Ask a 97 year old Mumsnet fan

[Pebbles16]

My 97 year old great aunt is a fan of Mumsnet and has asked me to post. Warning: she will likely be in bed by 9.30
Me: should we do this in the am?
GA: No, if people ask ?s overnight, it will give us something to do...

Hey ho
So, some background to my GA: she was born in Shanghai; was interned in WW2; lived in the Far East until 1970 when she was widowed. Moved to the UK and HAS NEVER adjusted to the weather; this summer is the only time she's mentioned "it's a bit warm".
She has learned multiple languages over the years.
Did not have children (likely as a result of the prison camp conditions).
Spent most of her life advocating for children affected by war.
Cheats at most board games.
Mocks my tolerance to chillies.

So, ask us anything!

Smart phones. All that computer power in my pocket. And I can ask it any question and it gives me the answer. Pebbles gave me my first smart phone and I seem to remember I was on it solidly for about three days.

(This is true)

My history teacher said that often you look back at history and wonder what has actually improved. And she said ‘women’s rights- we are living in the best time for women’. Does your aunt agree? How does she reflect on a woman’s lot throughout her lifetime?

And, what were the major points in her life when she felt she was part of a shift in technology? So, for me, it was starting uni and being given an email login, for example.

thanks for doing this!

OP here. Yes, she has written about her experiences (not published).
I think we answered the health question earlier.

OP here. Yes she has kept diaries. They are not allowed to be read until a year after she dies.

And @Megsdaughter
OP here. Yes, we watched it together and it was the first time she told me what happened to her. She said it was believable but her camps were urban so somewhat different; she certainly recognised some of the character-types though.

Thank you.

@Pebbles16 please thank your Great Aunt. These responses are wonderful and so insightful. Hoping you’ll be allowed to maybe publish her diaries one day.

What a bright, good humoured interesting lady. Absolutely no judgement just admiration. Well behaved women they say rarely make history after all.

Don’t want to hog her time but just if she would like to would love to know:

• What age did she start smoking and when/how did she give up?

• It would be lovely to know more about her dear Husband Ben. How did they meet? What was he like? What did she love about him and what drove her nuts? What are her fondest memories? What would she do or say to him if she could have 10 more minutes together?

• Love that she said fighting for justice is so important. ⚖️ It’s clear she dedicated much of her life to that noble cause, and it’s usually only those who experience injustice that can properly understand the consequences of not doing it. It would be wonderful to hear more about her work with children, what she remembers, did and learned.

• Love the advice to younger people includes give your life meaning and be of service, your GA sounds such a great person.

• Being a cat is a great shout! Also interesting not to feel age unless mirror 🪞 about. I think it was Oscar Wilde who quipped the thing about age was not feeling old but feeling so young.

• I haven’t heard of that person she admires so going to find out more. Bhuddism is a great way of life, be great to know how that has helped her navigate difficult times. It’s quite special too to be so accepting and at peace with dying. Read once we all know we’ll die but the important thing is to live first.

• Absolutely love that she was called audacious by her Mum. Having that spirit has clearly made a difference to her life and others. Gosh, going back to Asia too was a really brave decision but can completely understand wanting to get that sense of familiarity. The world has changed so much like she said and so interesting to hear her views.

• I just wondered too if she might be up for recording a podcast? We lose so much valuable history and someone as eloquent as your Great Aunt could teach us so much?

• Also wondering what her Mum and Dad were like, and out of all the people she’s loved and met, as well as her husband who have been the people that have impacted her life the most and in what way?

Thanks so much and please thank your Aunt for making my day 🫶🏻

Yes I would love to know more about her husband Ben too!

Aww hope AGA feels the love from MN. ❤️

This is the best thread I have ever read on here , thank you xxx

💯

Such a lovely thread. Would she share her favourite recipe with us?

She has diaries but we are not allowed to look at them until one year after she dies "in case we might judge her".

Lords almighty please tell her nobody with any reasonable level of intelligence would judge her for anything that she did to stay alive or anything she did to make life feel better after the trauma she went through!

My new question may have been asked already, is there anything she hasn't done and can't now do that she regrets not having done?

I would love to know what GA thinks the most important life skills are - especially for women.

