Track 7: Don’t look back in anger

Cool Britannia rules the waves, but love is all around

Welcome to the final track of my mini memoir ‘Millionaire mixed tape’. Rewind to start at the beginning or skip to track 6: Smells like teen spirit to catch up on last week.

It’s almost impossible to remember how we communicated with each other before the digital age. When handwriting was a useful skill. When pens were interesting. And when your signature was something to practise, admire and perfect rather than be embarrassed about when drawing it on a screen like a four-year-old¹. How can a squiggle like that be an acceptable way to sign your life away?

Anyway.

Instead of multiple ways to send messages we had two: post and landline. And phone calls were expensive. If you phoned anyone after 6pm, when the tariffs went down, you’d probably be ok if you were quick. But dare to chat in the daytime and you’d better pray you’d left the country by the time your mum received that itemised bill.

You might think this would mean we were sending higher-quality communications back then; that instead of the millions of insignificant thoughts we fire off to each other now via WhatsApp and text, we’d be writing to each other about the truly important things.

Not so. Judging by a wonderful box of letters I’ve kept from 1994-97, which prove the universal need to impart random thoughts no matter how clunky the comms method.

Dear Faith

This may sound strange, but I am just tidying my room, and I have cleared out my bag from my party. I completely forgot to tell you that the blue bag you gave me last year matches my French Connection dress that I wore for my 21^st perfectly.

I love the fact that my friend Pippa went to the trouble of selecting a postcard, writing on it, fixing a stamp and then going to a post box to send it – to tell me this. Without the evidence, I’d never have believed it. But post wasn’t just for chatting, but of arranging plans too.

Dear Faith

Looking forward to seeing you this afternoon.

This afternoon, Lisa?! Imagine living in a world of such certainty. Great days.

Just the three of us

In the final months before I left for university, my dad and brother James and I had formed a tight unit. They both knew how important getting into university was for me, and all eyes were on that prize. Once I got there, the letter writing began.

These letters weren’t just a source of comfort for me – they were also a source of real news from the outside world. I’m sure there was TV and radio somewhere at university, but I didn’t notice them. I was cocooned in this glorious little bubble which felt hermetically sealed from real life.

Perhaps this was down to its campus nature; with its lecture halls, little bank, little shop, little laundry, little pub and quite big library, Royal Holloway felt like a Playmobil version of real life. Events inside felt important but inconsequential at the same time. This was a place where you could experiment at being an adult with crash pads all around you - people to listen and laugh things off with over cider and Hobnobs.

I loved it, but I also loved getting letters from back home. They were a reminder of the real world, but also of the distance between me and it.

In between the latest job prospects and comings and goings of my cats, who I’d had to leave behind, were emphatic music recommendations, film reviews and updates on EastEnders.

Three from James:

“A good Brits. Good to see Paul Weller get an award. It was basically the Blur awards. E17 were embarrassing considering Prince and Madonna were there. Stone Roses will headline Glastonbury, it’s official. Buy Little Fluffy Clouds by The Orb.”

“Madonna’s child is born. Hmm… I wonder if Grant is the father.”

“Last night watched Speed. Slightly disappointing. Expected more plot and less implausible excrement. Blur on edge of splitting up saga. Doesn’t surprise me. I expect you’re mourning. On Wednesday we hope to see Usual Suspects. When are your Easter holidays?”

From dad:

“Frank is really getting on our nerves in EE. We just wish he would leave Pat alone to be with Roy. Ricky would then lose his bewildered look which must be hurting his aching eyebrows as well as James’s and mine and 8 million other peoples and Bianca’s. Where’s Arfa?!”

It could be you

The National Lottery had launched in 1994 and lotto fever was rife. As was the idea back home that winning big could be the answer to all our money troubles. From James:

“Deer antlers

Spent the night in the White Horse, we had a session of ‘What would you do if…” We said if we won, we’d go to the Bahamas. I can say to everyone ‘I’m going abroad for sixth form, taking beach studies and exploring rum and coconut economics.’”

By the time 1996 had come round the idea of winning was as strong as ever, but was now being imparted in the language of Kula Shaker.

From dad:

“Well chicken, find enclosed the first instalment of dosh to feed the wolf. More to follow, especially after Saturday because I’m going to win the Lotto, because I’m fed up with living on the Gira Gira... Whatever the reason, I enjoy writing to you so much, it is as well the paper runs out before the ink. Thank goodness for the bira bira.”

Sealed with a kiss

I read something in a letters section of a magazine the other day from a lady who’d been reading all the correspondence her husband sent her when they were engaged. She said it made her fall in love with him all over again. I know what she meant. Reading these letters has made me love my mum, dad, brother and friends again in a new way. They recognised I was sensitive and responded with love, support and humour.

I think I needed reminding of that.

Just before last Christmas, I stopped speaking to my dad. We had an argument about something that ultimately came down to money. I hold money in such high esteem that it comes before everything else for me. I think about it all the time. I even work in finance for goodness sake.

Then I started publishing this memoir.

It’s been cathartic and fun, but it’s also been tempting to look back in anger, to pick apart past decisions and wonder how they ever seemed like the right ones. Especially from my present-day somewhat gilded cage position, and especially when resentment is already simmering. I hope I haven’t done that.

What I wanted to do was explore how complex our relationship with money can be, how early experiences of it can have a lasting impact, and how it can affect the way we see ourselves.

I hadn’t noticed until writing this that I have this belief that money is a measure of what’s ‘right’. That people who are ‘good’ with money must be correct, that their decisions, their choices, their paths were somehow inherently smarter, better, more worthy.

Of course, I know that many rich people are awful. I know it’s about privilege and timing and luck as much as it is about effort and ability. And yet, deep down, when faced with someone who has managed to navigate life in a way that’s given them financial comfort and security, I look up to them. I admire logic and numbers because they represent safety and success. And yet I also resent this because it seems to go against creativity, intuition, flair and risk. The things that my parents leaned into when they took their own chances to build us a better life. And the qualities I secretly admire the most.

Maybe this is why money has such a hold on me - because it represents both something I revere and something that seems to dismiss everything raw and real about being human. Perhaps this is something that’s been said a million times before, in which case, that’s embarrassing. But hopefully you’ve enjoyed the tapes.

Thank you to everyone who has read, liked and kindly taken the time to comment on these tracks. Please feel free to ♥️ this one too. Thank you also to the two extremely kind people who gave a ‘pledge’ last week. I’ll be diverting this to a worthy cause once I’ve worked out how to do so. See you next week for a more regular piece!

1. No offence to 4-year-olds. Some of my best friends are 4-year-olds.