Copyright

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First Published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Katy Brand 2020

Katy Brand asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Ebook Edition © October 2020 ISBN: 9780008400729

Version 2020-10-05

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 Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008400705

In memory of

Violet Brand, MBE

(1929–2020)

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Introduction

1 Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

2 A Spoonful Of Sugar

3 Stay Awake

4 Sister Suffragette

5 Jolly Holiday

6 A British Bank

7 A Man Has Dreams

8 The Life I Lead

9 Step In Time

10 Let’s Go Fly A Kite

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

Introduction

Mary Poppins was my favourite film as a child. I was captivated by the songs, the dancing chimney sweeps, the magic. I loved the idea that you could have a day out inside a pavement painting or a tea party on the ceiling. And I was enthralled by the mysterious nanny herself, of course. I liked the crispness of Mary Poppins, the pace, the magical otherness of it and the comfort of an old London I had never known for myself but which somehow felt like home. There were the kindly eccentrics laughing their way through life and the notion that a pair of young children could go missing in a city-centre park and be delivered home by the friendly and familiar local bobby before anyone really had time to panic.

The way I felt after watching Mary Poppins at ten years old was ‘invincible’. I thought I could achieve anything with a bit of stiff resolve and a perky attitude. It always made me want to go upstairs and tidy my room. I felt aflutter with possibilities. A small clear-up would then turn into a total clear-out and I would end up turning all the drawers out, cleaning shelves, pulling furniture away from the wall to see what was behind. Bags of rubbish would accumulate and, when it was done, I would sit on the bed in wonder, gazing at the perfect order in front of me. I’d end up doing my homework too, just to prolong the feeling of virtue. Hell, sometimes I even polished my shoes. I resolved that I would be just like Mary Poppins when I was older – I would run a tight ship, never panic or flap about, and keep a close eye on my own personal care.

Watching the film back as an adult, I have realised that one of the things that I was responding to, which now speaks to me even more loudly, is that Mary Poppins really couldn’t care less about your expectations, your sense of order and rectitude or the perceived societal conventions of the day. She’s here to deliver deeper truths in the manner that she sees fit, whilst appearing immaculately turned out at all times and maintaining constant poise. It’s utterly thrilling.

For me, Mary Poppins is a story about taking practical steps towards happiness. It is about setting boundaries and then upholding those boundaries for a better life. It’s about deciding how you want your life to be and then taking action to make it happen. Even if all that means is a little tidy-up, it’s still a good start.

This has been my small revelation, courtesy of Mary Poppins – I can talk, and think, and imagine all I like, and worlds will be built in my mind; I can engage in necessary introspection and let it tip into indulgent navel gazing from time to time. I can spend all morning saying, ‘I’m going for a run,’ and then decide at lunchtime it’s too late in the day now and I’ll go tomorrow, then spend some more time analysing my emotions to establish why I didn’t go for that run. But until I actually do something practical, and tangible, nothing will change. This, as I have found, is the ‘Poppins Doctrine’ – that recognising a need to change and then taking practical action is what leads to greater happiness. But you must make a start. You could even say, ‘Well begun is half done.’

Just recently, Mary Poppins has started to feel like the answer to a question I have been reaching for but not quite grasping; the solution to a problem I can feel but can’t quite define. We sit at our desks but don’t feel productive – why? We talk about healthy food endlessly but still reach for the crisps – why? We feel tired all the time but we won’t go to bed early – why? I can run up my own list of excuses as long as your arm, and I frequently do. I have got into the habit of excusing myself for anything I don’t feel like doing. But as I watched Mary Poppins, I started to blush as I imagined the look on her face while I whined at her about my foot being a bit sore, or how I can’t write today because I’ve spent all morning googling my chakras and now I’m out of time, or I couldn’t sleep because I was up until 2am arguing with a stranger on Twitter about how to make a proper carbonara.

