My Mother's Records

When I was about 14 my best mate at school told me that he thought my mother was good-looking. I don't know if I should have thumped him for eyeing up my mum in that way (and maybe having secret Mrs. Robinson-style fantasies about her) but the truth is I was more chuffed than anything. I was rather proud that I had an attractive mother who got compliments — even from chubby schoolboys — and was wolf-whistled at when she walked past a building site, even though she had reached the shockingly ancient age of 40 that year. So while she might not have been able to afford to buy me the new Gola trainers with the lime green stripe that all my mates had at least I didn't mind being seen in public with her.

Not that she was a Bond girl or anything but because she was a single woman with long blond hair who still dated men she seemed younger and more glamourous than my friend's mothers who were more Woman's Realm than Cosmopolitan if you know what I mean — "proper" mums like the ones you saw in Daz commercials on the telly. That's how I remember them anyway, but when you're that age most grown-ups seem old and boring. My mate Paul had parents called Stan and Winnie which not only sounds like two characters out of Andy Capp they looked like them too, the sort of people the 1960s seemed to have completely passed by and you can't imagine ever being young or having sex — though Paul was proof that they must have done it at least once. Lovely people, mind.

As you can imagine, being a divorcee raising two kids on her own my mum had a thing for songs about strong, independent women battling against the odds (men, usually) so she loved the Country record "Harper Valley PTA" by Jeannie C. Riley. This 1968 hit was about a single parent (though widowed in this case) who scandalizes the other parents at her daughter's school by wearing short skirts and being seen out on the town with men. The best part about it is she stands up for herself and gives them all a good verbal knee in the balls for their small-minded hypocrisy. When one-parent families were portrayed in the media back then it was usually as a "problem" — latchkey kids, "broken" homes and all that crap — so it was nice to hear a loud and proud single mum in a pop song. Not only that, but it also stands up for a mother's right to look sexy which must have made mine pump her fist in the air and shout "right on sister!"

Download: Harper Valley PTA - Jeannie C. Riley (mp3)