I was sad to hear this week that John Mortimer (of Rumpole of the Bailey fame) passed away at 85. I wasn’t particularly a huge fan of his avuncular barrister creation, but as a kid I got a kick out of the fact that he called his wife Hilda “She Who Must Be Obeyed”. Mortimer wrote a ton of plays and novels, but he looms large in my memory for an entirely different reason.
One fateful Friday night in the 1980s, I was watching The Late Late Show with my mother. Up popped John Mortimer as a guest regaling Gaybo and the audience with witty tales of legal life and literary anecdotes. My mother had just finished blow-drying my hair for me when she started “the talk” and told me all about periods. My 10-year-old self was a bit horrified at first, but aware that I was being told grown-up woman stuff. As John waxed lyrical about Rumpole, I was learning about eggs, fallopian tubes and using sanitary towels.
To this day, whenever I see Mortimer on TV, I think about that night and will always associate him with finding out about the joys of periods.
So where/when/how did you find out about Aunt Flo/Eve’s Curse/your flowers?
Anthea McTeirnan
Croí na Duibhlinn
Aoife Barry
Aoife McLysaght
Arlene Hunt
Attracta McCarthy-McKenna
clairehennessy
Ann Cronin
Amanda Brown
Eleanor Fitzsimons
Edel Coffey
Anna Carey
Lauren Murphy
Jennie Ridyard
Jude Leavy
Hazel Katherine Larkin
Léan Ní Chuilleanáin
Leigh
Lisa McInerney
Laura Slattery
Maman Poulet
Megan McGurk
Clare Kleinedler
Molly
Rosita Boland
Catherine Crichton
Sinéad Gleeson
sarahefranklin
siobhandowling
Susan Daly
theantiroom
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
God, I never ‘found out’ per se – my parents had a policy of making sure I knew all along, so I can’t remember not knowing about it all. Which I think was a fantastic policy, though my mother said later that she did have to suffer indignant mammies ringing her up after school to complain ‘YOUR little girl told MY daughter that…’
My mum told me that every woman gets periods, including Madonna and nuns. And that was the end of that.
The actual first period came while I was on the phone to a mate. Yes yes, I’m one of those assholes who sometimes goes for a slash while on the blower. So sue me.
I was freakishly old though – 16…
The though of Me Flowers bloody (badpun alert) terrified me.
I think I was imagining Noah-esque floods and Red Seas.
So when it came on an October night in 1994 it wasnt so bad. No big deal at all.
On a completely different tangent, someone once described eggs to me as ‘chicken’s periods”. Don’t think I’m up for scrambled on toast anymore.
My parents went on the “as soon as they ask anything about sex, they’ll be told” principle, which meant my older sister knew the facts about where babies come from when she was about 5, and I, obviously less curious about the world, remained blithely unaware of the details of how the baby got inside your mammy until I was about eight or nine. I had a faint idea of periods from the problem pages of Girl Magazine, but it turned out I had it slightly wrong (I knew something came out of your nether regions, but hadn’t the slightest idea it was blood). Then one day my sister asked me if I knew what periods were, I smugly claimed I did, and then it turned out I didn’t at all. So I asked my mum and she revealed the fabled facts of life. I didn’t quite understand exactly how periods worked, though, and for a while I thought you just got one period and after that you were capable of getting pregnant. I was horrifed when I realised you got one every month for thirty years!
I got my first period at school when I was 13. Do you remember in early 1989 there were loads of sinister poster ads that kept saying stuff like ‘February 13 – it is coming’ and ‘February 13 – all will be revealed’, and everyone thought it was some weird end-of-the-world campaign but it turned out to be an ad for the power of advertising? Well, “it” also turned out to be my periods – my first one arrived on February 13th 1989, when I was in school, and as I was in first year of secondary school I’d only known my new friends for less than six months and would have been too shy to ask them for sanitary assistance, but luckily my cousin (who I was great friends with) was in the year above me and not only gave me a Vespre but a clean pair of knickers – she had really crazy irregular periods so always kept emergency pants in her locker!
And I actually loved John Mortimer – his heart was in the right place, he did a lot of work in prison reform and in the cause of free speech, he was always on the side of the underdog, and he was one of those rare womanisers who seem to genuinely like women. And the early Rumpole books are perfect comfort reads.
My mam just came up and told me completely out of the blue one night. I don’t know what prompted it at all. I didn’t really understand at all, until about 3 years later… I had a serious case of that OHHHHHHH moment.