She would fix me with that glinty, flinty look of hers and I would crumple in a heap of shame. Mary Poppins may be an old film, but it has a fresh message. I think Mary’s still got something to teach us. Her lessons have been lost a little and bringing them back wouldn’t do us any harm at all.

The film Mary Poppins was released by Walt Disney in 1964 and was an immediate success. It takes themes such as parental neglect, women’s rights, poverty, financial power, toxic masculinity, work/life balance, boundaries and the importance of holidays, and brings them all together in a confection as light as a posh meringue with enough chewy stuff in the middle to make to feel you’ve really eaten something proper. It’s entertaining, joyful, moving and satisfying. It’s family entertainment for grown-ups, which is of course the best kind. And it has some of the greatest songs ever written in the history of film. Or indeed songwriting, full stop.

Mary Poppins the character, though, was brought to life some three decades before that by a woman called Helen Lyndon Goff, writing under the name Pamela L Travers. Mary Poppins, the first of eight books she would write about Mary, was published in 1934 and told the story of a super-cocky, magical nanny who comes to look after the children of Mr and Mrs Banks of Cherry Tree Lane, London.

Travers continued writing books about Mary Poppins until 1988 but none lived up to the spiky, saucy first and, ultimately, they were all eclipsed (at least in terms of mainstream success) by Disney’s celluloid creation. As fans of the books will know, Disney’s Poppins was different to Travers’ Poppins in some respects – Travers’ creation was plain rather than pretty, she was often brusque and dismissive of the children and she wasn’t much interested in romancing chimney sweeps. She was more singular, perhaps, more alone. The film rather swept these nuances away in favour of a character who was more conventionally appealing.

Although it is sad to lose a little of the original vision of the author and creator, it also shows the power of the genius of Disney. He didn’t take on Mary Poppins out of some cynical, money-making exploitation of the work of another. He loved the books as much as his two daughters did. Disney’s desire to make the movie of Mary Poppins was first ignited around Christmas of 1944, when he heard eleven-year-old Diane laughing with joy at the original 1934 book. She begged her father to get the rights for his animation company.

He tried and tried. For the best part of twenty years, Disney pursued Travers, but she wouldn’t budge. Until finally, in 1959, she changed her mind. Or had it changed for her by a new American lawyer and an offer she couldn’t refuse. A hundred thousand dollars was on the table, plus a percentage of the profits. At this point, Travers was feeling hard up and worried about the future. She signed the deal. By the time the film finally came out, Diane Disney was in her thirties.

Did Travers regret it? Probably. It was certainly bittersweet for her, though she enjoyed the lifetime financial security it brought her. The pre-production, filming and release of Mary Poppins were all fraught with tension, as Travers tried to keep control of her creation. She had script approval as part of the deal and was determined it would not become a cartoon. Travers and Disney had what she later described as an ‘uneasy wedlock’. But I can’t regret her decision to sell, because though the books are dark, unusual, original and funny, the film is just sheer, effervescent delight from start to finish.

It was Julie Andrews’s first Hollywood film and it won her an Oscar. It was as if she was made to play Poppins – a cookie-cutter perfect woman, but with a glint in her eye you could cut diamonds with. And the rest of the cast were equally perfect: Dick Van Dyke, David Tomlinson, Glynis Johns all shine and twinkle through every moment. It’s a Sunday-afternoon film for the ages. It will get you through any rainy day. Or in my experience, any hangover.

Disney was rightly proud of his creation. He used cutting-edge technology, including special cameras of his own design and manufacture, to make the sequences involving a mix of live action and animation, splicing film between painted pieces of glass and then refilming them as composite plates. Nobody else in the world had access to anything similar because Disney had invented it himself.

In her autobiography, Home Work, Julie Andrews writes of the difficulty in filming in a medium that was new to everyone. They would rehearse the dance sequences for songs like ‘Step in Time’ for hours in a baking hot marquee on the Disney lot at Burbank, California, unaware that they would ultimately be seen to be dancing on staircases made of smoke, or jumping down narrow chimney pots only to appear on a roof next door. Andrews describes once being ‘strapped to a pole on a lazy Susan and whipped around like a spinning top’, and ‘hanging from the rafters on wires’. The ‘Spoonful of Sugar’ nursery scene was shot in reverse: wires pulled drawers open and unfolded clothes, and then the film was run backwards to show the messy room tidying itself up on Mary Poppins’ command.

