Family life: Mrs Thatcher's chair, Sister Suffragette and Dad's Mish Mush Jul 20th 2013, 06:30
Readers' favourite photographs, songs and recipes
Snapshot: My son in Mrs Thatcher's chair
In 1974 I lived with my husband, Joe, daughter Deborah and baby son Saul in a small terraced house in a cul-de-sac in Muswell Hill, north London. Children tended to play football in the cul de sac to the irritation of residents concerned about their cars and windows, but the only safe play space was accessed via a very busy road. I became the chair of a group of residents (all women) who wanted to turn a nearby council-owned green patch into a play area.
We wrote to local councillors, and contacted the council. The councillors did not bother to reply and the council turned us down.
We had made friends with a reporter on our local paper, the Finchley Gazette, and he reported on our campaign and our efforts to obtain a playspace. We even climbed up a ladder and stretched a sign across the road between two lamp-posts with "let our children play" on it.
As we had had no luck with councillors we wrote to our MP, Margaret Thatcher. With local elections looming, she duly arrived at my house one evening with her party manager and when I came to the door, she suggested we go and look at the site. This we did and she assured me that she would support our campaign. She was just about to leave when I told her that half the street was sitting in my living room and they wanted to meet her. She sprang into action and was soon shaking as many hands as she could reach in the very crowded room. Someone had brought a huge kettle and was making tea for everyone. The Labour candidates were also present to answer questions.
In the middle of the room was a cane-sided chair with cushions for Mrs Thatcher. She promptly sat down and charmed the house. She presented herself as just another housewife having to get home to make a cold supper for Denis (I think she was minister of education at the time). She seemed to enjoy herself hugely and promised to speak to the leader of the council.
I don't know what she said but shortly afterwards the (very reluctant) chief engineer called and came to see me to agree suitable fencing for the playspace we had identified. One of the Labour candidates was elected. I never found out if the playspace went ahead because I moved shortly afterwards.
The chair that Mrs Thatcher sat in has been covered several times and moved with us to several houses, but it is still known in the family mythology as Mrs Thatcher's chair. The chair now sits in my son's new home.
Lina Fajerman
Playlist: Mother's militant march
Sister Suffragette from Mary Poppins
"We're clearly soldiers in petticoats / And dauntless crusaders for women's votes / Though we adore men individually / We agree that as a group they're rather stupid!"
Following a dreamy evening at a new play – Oxygen – celebrating the great suffrage pilgrimage of 1913, this song kept going round and round in my head. And not just the song but the image of my mother, Margaret, doing the housework – brooms, dusters and polish flying – to the Mary Poppins soundtrack at full volume.
When Sister Suffragette came on, cleaning equipment was cast aside and mother led her three small daughters round the sitting room at a brisk, militant march, singing lustily. Joyful and triumphant!
Margaret is a feisty lady, but no feminist. She had her own Mr Banks who, bowler-hatted and suited, went off to the City every day. He left early and returned late. The evening routine: waiting at home, disciplined and dressing-gowned, three little girls who hadn't a clue what Daddy did at work.
A teacher of mine, amazed that an intelligent child didn't know what kept the family afloat, asked my mother whether her husband was involved in secret work, possibly MI5? Of course, she was wrong, he was employed in market research about soaps and detergents for what is now a multinational.
I never took the opportunity to thank my father for his years of toil, nor have I shown gratitude to my mother for the many positives. But this memory is a gem – shoulder to shoulder into the fray. Anna Marks
We love to eat: Dad's Mish Mush
Ingredients
1 onion, chopped
Bacon, chopped
Eggs
Grated cheese
Thick slices of wholemeal bread and butter
Fry a chopped onion and some chopped bacon in oil until cooked, stir in eggs, then grated cheese, and serve on thick slices of buttered wholemeal bread.
We'd eat in companionable silence, then go back to bed, leaving Mum to clear up the mess when she came down in the morning.
Dad was one of seven children, brought up in a single room in the East End of London. After one brother died in his sleep in the bed they all shared, Dad became an insomniac and, though he lived until he was 104, he rarely managed to sleep for more than a couple of hours, relying on daily catnaps of a few minutes here and there to keep him going.
As a teenager I, too, had problems sleeping and would often get up to find Dad rustling up a post-midnight feast he called Mish Mush because that's what it looked like. I still make it as a treat and it always reminds me of him in his dressing gown and slippers, wielding a frying pan.
Judy McGuire
We'd love to hear your stories
We will pay £25 for every Letter to, Playlist, Snapshot or We love to eat we publish. Write to Family Life, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU or email family@guardian.co.uk. Please include your address and phone number
YOUR COMMENT
