Thank You Julie Andrews

Tuaran Pagoda with Mount Kinabalu as a backdrop

Before you all think I've gone a bit mad in the tropics and senility has come early as I clocked up another year last week, there is a reason for my gratitude to this heroine of mine. Admittedly I'd rather be able to sing like Annie Lennox or Adele but my devotion to Julie Andrews has endured practically all my life. When  I was 2 years old  my father went to the States to work at the Mayo Clinic for 6 weeks. He went to see My Fair Lady on Broadway with the young Julie Andrews starring in the leading role. The LP was bought and I don't remember at what age I started to play it but I knew it off by heart long before in 1964 Mary Poppins was released. I remember distinctly going to the afternoon matinee in Belfast with Katy and the queues being very long and the two of us being mortified as my mother skipped the queues and left us with the doorman of the cinema.(Looking back she probably played the Dr. card!) If I start reminiscing about all my childhood memories this post will never be finished, however I know that the first time I watched The Sound of Music, I was transported to another world in the big screen of Austria and longed to be one of the Von Trapp children or at least be starring in the film. Of course in those days there were no videos or DVDs to watch it at home and the only alternative was to listen to the LP which I got for Christmas, which was played endlessly until I knew every nuance and note of the songs.

Tuaran fish market

Live crabs

    I wouldn't like to say that Julie Andrews had influenced the number of children I had but when we moved to our lovely farm in France, I could see that this was my chance of pretending to be Maria and I could train my children to be the Von Trapp singers. From an early age my children were indoctrinated by large doses of the videos of Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music and Lisa and Tanya could sing most of the songs before they were 3. More children came along and even though Patrick preferred to watch Black Beauty I bet he could sing Edelweiss if asked. We would have Sound of Music sing songs in the garden, going for walks, drives, everywhere... until Andrew finally put his foot down and decreed "No singing at the table!" I'm afraid, as the years went by, Julie Andrews was usurped by Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and many others but whenever all the "girls"are together on a wet day, we have been known to have a "Sound of Music"sing along (much to the boys' horror) I have a feeling that the next generation of Wrights might also be introduced to those films and I'm hoping that they too will fall under their spell.

Bougainvillea near my house 

   Anyway that very long winded way of getting to the relevance of this post is that I went back to Ranau last week and stayed at Slagon Homestay for 2 nights as my replacement mentor has arrived. As always it is very sociable and we met a gentleman and his 8 year old daughter from Kuala Lumpur who were on holiday. Sadly his wife had died last year of a chest infection. She believed in Chinese medicine and wouldn't take antibiotics and tragically left this bright, lovely girl to be brought up alone. On Thursday evening he was telling us how obsessed Erin was about watching The Sound of Music and how it had brought them closer together as they watched it most evening when he got home from work. "Shall we watch it now?" he said and before we could answer he had got his computer down and the first notes of "The hills are alive .. " were playing and we had fallen under the spell.

Squid

Herbal remedies

If you can imagine the scene there were 2 middle-aged white women, a 60 + Japanese man , a Malayan man and 8 year old Erin huddled round a computer screen. Erin was able to sing along with every song, not to mention the actions of Do, re , mi but what amazed her was how well I could too! I told her that the song " I have confidence" is a song that I still sing today when I am off to face things I am not sure I'll be able to face and she confided in me that the song that she sings when things are bad is "My Favourite Things". We didn't watch until the end as it is long but I'm amazed that after so many years Julie Andrews and her singing still touches the hearts of young and old. Thanks Julie.