People were amazed when they saw it in cinemas – nobody had ever seen anything like this before. The profits were used to fund the creation of Disney World, following the success of Disneyland – another project that the visionary Walt had been determined to finish, even painting backdrops and rides himself alongside workers who carried on through the night to be ready in time for the official opening. He was dogged, determined and always finding new and creative ways to show what he could do. He was not an easy man, and his decisions were not always popular. But he would not stop for anyone. He would not explain himself. He did what he thought was right and necessary to achieve the results he desired. No wonder he loved Mary Poppins. In this respect at least, they were very similar.

In the process of researching this book and trying to get to grips with what makes this film from 1964 feel both enchanting and still relevant, I have spoken to some friends and fans and included what they told me. One thing that comes up repeatedly is that it is comforting. We return to the film again and again to imbibe that feeling that everything will be all right in the end. Who could fail to be uplifted by Julie Andrews whistling a duet with an improbably large animatronic robin? And then of course there are the visuals. We have become so accustomed to the use of CGI in films, with the aim of making impossible things look real. But there is something so appealing about the mouth-watering painted backdrops of Edwardian London. The crisp and colourful costumes are delightful; the glorious technicolour of it all is so much better than anything more photo-realistic.

Lots of people told me how much they have enjoyed – or are looking forward to – sharing it with their own children, even though it is essentially a film about parents getting everything wrong. There is something so compelling about that childlike desire for order to emerge out of the chaos of family life, for a kind stranger to arrive and make everything better – someone who knows what they’re doing and will show us where we are going wrong. It’s an idea that appeals to almost everyone; you don’t have to have had an especially traumatic childhood to get it, although interestingly both P L Travers and Walt Disney had a difficult time when they were young. Bearing in mind what we know of Travers, it’s hard to imagine that these two would have shared their experiences with one another directly, but it seems that something communicated itself across the divide, expressed, as it so often is, via the medium of story.

Something that I love about Mary Poppins is her lack of emotional need. She seems entirely self-sufficient, to the point of arrogance at times, and nothing seems to shame her. I find it intoxicating, and I am not alone in this. Emma Thompson, who played Travers brilliantly and sensitively in the film Saving Mr Banks opposite Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, agrees:

‘I think for women particularly her special power is absolutely her lack of emotional neediness. It’s what we all want – well, I do anyway. I feel very needy emotionally – perhaps I am, perhaps I am not, but I feel it. Any character who is truly self-sufficient without being aloof and cut off is so attractive to me. Mary Poppins doesn’t need the children to love her. She doesn’t need anything. But she is nonetheless fully engaged and present.’

What an immense power to hold. It is remarkable and, as Emma says, so attractive. Of course, it is unrealistic to expect or demand the same from any real human, especially any mother, or indeed parent. We are only human – we have needs, and weaknesses, and vulnerabilities and, though we may try to hide them from ourselves and our children, they always leak out. Children can sense it a mile off and will often recoil from extremely needy people, or ‘thirsty’ people as I believe it’s now called by those with super-active Instagram accounts who know what on earth TikTok is. It’s a relief and an inspiration to watch a woman like Poppins go about her business without apology or explanation, without shame or the need for approval. I’m just going to say it: it’s sexy.

