion. Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Remember I don’t believe in God but I believe in the concept of Perfection. I’ll explain this carefully one day.

I was brought up in the Anglican religion. Some of the hymn tunes we sang are from this Passion but it’s impossible to match exactly which ones, because the music is so full: the choir and instruments, the choir with its descants and the swelling base and culmination of the strains and overlay ever changing and soaring; the music fills you, you can’t pin it down, you don’t want to, you’re just part of a world which is carrying you away and you’re riding up on the hypnotic rhythm of Baroque music. This is the difference between the Protestant religious service, filling yourself with song when you, yourself sing with everyone, or the Catholic service and being carried away by the choir. In between are the arias, each different voice is partnered by a different instrument and the story is told by the recitateur. This one, Jeremy Ovenden, was the best ever. The clarity of his expression, voice and acting!

The whole: a teeming of abundance held in restraint. You might compare it to the representation of nature in the paintings of Henri Rousseau.

Saturday 19 April: Mark Spye’ s birthday. Mark has worked with me since he was a kid now for many years a main designer he began as a machinist, then managed our Davies St. shop. We still have customers who remember the days of Mark, who still wear the beautiful clothes he organized for them. Great stylist. His friends organized a surprise for him – we all came. He had a lovely time.

Sunday 20 April: To Cornwall, staying with my son Joe. Family members try to meet around Easter to celebrate the memory of my mother and father. Dora died at this time of year.

Tuesday 22 April: Andreas and I go back today. I have just finished writing and choosing these excerpts, – Part1 – Part2 – from the Nureyev biography which I’m posting on the CR website in three parts. I was still reading it on our way down, driving in Andreas’ car which he hardly ever drives but lends to friends.

I wish we could stay another day but we have to get back. It’s lovely where we are, talking round the fire, cooking. It’s more luscious than the Pennines – I never saw primroses growing when I lived there as a child – and just the odd violet and lots of bluebells but here the banks along the hedgerows are fairy gardens.

Wednesday 23 April: Juergen came to our house to take my portrait for the biography. He was happy, it will be great. We had a bite and a chat, he’s our friend.

Saturday 26 April: Sara had a house party for her friends who happened to be our friends as well. We gave Sara a little scarf, others brought cakes and wine. She had cooked so, so good curry dishes! We all stayed in the kitchen, talking and eating until finally Sara got us upstairs to the living room where we could dance if we wanted and where Cobalt was making cocktails. Cobalt is Sara’s husband, his band, Zodiac Mindwarp and The Love Reaction  still gigs – he works in information security.

Cobalt gave me his favourite guitar to hold. It was so heavy, I couldn’t have held it for more than a minute. All guitars are heavy I found when he gave me another guitar, I could have held that one for about ten. I said, “Hendricks was the greatest R ‘n R Star. Ever.” (That includes Elvis) “The Best,” agreed Cobalt.

No wonder Jimmy Hendricks threw that guitar around, slung it away from him so that it lost its weight then pulled it back like a dancing partner, no wonder he set fire to it like it was his loved one. They say he wore the guitar constantly. (I saw a documentary, Andreas called me up to watch T.V. but we didn’t watch it all because we didn’t want to hear about when he died). These stars who only live to be young. I lived all my life as if I’m young but now I’m old I realize not just that youth is precious but that it’s actually something else.

Jimmy was beautiful. And the way he dressed! There was nothing like it at the time, the way he looked and played and moved and sang; he had a method of singing then talking as he breathed: he sang like the wind. Jimmy Hendricks.

Something unexpected happened. Our friend Robert got drunk. What was unexpected was what he said,” Vivienne we have all got to vote UKIP. If we don’t we will have Sharia law in this country.” Nothing we said could make him see the disconnection between these two things. So one by one we ignored him, he slept there and in the morning he told Sara he wasn’t going to vote UKIP. How could he think such a thing when drunk? “In vino veritas”?

It is being said across the political spectrum that the very existence of UKIP is the fault of the two main political parties run by the pathetic Cameron and Miliband. Of course it is. People don’t believe them when they say that things will get better. They talk of growth and recovery but people are getting poorer. There are exceptions, due to speculation some people have profited from a rise in the housing market but this renders poor people worse off. For the last few decades and since the whole world has been brought under the capitalist system, according to general statistics the poor have been getting poorer. Capitalism can only flourish if the strong prey on the weak. As the system continues poverty increases. Things have got so bad that by now poor people everywhere are poorer.

UKIP is the same as these two main parties, the same old formula that is heading for disaster, except UKIP has given us an enemy. Capitalism runs on war mentality, an enemy real or constructed is necessary (read”1984”).  Hate and nationalism are the last things we need if we are to save ourselves: not competition but co-operation, a global solution.

We need new politics. We will get them if we apply

This is Climate Revolution of course. It is also the agenda of the Green Party

Our politicians are too frightened to change their politics. Our politicians are anti- people. They are too frightened to change our politics which support only big business. The trouble is the general public is scared as well. We have been trained up as consumers for 200 years. Free market capitalism depends on consumption. We agree that business should make unconscionable profits because that gives us “growth” – no matter it doesn’t trickle down to people. We have to change our values then we’ll have true value for money.

Sunday 27 April: Barbican. Mahlers’ 7^th Symphony. I asked Andreas what I should write. He said, “Who doesn’t know him should try to get to know him. It is an incredible experience every time I listen to him. I really think it adds something to life.

The first time I(Andreas) heard him of course was in “Death in Venice” Visconti’s film from the novel by Thomas Mann. I was very young. Has anyone ever seen anything better? You would hear talking on the beach and the children playing and the music would take over – that was Visconti.”

Mon 28 April: The people who campaign to save the bumblebee The plight of the Bumblebee came to see me. I was glad to say something to camera for their video. I said how everything is connected. The trouble is people see everything in isolation: Do this! Do that! Why? Because you can and if you poison the earth and change the atmosphere and the weather patterns and therefore lose the bees then we’ll find another isolated solution –  just get cheap labour and people can pollinate the plants.