My mother at 25

Actually, this is probably her at 22, just as she graduated, but it is the only adult photo I have of her from around that time.

Today is a sort of silver anniversary, 25 years since my mother died. When this photo was taken she had no idea that she was almost halfway through her life. She will have been full of hopes and expectations: career, husband, family. Twenty-five years ago my future felt less bright: everything thrown into confusion, as her cancer took over quite rapidly.

I remember so many details of that day: the early morning phone call, my father telling my sister and I, the very gloomy undertaker, going out to a play at school in the evening. I remember the visitors: my best friend's mum and her sister, my father's cousin and his wife, our minister from church. I remember it wasn't raining. I remember calling my godmother, and being allowed to sit on the table without being told off. I remember that my family watched 'Allo 'Allo, the episode with the joke about the candle with the handle. I remember that day better than I remember what happened yesterday.

It is a funny thing to think about, as no-one I am in daily contact with would have a clue about it; many wouldn't even dream that my mother would be dead at this age. Yet this evening I get a message from my best friend from school and I am reminded that my mother was not just important to me. My father, sister and I mark this date each in our own ways: this is mine. A brief recognition of a wonderful person whom I will always miss.

Dahl's Den on Dahl Day

Writing Wednesday

Roald Dahl was one of the greatest writers for children ever. His books are classics, books that I loved as a child and my children have loved reading in recent years. We have a set of five of them as talking books read by Roald Dahl himself, who has a glorious voice to listen to. Fantastic Mr Fox got us through some extrememely late and slightly hair-raising driving to our holiday in Wales this summer.

Dahl is a national treasure, a great talent of whom we should be proud. His shed where he did all his writing has not been touched since his death in 1990. Due to a back injury during the war he was unable to write at a desk so all his works were penned (or rather, pencilled) from his armchair with an adapted writing board. All around the small hut are treasures that tell of his writing life - pictures and ornaments, special paper shipped in from the US, the ashtray and cigarette butts.

Can a place ooze creativity? Just looking at the pictures of it make me feel warm, as if any moment there could be another masterpiece emerging from its depths. It feels comfortable, exciting, inspiring. (Although I bet it was terribly cold in winter!)

Yesterday an appeal was announced for £500,000 to cover the costs of moving Roald Dahl's writing shed to the Roald Dahl museum in Great Missenden. This has caused a furore! Why should the public fund the shed's removal in these times of austerity when the Dahl family are so wealthy (and particular attention has been drawn to his granddaughter Sophie, a millionaire in her own right)? Given that Puffin sold one Dahl book every 5 seconds last year these arguments have weight. By my calculations, if each book gave 50p of royalty that amounts to £3,153,600, which ought to cover the preservation costs and still leave enough for his widow to live off. (And that excludes any film or other royalties!)

I am delighted that such a treasure is to be saved for the public. I hope and trust that many children (and adults) will be inspired by the room, just as Dahl was, and that further classics will emerge. The Dahl family's PR may have shot itself in the foot, but we should all enjoy this little piece of our collective history. If we can save the house that John Lennon or Paul McCartney grew up in, then we ought to be able to save Dahl's Den too.

Wedding bliss

I persuaded the children to sit on the sofa with me to watch the Royal Wedding.

"It's the dress I want to see," I told them. "10.51: that's when we'll get the first glimpse."

Sure enough, knowing her duty to her future family means sticking to the clockwork timetable, Catherine Middleton emerged from the Goring Hotel on time. I, of course, am engrossed. It looks big, not sleek and slinky. It looks lacy on top. But really, it is impossible to see much in those few seconds, what with the car in the way and a lady running around with a camera.

My son and daughter are less enthusiastic than me. My daughter is excited by her name. "Is it Catherine with a K?" she asks. When told no, her response is that it is like my name.

"Well, a bit," I say, "but mine has an A in it. CathArine, not CathErine."

You see - that's what I am: Catharine with an A.

My son is intrigued by the wedding malarky, but states quite categorically that he is only interested in the kiss. When they said their vows he asked, "Do they kiss now?" (Clearly not.) And when they were on the balcony he was looking away when they first kissed and had to rewind! Thank goodness they did it a second time when he was watching!

But this is leaping ahead. The bride gets into her car, the train follows, and then her father sits by her side. No-one seems too flustered, not even that photographer. Everybody settled in and the car begins to move away.

Then my daughter says, "Is Catherine the one in white?"

Motherhood across the generations

I have been thinking a lot about motherhood lately. This is partly because of the themes in The hand that first held mine, which I reviewed last week, and partly because it was discussed at our writer's group last week (when I read a chapter of my book connected with my own mother's death).