In fact, lots of people seem to find Mary Poppins a bit sexy. It’s easy when Julie Andrews is both naughty and nice. Bert certainly seems to think so. Of course, it’s not front and centre, and strike me down for saying it, but there is a kind of undeniable sex appeal to the whole film. It’s partly what makes it endure and allows it to be appealing to adults. Mrs Banks looks like she doesn’t mind a little bit of ‘’ow’s yer father’, as Bert might say, and ooh Bert, yes, he’s got that troubadour free spirit thing going on. Anyone who likes their men a bit buttoned up could imagine helping Mr Banks relax a little. Ellen and Cook may hold a bit more of a niche appeal but there’s plenty who would love a rummage with a buxom servant after the master’s gone upstairs – just ask Julian Fellowes, he’s made a career out of writing it.

Is this a shocking suggestion? Well, not if a recent (though not entirely scientific) survey on Twitter (conducted by me, again, emphatically not a scientist) is anything to go by. When I asked if it was odd to have a little crush on Bert, I was engulfed with responses about the various objects of desire to be found in Mary Poppins. So if I’m outrageous, I’m certainly not outrageous by myself. A fleeting but appropriate sense of the adult world and good chemistry between the actors are essential to the success of any film aimed at children. They soak it all up. They sense the reality and the tension, and part of that tension is attraction. It’s a necessary ingredient because it has a flash of danger about it. Most fairy tales begin or end with a kiss.

And continuing with adult themes, Mary Poppins has a political dimension too, with the deliberate subverting of the capitalist system and Poppins herself pushing a more radical agenda on the children than the one their father expects them to accept. Bert has declined to join in with the English middle-class obsession with conformity, investment, property ownership, family life and a steady job and is by far the happiest person in the film. And of course, there’s the suffragettes and female power more generally, which is the motor that keeps the entire narrative running. What are the roles for each of us in society? What do we owe each other? What do we owe ourselves?

To be free, to be self-sufficient, to have and maintain personal boundaries, to not indulge our weaknesses, to help those in need and care for our loved ones in a real and present way and, above all, to be practical, positive and well-turned out in the face of any hardship and upheaval, taking action where required without procrastinating or whinging – that’s the path to being Practically Perfect. That’s the Poppins Doctrine. To put our best foot forward. To have some self-respect. To take positive action. These are the messages Mary Poppins wishes to impart to the Banks family, but also to us, the viewer. I feel I could do with a dose of her medicine from time to time, sweetened with a spoonful of sugar.

Chapter 1
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

How do you like your heroines? I look back at those I have latched onto over the course of my life and see one common thread: practicality. As a child, I loved Enid Blyton’s good sense girls, whether that was George from the Famous Five, who I identified with enormously – Blyton’s personal politics may have been seriously dubious, but she created a gender-fluid character long before time – and Darrell Rivers, who starred in her boarding school series, Malory Towers. These were girls who advised you should get back on the horse every time you fell off and not cry if you scraped your knee. They had little patience for ‘girly nonsense’.

Darrell Rivers was the absolute epitome of these practical, jolly, sensible girls – just a ‘good egg’. She was reliable, loyal and capable. When she made a mistake (a big plot point is her famously hot temper) she immediately resolved to sort it out, rather than expecting someone else to help her – though she often came up with schemes and plans to help her friends. Her arch nemesis was a girl called Gwendoline who was spoiled by her rich parents and always made a big fuss when she was dropped off at school for the new term. ‘Making a fuss’ is a crime beyond compare for Enid Blyton’s heroines. Good eggs accept their lot, make the best of it and they never, ever make a fuss.

I joined the Brownies when I was eight, partly because everyone else I knew did and partly because I liked being tested on my ability to make afternoon tea (complete with doily) for a local old lady and then being given a badge for it. I wanted to join in and I wanted to conform, to some extent. I think most children do – we want to be the same as everyone else until the age of around thirteen, when we suddenly want to be different from everyone else, thereby remaining the same as everyone else. The ultimate irony of teenagehood. Although there are always some cool outliers – for example, a girl I was friends with around that time joined a group called the Woodcraft Folk because, as she somewhat precociously informed me, ‘The Brownies are a paramilitary organisation,’ or, at least, that’s what her dad said.

