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Harping on……

6th June 2007 by Helena 3 Comments  

I am a failure as a mother. Aged almost eight Olivia has yet to pick up a harp, unlike Ophelia, a five-year old girl who goes to a small school in Chelsea around the corner from where I’m staying.

Last night I had a conversation about bedtimes with the two daughters of the friends I am staying with aged three and five. Like most English children they are in bed by 7pm. I can rarely get mine anywhere near the bathroom before 8pm.

“But my friend Ophelia,” said the five-year old, “goes to bed at 10pm.”

That’s a bit late even by my standards. “Why?” I asked.

“She has a harp lesson at 9pm.”

Some mother's little princessCall me old-fashioned, but I find the thought of a five-year-old having harp lesson slightly tragic, and a little bit comic. Shouldn’t she be doing ‘normal’ childlike things such as fighting with her siblings or drawing on the walls?

Anyway, it gets worse. Stunned as I am by this news of late-night harp playing I talk to my friend this morning about it.

“Oh yes,” she says. “Ophelia gave a concert at the last school event. I think she was just five at the time. At the end the headmistress announced that it had been a very special performance by Ophelia as she had written the music herself.”

You couldn’t make it up. And I know what Olivia’s getting for her birthday next week. But how will I lug it back on the Eurostar?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Britain, Children, blog --> Tagged With: harping

3 thoughts on Harping on......

  • Amber Lee says:
    6th June 2007 at 3:01 pm

    I’m pretty old-fashioned myself – children should be outside playing. Maybe taking dance lessons, but at 3pm not 9pm!

  • SpiralSkies says:
    7th June 2007 at 8:33 am

    Good grief. I’m in the Quentin Crisp camp:

    Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. It’s cheaper.

  • Motheratlarge says:
    7th June 2007 at 1:29 pm

    I’ve heard about someone taking their harp to a party, and no-one asking them to play, but this beggars belief. Perhaps the mother chose the instrument because at least a harp played badly is less grating on the ears than a violin. Or then again, maybe an entire generation of middle-class English kids will grow up expecting harp proficiency as a social must. Oh dear. How depressing.

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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