This week I visited my friend's mother. I have known my friend since primary school, presumably since I was two when we moved to the village. On and off we have been friends throughout the last 40 years. His mother and mine were friends. We went to the same church. Our sisters were similar ages too, so there was a lot of time spent playing together as we grew up.

His mother was there for me when my own mother died of breast cancer. She told me: "You will always be someone whose mother died when she was sixteen." She was right: it is like a weight that I carry everywhere with me, invisible to most, unknown to many, but something that makes every day a little more difficult than I would like.

But she was more practical help than that. We often went round for tea (spinach and cheese pancakes - that's what I'll remember!) and their family home was a release valve for the stresses that being a teenager without a mother inevitably brought. She told me about different types of contraceptives, for example - a conversation that I cannot begin to imagine having with my father even now!

I went to visit her because she has only days to live.

She has breast cancer.

Oh, the irony of that. The lady who became so much of a mother to me when my own mum died of breast cancer is going the same way - admittedly 20 years later and at an older age, but even so.

But what has struck me is how important she is to me not just because of the time immediately surrounding my own mother's death, but also because of all those primary school years when we were in and out of each other's houses. It wasn't just her: there were other friends whose homes I played in. All those after-school adventures and games, overseen by 'shadow mothers': mothers who loved me as their child's friend, who loved me almost as a daughter of their own.

They had a hugely important part in my upbringing, in making me who I am today. They permitted different excesses, had different skills to teach (one could make bread; another could sew; another had piles of lego or mechano or monopoly), had different family relationships that stretched my understanding of 'normal' and broadened my horizons.

And now my children are running in and out of their friends houses I see history repeating itself. My friends - their friends' mums - are a part of their upbringing, of knowing right from wrong, of learning skill sets and of celebrating achievements. And so - in 30, 40, 50 years' time - they may mourn the passing of their 'shadow mothers' with a similar grief to mine.

Childhood days are never forgotten and I am so grateful that I have had such wonderful shadow mothers. I have been blessed by them throughout my life. I also know that I have wonderful friends now to whom I entrust my children on a weekly basis. Perhaps one day the children will appreciate them as I appreciate my mother's friends.

The sweet pressure of inflation

I walked into the supermarket the other day and found myself staring at the sweets on an aisle end. At eye-level, staring me in the face, were Polos: the mint with a hole.

I was flung into nostalgia. When I was a child I used to love these, because they always seemed such good value for money. For 5p I could get a whole pack. Each sweet could be sucked for hours. With a bit of good self-restraint it would last me an entire week until I had pocket money again. I didn't like the fruit-flavoured ones: those would go all sticky and glue themselves together before I finished them all. My favourites were the basic mints, with extra kudos points for sucking them into the finest ring without them breaking.

And then, of course, the price went up to 6p. No longer could I afford one tube each week. Now the pack would have to last longer. (I now know it is 20% longer, that over 6 weeks I could buy 5 packs ... but that was a lifetime to a young girl!)

In my teens Rowntrees was bought by Nestle, much to my disappointment. For a long time I have boycotted Nestle products due to their stance on baby milk; now all my favourite sweets and chocolates would have to be abandoned. In amongst the list were Polos.

So it was a shock to find myself staring at them last week and realise that they were now 44p. An eight-fold increase on my childhood memories! Could this be right?

I was once told a rule of thumb about inflation: everything doubles in price over ten years. Thus something costing £1 now will cost £2 at the beginning of 2021. For the sake of argument I am going to say that it is 30 years since polos cost 5p: that would make them worth 40p now, going by my inflation calculation. Given that I am sure the 5p price was more than thirty years ago (I hate to admit that: I have a round-figure-number birthday due this year!) the 44p price is probably in line with inflation over the period. How scary! I can expect my grandchildren to be paying closer to £4 per packet!

Yet, if I go to a website calculator for the period since, say, 1976, I should expect my 5p sweets to now cost 27p. That is a massive 17p per packet of increased profit for Nestle more than would be reasonable to expect. And that shows my rule of thumb to be flawed, at the very least! The UK must have had some delightfully low inflation years.

Today the government announced our CPI to be 3.7%, having been consistently over 3% for the last year despite the Bank of England's responsibility to keep it below that figure. To a large extent this is difficult for us to understand. All we know is that everything feels more expensive, particularly as wages and pensions are frozen or falling, and as jobs and careers are in peril. At that consistent rate, my 44p polos will cost 63p in ten years time: check back in a decade and find out how close we are!

So how much should your favourite sweets be costing now? Can such things as Penny Chews exist? Have a play with the calculator below and let me know what you find out.