Anyway, though I could never achieve that level of cool anti-establishmentarianism, it seems a hint of teenage rebellion also came early to me, as my time in the Brownies ended somewhat disastrously after a couple of years when I was asked to leave for ‘treating it as a fashion show’. Trust me when I say I have never treated anything as a fashion show in my life, not even when I was at an actual fashion show – a friendly designer let me film myself walking down the catwalk dressed as Kate Moss for my comedy website. That is as close as I have ever got to a fashion show, and I still couldn’t take it seriously.

No, what they meant was that I didn’t want to wear long socks and would roll them down to my ankles. This, it seems, was the hill I was willing to die on. My legs are stumpy. I cannot carry off a long sock with knee-length brown skirt. I knew this, even at ten years old. It remains the case. And I was willing to forgo all the fun and conformity of being a Brownie for the sake of a more flattering sock. Also, Tawny Owl simply didn’t like me. So I was gone.

But I still wanted to learn some skills; I wanted to be a sensible, reliable sort you could count on to have a ten-pence piece and a length of string in her pocket in an emergency. And so, in the spirit of being a ‘good egg’ – as I still very much wanted to be in case I ever met Darrell Rivers in real life – I put it behind me and joined the Girl Guides. But again it was not to be.

I was thirteen by now and a bit too old and cynical; I took to Sellotaping my pathetic three badges to my uniform instead of sewing them on, and generally ‘subverting the nature of the organisation’, as the inevitable letter home read. I couldn’t do it. I tried, but something else was bubbling up in me that didn’t seem welcome there. A sort of sense of the absurdity of it all. Well, the two leaders voluntarily called themselves Pooh and Piglet. I don’t see how anyone could fail to subvert the nature of that. A grown woman shouting, ‘Oh, Pooh! Where are you?’ in a game of woodland hide and seek is not a way to control unruly teenage girls.

I did want to join in and be good, though. I wasn’t naturally a troublemaker. It’s just that inevitably something would strike me as funny and I couldn’t hold it inside. I loved to laugh. Yes, that’s right – loud, and long, and clear. And it would often get the better of me. I once had the school librarian and the headmaster standing over me, trying to send me out of the library for bad behaviour, while I tried to indicate that I was paralysed with mirth and would leave as soon as I could stop laughing. What an absolute prat.

Later in life, I discovered Jackie Collins (hard-nosed bitches who gave as good as they got) and Jilly Cooper (hard-shagging bitches who gave as good as they got). All these female characters that I looked up to were essentially the same – and yes, that is a direct line from Blyton to Collins that I’m drawing – they got on with things, they didn’t complain and they didn’t explain. If life gets dirty, roll up your sleeves, don’t indulge in sentiment, and if a box of lemons comes your way, well, you know what to do. Robust, jolly-hockey-sticks Darrell Rivers has more in common with the ball-breaking and impossibly glamorous Lucky Santangelo than we might think.

And in amongst all this is Mary Poppins. I loved Mary Poppins, both in book form and on film. The smash hit 1964 film is the first experience most have of Poppins, as it was mine. And I loved it. Between the ages of eight and ten, when asked what I would like to do for my birthday, I would request two things: I wanted macaroni cheese for tea and afterwards I wanted to watch Mary Poppins. My mum would say, ‘Are you sure that’s all you want to do?’ and I would nod enthusiastically. I was quite sure. This happened for three consecutive birthdays and I was very happy about it. (Then I discovered Dirty Dancing which, as you may know because I’ve hardly kept it a secret, rather took over from that point on.)

Part of the joy of watching Mary Poppins as a child is the thrill of her unshakeable confidence. She is fully in control at all times, even as chaos threatens and, what’s more, she’s cocky with it. This is one of my most striking memories – her attitude. She looks so prim and proper, but underneath it all she is anarchy made flesh. She tears up the rule book with a butter wouldn’t melt expression. She’s both safe and dangerous at the same time.

