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The Hayman Whistle In the age of the mobile phone, Jilly Bradshaw - nee Hayman - and her family employ an altogether more low-tech form of portable communication:the whistle...  colour-coded |
Invented by Jilly’s grandmother - or perhaps even her great-grandparents - the 'Hayman Whistle' is used to alert family members whatever the location.
From the beach to the library, the familial call-sign will carry above crowd and background noise in its pursuit of fellow Haymans. 'We’d be lost without it', explains Jilly. For example, when she gets home she’ll whistle about the house until she locates her husband. And if he’s in, he’ll send a whistle back. The tradition has been passed-down; Jilly taught the children their tune when they were only babies.
But this is not the only innovation of the Hayman family. Jilly was one of six children, and her mother, Jane, ensured a busy home-life would be as stress-free as possible by colour coding the childrens’ everyday possessions - cup, plate, toothbrush, flannel, and towel. Jilly, as the second daughter, was given blue. Her siblings were assigned green, pink, yellow, red, and orange. To this day, Jilly still prefers blue!
Colour looms large in Jilly’s recollections of her happy childhood. She remembers how on one occasion she and her brothers and sisters were ordered into swimming costumes, plastic was laid on the staircase, and their mum Jane let them loose on the wall with primary colour paints. The resulting mass of smudges and handprints was to everyone’s satisfaction. Some art-loving dinner party guests even mistook their display for a David Hockney.
Do you have a family call signal?
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