"Mum had a smell. Wish I could capture it."

I received one of the most simple and moving texts of my life this week. I sent my first blog entry to my oldest friend Graham, and got this in reply:  "Mum had a smell.  Wish I could capture it."

I think those words have an incredible power. Graham has never been prone to excess, unless you are talking wine and wigs (more of that later).  In many ways the yin to my yang, our friendship has endured a hell of a lot.  Normally, he has endured me.  I love having a friend who has been with you forever, a fairly rare occurence these days. What's truly astonishing is that our friendship, bound by memories and ties, continues to evolve. Involving wigs.  As I have said, more of that later...

In my last blog, I failed to mention that my parents are forty years older than me, which was fairly rare in the early seventies, the time of my early fragrance memories. Graham, who lived round the corner from me, was in exactly the same position, with Dad Jim, and Mum Stella. We shared a middle name - Howard - and the fact our sisters were both four years older. Stella had three main claims-to-the-exotic. She was from Liverpool, not Birkenhead. That lent her a slightly dangerous edge - had she met The Beatles?  She had a Jewish friend called Gilda, and therefore had Matzo Meal in her kitchen. I was never more jealous, and hated my parents for their bland ingredients. I wonder, is that another reason for my love of the strange, the outsider, the unusual?  Thirdly, Stella was evacuated with Frankie Vaughan. If you don't know who that is, get yourself to Wikipedia.

The fourth, hastily-added reason for Stella's exoticism is that she worked. Mums didn't work then. At least not in my tiny world. However, Stella (As I write this, I can't stop thinking what an amazing name that is...) worked in Liverpool's greatest store. A labyrthine monster of a store called George Henry Lee, but known to the population as George Henry's. It was an intimidatingly huge place to a young child, full of things that could be broken and PAID FOR if your inquisitive arms even happened to brush within five feet of them. This also gave Stella an advantage that even my Duty Free Dad could not give, the wonder of the sample. I had no idea what a sample was, but Stella had them.

This leads me to the problem I have with Stella. I want to remember that loving woman and what she smelled of. I cannot. She probably smelled of Blue Grass, and Youth Dew, and Charlie, and Jicky, and Shalimar, and Evening in Paris, and any fragrance she could charm from the Perfumery Girls. How wonderful that her love of fragrance was based on what she could find. Times were not easy then, and the chance to own three mls of something great would have been an amazing coup in the grey, dull days of the early seventies. Her daughter Rachel is a fan of the heavier fragrances, and has a great collection of dark, musky scents that rivals my own. Surely, as a fourteen year old, she sneaked into Stella's bedroom and took a quick spritz of Opium in 1979.

There are no answers, sadly. I don't think she had a signature scent - why would she with a library of fragrances at her disposal?  Graham, I cannot tell you what she smelled like. But I have a sneaking suspicion that her fragrance would be full-bodied, larger than life, and utterly lovely.  Just like your Mum.

          [by PETER]