You can ask people, and I have, whether they think Mary Poppins is a story about a nanny or a witch. Most, if you don’t give them too long to think, will almost immediately say ‘nanny’, then pause, furrow their brow a little and follow up with, ‘But hold on …’ Because this is the central mystery: who is Mary Poppins? Where did she come from? And then, where does she go? Not a question the film even attempts to answer and it would probably get a sharp look from Poppins herself for immense impertinence if it did. Instead, she floats into the Banks family’s life and into ours holding an open umbrella as she breaks through the line of clouds, feet turned out, magnificent but totally unexplained. In fact, as she says to her own boss by way of reprimand, ‘I never explain anything.’

I do wonder whether, once we’ve reached adulthood, we sometimes forget we still need good role models. It felt so natural as a child to have people both real and fictional to look up to and take inspiration from. Maybe I need someone like that now. I can’t do it all on my own. There are some good ones around – following the example of Michelle Obama isn’t going to do you any harm. But she’s a bit too polite to really drag me back to my best self. You know what I mean – she’s a bit too respectful and encouraging. And busy. I feel I could tell Michelle Obama anything, for sure, but then she’d just pat me on the arm and say, ‘I think you know what you need to do’ and be whisked away to her next appointment. Or perhaps Gwyneth Paltrow might provide some guidance, though I am still one jade egg down on a full set and I daren’t keep looking …

One of the greatest compliments of my life came from my husband only a couple of years ago. He had been to the supermarket and taken our young son with him for the ride, meaning that, for an hour or so, I was alone. It had been a particularly busy time for both of us and, to be perfectly frank, some basic standards had slipped. So I took the opportunity to fly around the house, tidying up. I opened windows to let fresh air in. I wiped the surfaces. I even did a bit of light dusting. It wasn’t a huge effort on my part, or terribly thorough, but it made me feel better and it made enough of a superficial difference for my husband to exclaim, upon walking in with two heavy shopping bags, ‘Oh, it’s like Mary Poppins has been!’

Well, I glowed, I’m not going to lie. Two little Poppins-esque pink of spots of pleasure appeared on my cheeks. I spent the rest of the day floating around feeling like a paragon of virtue. I was in control of my home, my life and myself – if not my son, who was already busy undoing my good work by cutting up an old magazine and pouring glitter all over it. But the point is, I felt good. I felt the way I used to as a kid when I tidied my bedroom and sat down to survey the order before me. I felt calm. I felt happy. Of course, disorder would return, but for this moment at least, all was well. I really felt like Mary Poppins.

Now, here in 2020, I find myself at a bit of a crossroads and I do think I need some help to recapture this feeling. Fast-forward 30 years from my 10-year-old self sitting smugly in my newly immaculate bedroom (always a short-lived state …) and I have to admit, as I look about me now, things have again gone a little … awry. My underwear drawer is a mess of tangled old bikini tops I will never wear again, pre-pregnancy knickers and single socks. And I still sometimes push dirty laundry into a pile in the corner of the room, carefully laying a blanket over it so I can pretend it’s not there. I have taken to cutting my own hair because I’m too lazy to go to the hairdressers. It looks fine from the front but I have occasionally caught sight of the back of my head in a lift mirror and immediately put my hood up. It’s not that there is some serious deep-seated problem or trauma that requires professional help, and I am thankful for that to be sure. It’s more just a sort of general slackening. I need tightening up a little. I need a lifestyle mechanic.

A couple of years ago, for example, I turned up to film a TV show with my dog, because we were making a show about walking. I made so little effort with my on-screen appearance that my dog ended up looking better than me. I didn’t even brush my hair. When I saw the programme, I winced at any shot of me from behind because I was mass of un-ironed shirt and haystack split-ends. I hadn’t brought any make-up with me and, given that I was going to be out in the sun all day, you’d think I would have brought some sun-cream, but no. You can clearly see that I am lobster-pink and sore by the last scene – I yelped when I saw it. I was a disgrace. I was embarrassed. I mean, it was also hilarious and god knows I’ve looked worse on TV many times, but the point is that was by design. This was by negligence.