Big love to GA! ♥️

Did she keep in touch with the friends she made in Tjideng?
Does she feel the Japanese concentration camps are commemorated 'enough' in the UK? E.g. in the Netherlands there is a national monument and an annual event (I'm from there though not part Indo).

I know some young women had a terrible time so I can imagine she wouldn't want you to read about that yet. Well done to her on feeling able to write about it.

Love this thread! Can I ask how she coped losing so many loved ones? I have lost 6 people in the last 3 years and I am not doing very well at keeping it together. I need some GA wisdom!

What was her profession?

What's her signature scent?

Ask her to tell us her favourite memories of Ben, how they met, their wedding day, what she loved about him, how she felt my when she was with him?

I have just sent this thread to my 70 year old mum who is having a tough time. It truly warms the cockles. Much love to GA

I love this AMA!!

Who is her all time celebrity crush?

Favourite film? Favourite song?

What was her wedding dress like?

Hello lovely people. Sorry to be MIA but I've had to come back home and to the whole work thing.
To answer some more Qs - in my words but from GA. These are the "easy" Qs but there will be more on the harder/longer ones...

@LadyGardenersQuestionTime I am not asking GA about her sex life! However, she will say that she had a very happy marriage and there has only ever been one man in her life.

@FullOfNoises Yes to Banh mi. But you can't get a decent one outside of London in the UK (in her opinion)

@TheBewleySisters Enjoys music and is looking forward to Miles Davis tonight at the Proms (BBC4 in case anyone is interested). Her favourite album is Bridge Over Troubled Water. We happily dance to anything by Abba and Glenn Miller... and Shake It Off by Taylor Swift (have no idea how that got into the boogie cannon!).

@Cherryblossomcottage - her favourite recipe, she would have to kill you! But she says this is a very good recipe - it is, and how I make my spring rolls https://www.cooking-therapy.com/vietnamese-spring-rolls/

@ChaToilLeam Biggest life skills - money management. Even in 1970 when she came back to the UK she was treated with absolute disdain and suspicion by "people in the bank". Learning how to cook/be resourceful with ingredients - if a recipe requires paprika but you only have cinnamon then just trust your taste buds. (GA was actually taught to cook in Hong Kong in her 20s because she was entirely bored being an accessory to her husband's job and only being served food).

@MagicAlixk She laughs when considering "a profession". She was a professional diplomat wife for 20 years - more of later. Then she was a stenographer/translator and, in the mean time, became a charity worker helping children who had been affected by war. As OP I remember her charity work the most, she used to get on planes to all over to speak to children who had been child soldiers, had parents who had been "disappeared" etc...she is truly inspirational which is why I suggested we did this post.
I asked her "signature scent" - her response: "well for most of my life, probably sweat... but then I discovered Jean Patou's Joy and it was heaven". She now smells kind of cinnamon biscuits for reasons that neither of us understand

@ApocalypseNowt celebrity crush: William Holden; favourite film: Soul (the Disney film); favourite song: Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel.

@leavesinthebreeze a very smart lilac suit. It was post-war so wedding dresses were not really a thing. GA's words: "I coveted your Grandma's suit, it was the nicest colour I'd ever seen. We traipsed round Derry and Thoms but I had hardly any coupons because I' only been in England for 5 minutes so I was a bit sulky. Not my finest hour and then Grandma asked if I liked anything of hers and I asked if I could borrow her suit".

• What age did she start smoking and when/how did she give up?

GA started smoking in camp but cigarettes were rare. She carried on after the war because it "was just the done thing". Eventually gave up in the 80s because she needed a hip replacement and they wouldn't do it if she was still smoking. It took two years of trying.

• It would be lovely to know more about her dear Husband Ben. How did they meet? What was he like? What did she love about him and what drove her nuts? What are her fondest memories? What would she do or say to him if she could have 10 more minutes together?

