Love's Easy Tears

My mum used to tell me a story about her mum. And her. I suppose really, it was a story about her, rather than her mum. Although her mum was one of the key players in the story. Her mum and Bette Davis.


My mum told me many times how, the year that The Old Maid came out, her mum (who was a huge Bette Davis fan) took her to the cinema many times to see it. Many times. Matinee performances (my mum was about 8 at the time). And every time, without fail, her mum (my grandmother) would howl. Cry her eyes out. Not quietly, either. And my mum used to hate it, absolutely hate it. The way she told the story, she would beg and plead with her mother to not have to go to see the film yet again, because she knew it would be extremely embarrassing when her mum cried. Actually - I'm not sure if my mum's problem was embarrassment. Maybe it just upset her seeing her mum cry.

My mum's mum, my grandmother, died about 5 or 6 years later - when my mum was just 14. The story would always end in one of two ways - either my mum would look at me and my sister and laugh, and we'd talk about the films we fancied seeing - or she'd end it saying something like 'I'd give anything to go and see that film with my mum now. However much it cost me in tissues'.




The Old Maid was always one of my mum's favourite films throughout my childhood. We'd watch it together every time it was on BBC 2, and we'd both cry. But quietly, not noisily. I would be crying because of the film, and because my mum was sad, she'd be crying, I'm guessing, for her mum. And maybe for her lost youth which never really got started - the death of her mum saw to that.



When I was younger, I would obviously cry at the proper bits in films - you know, 'I have been, and always shall be, your friend' or that bit in The Sound of Music where the children are signing to the Baroness and Captain Von Trapp suddenly joins in, to general stunned silence (I'm tearing up now, thinking about it), or The Railway Ch.....damn. Well.....you know. Unless you have a heart made of bogies, you know.

These days though, I cry at everything. I don't just cry at the appropriate moments in The Sound of Music, I cry all the way through. Non stop. Same with many other films. Same with musicals. It's starting to annoy Beanie. We went to see The Sound of Music at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff last weekend - starring Connie, of How do you solve a Problem Like Maria fame. I started weeping the minute she appeared and I didn't stop for the whole show. At least I was crying silently. Bean was frankly disgusted. Not as disgusted as she was at me howling through the Donna Noble and Doomsday music at the Doctor Who prom last year though. One result of all this is that she is flatly refusing to go and see Les Miserables with me later on this year. Which is a shame. She'd love it. It's a wonderful wonderful musical. But I can't deny the fact that that is another one I howl all the way through. What can I say, I'm a woman of deep emotions. And faulty tear ducts.

Perhaps Bean doesn't understand because she's 11 and hasn't really had much to weep about yet. Thank God. Long may it stay that way.

Me, when I cry now I'm not just crying for Connie, or Maria, or Donna, or the poor dead Titanic people, or for Jenny Agutter, or Bette Davis, or Jean Valjean, or Fantine or Eponine. I'm crying for my mum, and for her mum. And for my dad who never got embarrassed about me weeping through things and who always watched Star Trek and Doctor Who with me (as did my mum of course). And I'm crying because one day, Bean will cry like me. And she'll have reason to. And I won't be there to dry her eyes.

Still, that having said - last night's trip to see The Time Traveler's Wife at our local Vue has given me slight pause. Several women there weren't crying silently as I do - they were howling like wolves! And keening. And sniffling. And making more noise than a teething infant. Which kind of ruined it for me - I found myself laughing through my (silent) tears. Which probably wasn't the effect the cast wanted to create when they were making the film.

So - I'm unlikely to dry my tears, I think that boat sailed when I had children. But I will endeavour to keep them silent and discreet.

Top ten weepy film TV and musical moments:

1. Daddy it's my daddy......
2. I have been, and always shall be, your friend
3. Captain Von Trapp sings 'I go to the Hills when my heart is lonely....'
4. The closing credits music of the latest Star Trek film
5. Donna having her mind wiped in Journey's End
6. The Doomsday music
7. The ending of Les Miserables when all the ghosts of the people who have died come back for one last number
8. The bit where Kate Winslett walks down the stairs in Titantic and finds everyone waiting for her
9. Maria joins in with 'My favourite things' as she returns to the children
10. The Old Maid