And it’s not just on a professional level, it’s self-care too. I still eat too much rubbish; a McDonald’s cheeseburger is not a ‘snack’, I try to tell myself, tiny though it undoubtedly is. Despite reading an article at least every 48 hours on the benefits of avocado, chilli, turmeric, live yoghurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, whole grains, miso and charcoal smoothies, I will still eat a croissant at any time of day if it is available to me. I like a Pot Noodle for lunch more often than is dignified. Crisps are a particular weakness. I drink every day apart from when I have my annual bout of norovirus (which I now consider a sort of de facto detox, as I lack the discipline to undertake one of my own free will). ‘Enough is as good as a feast,’ says Mary Poppins brightly to the Banks children. Can it ever be so?

Next on this list of my current flaws and weaknesses (good to have a good clear-out of one’s character every now again, as well as your bedroom, I think): I don’t open my post in a timely fashion because, like a student, I am still scared of it. I look at my finances sideways because I know I won’t like what I see. Banks terrify me. And yet, though it is all unopened, I hoard post because I am too scared to throw it away – why? I’m not entirely sure, but it may stem from the time when I was twenty and I was threatened with legal action over an outstanding phone bill of £13.23, simply because I didn’t want to look.

My final admission is that I can’t pretend to be an exemplary parent. Not enough guided play, too much plastic-based crap that comes with children’s magazines only to be used once then broken or trodden on and pushed under the sofa. Where are the plain wooden blocks with which to build an imagination? Where are the informative books with subtle watercolour illustrations of woodland scenes? Where did I put my phone again? NO! Get off the phone, this is not how it should be … I want to be better than this. I’d intended to be better than this.

I think I need to revisit some of my ambitions to be a more organised and effective sort of person. I need to pull myself together. My life has gone from Mary Poppins to Eddie Monsoon. There’s much to be thankful for, but reader, I do not feel I am living my ‘best life’ at all. And not because of any massive external problem, but more … more … because I can’t be bothered. That looks awful written down but I think it’s true. I’m not living my best life because I’ve become too lazy. I need a kick up the bum, a stern look, a firm word. Firm, but kind, perhaps …

I can see that, at the age of 41, it is time to put some new habits in place. I sometimes feel that I made it this far on coffee, crisps, alcohol and sheer bloody-mindedness. But these days a hangover lasts three days and comes with a side order of existential despair. I find I can easily fall asleep almost anywhere at around 4.30pm every day. I have started making a noise when I kneel down and then another, slightly louder noise when I get up again. If I don’t change something, it’s not going to get better on its own.

I want to re-establish my boundaries, feel more in control and less like I am firefighting all the time. I want to remind myself to say no to things occasionally and to make time for holidays, for fun. I want to employ the Poppins Doctrine to make my life better, calmer and more productive.

I used to be terribly resourceful. I love DIY, for example, and I feel confident I could make basic furniture if required. In fact, one of the few things I learned from Guides before I was politely ejected was how to lash sticks together to make things. Never mind that the first thing we were made to construct when arriving in a field for Guide Camp was a washing-up stand, as if this was a basic tool for survival, the principles remain the same. It didn’t seem strictly fair – it was obvious to anyone with a sense of smell that the scent of smoke rising from the nearby Scout Camp meant the boys were already setting fire to things. Nevertheless, these were valuable lessons. And I learned them. Well, some of them.

Brownie Camp was mainly dominated by chores. We would arrive in some remote hut and were divided into four groups before we had even got off the coach. It was a weekend of chores on rotation – cooking, washing up, tidying the hut, clearing up the garden – and almost nothing else save the occasional game of rounders. How I longed for that elusive ‘element of fun’. Sugar was strictly rationed, of course.