GA and Ben was a total love story. He was the son of one of the ladies with whom she was interned. She met up with the lady in London in 1947 and Ben just wandered in after a day at work, they were engaged within a month and married four months later (she was only 19 so had to get her aunt and grandmother's permission as they were her guardians). He was "brave and kind and believed the world could be a better place". She loved "every single molecule of him", but he cracked his knuckles a lot which drove her nuts. As OP, I think he deeply understood what she had been through because his mum had been through the same, so - although he was deeply protective of her, he knew she needed freedom having been so confined. The memories she speaks about was their time in Vietnam (1956 - 1962) when their compound was frequently attacked: "It was terrifying but I was never scared with Ben because we were together - and even if bad things happened, I was with him". "What would she do or say to him if she could have 10 more minutes together" - I WILL beat you at Scrabble (this is possibly the root of her cheating at games)

• Love that she said fighting for justice is so important. ⚖️ It’s clear she dedicated much of her life to that noble cause, and it’s usually only those who experience injustice that can properly understand the consequences of not doing it. It would be wonderful to hear more about her work with children, what she remembers, did and learned.

"I will make short of this because the children's stories are not mine to tell individually. "I have learnt so much from each individual but, as a collective, I would say children never start wars; no matter what actions they take, they have a trauma response and (the children) need be loved to within an inch of their life to come to terms with their decisions, the decisions made for them and the decisions made 'because of them'. "And, sadly, the trauma never leaves them. We can counsel them, love them, rehabiltate them, but that will forever live in their core. All I can ever hope is that they can turn that trauma to do good."

• I just wondered too if she might be up for recording a podcast? We lose so much valuable history and someone as eloquent as your Great Aunt could teach us so much?

GA" "Oh gosh no darling, you know I hate my voice" GA had the world's most RP voice, there is some family film in the 70s and she sounds like the Queen. She has changed from Traditional RP to a much more modern version.

• Also wondering what her Mum and Dad were like, and out of all the people she’s loved and met, as well as her husband who have been the people that have impacted her life the most and in what way?

GA doesn't speak too much about her parents. It was a different time and they were very hands off. She would (at most) see them once a day as a child so found life very strange when they were interned together. She has asked me to talk about the one person who impacted her life the most who was one of the first child soldiers in Rwanda she met who was forced to kill people to provide rations for the senior soldiers' camp. He was starving and knew he would never get to taste the food, but the promise that they would take him to his parents was enough. "That broke me. I had met so many children affected by war as victims but here was a child telling me that he had to shoot his countrymen because he was so desperate to see his parents again. In some way I could relate to that desperation but, like me, his parents were already dead."

Yes, one of them became her mother in law! She is also - to this day - an excellent letter writer (I think she keeps Royal Mail in business). She kept in touch with many or her friends and was stationed in Singapore in the late 50s so met up with some of them again. She describes it as "an uneasy friendship. We shared so much but didn't really want to remember any of it".
No, it took until 2000 for internees to be recognised by the UK government (I am also a good letter writer and we campaigned together). Even for POWs it was a hard fought recognition because there were so few and and they had endured so much - the Forgotten Army was truly that.

Thanks for posting @Pebbles16 I love hearing older people’s stories. Recently lost an even
older family member and am very much aware there are fewer and fewer of them. Your GA sounds similar - thankfully mine taught me resilience, curiosity and compassion. I’ll never be as good but I’ll try hard! Waiting for the next exciting instalment.

@Coldcoffeekindamorning We are sorry for your loss and it isn't easy. Top tip from GA: be glad of the time you had.

"The war was so frenetic. In camp people died in a trickle at first and then with relentless monotony, one became numb. We were starving and ill ourselves and, sometimes, we envied people who had died because at least they didn't have to go through the day. That's not very uplifting is it?
"Well, presuming people reading this aren't in a war zone, then 'you have to keep buggering on'.
"When we were liberated I found that that my mother and father had both died. That was a shock. I also didn't know if my sister was alive because, of course, when we were captured we knew there was the most awful war in Europe and had heard of the blitz and it was hard to get real news. I knew my sister was safe at Christmas 1941 but then of course we heard nothing and - until we were liberated - we didn't know if Britain had been invaded by the Nazis.
"I was lucky that my sister and grandmother had registered with the Red Cross so I knew after a week or so that they were alive and I could go to see them. People kept saying 'going home', but that wasn't home."

GA realise she wandered from the question, but I thought I would keep it in.

And one thing she has always said to me: "Hold them in your heart and chat to them. If you have a question and ask them, you will probably find the answer in yourself".