Philippa and her mother Madeleine

Philippa Budgen's mother Madeleine has just bought a new lilac outfit, which reminds them both of various embarrassing incidents in the past. Madeleine recalls a sports day when she was wearing what she thought was a perfectly unexceptional mauve dress with white polka dots. Phillipa apparently however took violent exception to it, and told her mother that she had humiliated her beyond belief by wearing it. Madeleine :"You went slightly white, and very tight-lipped and said that you couldn't belive that I was wearing it and that it was quite awful". Philippa remembers how devastated she felt when her mother turned up wearing it, and how much the dress clashed with her mother's auburn hair.

Madeleine, on the other hand, recalls the dress being very 'toned down' and 'tasteful', whilst Philippa herself recalls vividly how mortified she felt. Philippa virtually banned her mother from the sports day, telling her if she was going to come she had to stay in the background and not be seen by anybody. Of course Madeleine couldn't not attend at all, because the humiliation of not having one's mother present would be even greater. Philippa feels, looking back, that she was 'abit of a cow' and her mother has to agree!

Reflecting on it now, Philippa recalls being very angry with Madeleine for the humiliation she felt, particularly about what her friends would think. Philippa puts her sensitivity down to the fact that she was, after all, a teenager at the time and wanted desperately to 'fit in' with everyone else.

Apart from 'unsuitable' clothing the other thing that Philippa remembers with horror is Madeleine turning up to collect her in their old clapped-out Cortina with an incredibly noisy exhaust. "It always rattled like crazy and you'd come up the drive to pick me up from school and it would be roaring, and sometimes clattering on the drive. You're looking quizzical but I know it's true - I was so sensitive about that car. I'd alsmost ask you not to come up the drive". Madeleine remembers that Philippa hated their Land Rover too "You thought that was a disgusting farmery-type vehicle - loud, and rough and earthy". Either way Philippa felt her mother made her 'stick out' when she would rather have melted into the background.

Philippa also remembers that her mother would always be late to pick her up during lambing or calving, and would leave a message with the teachers that she was 'tied up with the vet'. Previously humourless teachers found this very funny. Madeleine's lateness seemed a statement to Philippa that her mother didn't care, and then she'd compound things by arriving in wellies smelling of sheep. Oh, the mortification.

Though Madeleine asserts that most teenagers are embarrassed by their mothers' appearance at some point, most don't have the smelly business of lambing to contend with.