I’m not entirely ungrateful. For example, because of Brownies, I was able to sew a button onto Les Dennis’s shorts during a reality TV show we did together. I was the only member of the group who knew how to do it. Someone even called me Mary Poppins. Can you imagine how hard it was not too look tearful with pride? I felt some of my feminist credentials, such as they are, slipping slightly – is it OK to feel proud of sewing on a man’s button and still maintain the required level of outrage at historic inequality over domestic chores? The comedian and writer Deborah Frances-White’s smash-hit podcast ‘The Guilty Feminist’ requires guests to say, ‘I am a feminist, but …’ and then give an example of something that undermines their claim. Well, I’ve got mine now: ‘I’m a feminist, but I was secretly bursting with pride when I sewed a button on Les Dennis’s shorts.’

It’s not just my bad habits I’ve realised I want to address. I’d also like to reconnect with some of my old sense of power, before it got battered, but the task feels daunting. I think there are plenty of us feeling a bit tired and rundown generally. It’s been a tough few years, for me anyway. Whatever your political views, there is no doubt that the waters are choppy. Nothing feels certain. Things that would have sounded crazy at the start of the decade are just rolling by now. ‘Police Arrest Man for Buying Easter Eggs’ was a headline I saw this morning, in response to the lockdown measures imposed by the UK government during the Covid-19 crisis. I barely batted an eyelid. I feel a pervasive sense of general exhaustion and powerlessness, and I’m fairly sure it’s not just me.

For women in particular, it’s been a bruising time. The #MeToo movement has achieved so much since it was started in 2006 by Tarana Burke, but at times the seemingly constant revelations of sexual harassment and systematic abuses of power have felt immensely draining.

So many have said that from 2016 onwards, they feel the world has thrown blow after blow, and we are all punch-drunk, cowering a little and waiting for the next one to land. Reports of anxiety in people of all age groups are through the roof. Financial insecurity is a growing problem with many working several jobs on zero hours contracts just to get by, and thousands are taking on debt to cover the gaps. I am not immune to any of this – my industry is as insecure as anything and I have had some bad years in my career of twenty years. I know how tired it makes you. But there must be a way to throw some of it off and travel a little lighter.

Sometimes it’s good to withdraw for a short while, and find some quiet, to gather the energy for a new push. This time of staying at home, isolating and reflecting, even if it is enforced, feels like a good moment to have a clear-out, and I have seen so many tweets and articles saying the same. Here is a moment to take stock and get rid of anything that doesn’t feel helpful. Perhaps we can emerge better. Sometimes life hands us a time-out, not always under happy circumstances of course, but if we try it can be possible to use these periods to reflect and re-evaluate what matters, how we want to live in a big sense and also how satisfied we are by the way we handle our experience of the every day.

Even if I can’t reduce my actual furniture down to whatever can fit in a carpetbag, I can certainly have a look at slimming down and off-loading some mental and emotional baggage. The world has stopped for a moment and instead of fighting it or becoming depressed and even more slob-like, instead of giving in to the temptation of simply changing from last night’s pyjamas into tonight’s pyjamas at around 9pm each day, I’d like to get a bit Mary Poppins on it all and take the opportunity to do some sorting out, to finally put some new, better habits in place, rather than allowing things to slide completely out of control. I’d like to borrow some of the Poppins fortitude and her stoic, practical approach to life’s problems. I think she may be the heroine, the role model I need right now. It doesn’t have to be hard. Just follow her example. As she would say herself, ‘Why complicate things that are really quite simple?’

I want that invincible feeling back that I used to get as a child right after I watched Mary Poppins. I want to feel I can tackle these issues that prevent me from moving through life in a happier and more streamlined way. Because I have a pile of post to open, some dirty laundry to sort out, I’m still in my pyjamas and I can’t face another moment of playing Paw Patrol with my youngest child. So I am going to watch the film again. I am going to sit down on this Tuesday afternoon and watch it – it seems the best way to begin. Perhaps I should be working on my novel or sitting on the exercise bike I bought six months ago and have ignored ever since (it still only has one pedal as I gave up assembling it) or making a batch of fig-based vegan energy balls, but I can feel Mary Poppins calling to me. Best not to ignore her.

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