The Observer Magazine - 24 July 2022

42 Pages·2022·25 MB·English

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Take the rejection
therapy challenge
Summer swimwear
for every body
‘Why is dating in
my 50s so hard?’
Covid, Brexit, strikes, mind-numbing delays... with the industry in meltdown,
we meet the people behind the scenes at a UK airport to hear what it’s like for them

24 JULY 2022
The Observer Magazine
28
In thhiiss
issue
Up front
5 Eva Wiseman We’ve rediscovered our
inner kitten. Plus, the Observer archive
7 This much I know Tori Amos
Features
8 Airport voices Meet the people trying
to waft us to paradise this summer – in
the aftermath of Covid and Brexit
14 Space invaders The fi ve scariest,
most dangerous plant species
16 My enmeshment Leah McLaren on
the tangled and intense relationship with
her mother that has shaped her life
Food & drink
20 Nigel Slater Scorched red peppers for
hot days, and piquant lemon curd
24 Jay Rayner Harbour House in Bristol is
just the ticket. Plus, the cachet of chianti
classico, and a seaside chocolate taste test
Fashion
2200 8 28 Make a splash Swimwear special
Beauty
31 Cream of the crop The new blushers
35
Interiors
32 Learning curve A cleverly remodelled
old schoolhouse near Stockholm
Gardens
34 Algae fi ghtback How to revitalise your
pond. Plus: rainbow chard rocks at Plot 29
Travel
35 Cor, phew! Eva Wiseman and family
love their package deal to MarBella Corfu
Self & wellbeing
36 Repeat the dose Inure yourself to fear
of rejection by being rejected every day
Ask Philippa
38 The dilemma “Why must dating men
16
in my 50s be such an unpleasant ordeal?”
Plus, Sunday with Sean Paul
Contributors Writer and producer Jooney Woodward, who shot TThhee OObbsseerrvv2244 JJUUeeLLYY 22rr002222 MMaaggaazziinnee ThM aeg Oazbisneer, ver
Michael Segalov has the cheerful airport staff
Kings Place,
published work with for this week’s cover story 90 York Way,
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A Memoir . She lives with her contributor to this been published and exhibited observer.co.uk
Printed at
family in London, where she sits magazine, which this worldwide. In 2011 she was Walstead Roche,
Y in a garden shed each week led to him spending 48 awarded fi rst prize in Victoria Business
GETT day trying very hard sweltering hours traversing the the Taylor Wessing PVaicrtko,r Riao, che,
Y/ not to get a proper job. tarmac at Luton Airport (p8), Photographic Portrait St Austell
LE Th is week she wrote interviewing the people who Prize at the National PL26 8LX
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A movingly about her get us away on our holidays. Portrait Gallery with
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The Observer Magazine 24.07.22 3

Up front
Eva
Wiseman
Need to reach out? All
you’ve got to do is try
a little tenderness
 @evawiseman
I
keep hearing a word. “Tender”. Like, the “parties when no one’s paying attention to you”, and
lingering look or act of care, or small kindness, at therapy so your “shrink can see how hard things
or moment of profound unexpected connection. have been lately”. An excellent idea, though onions
Tenderness. Walk through a city tomorrow are cheaper – all tools, whether learned in therapy or
and you will see a reference to it as often as bought on Amazon are welcome. Just because we crave
you’ll see a Pret, on billboards, on fi lm posters, in the tenderness right now doesn’t mean we’re able to fi nd
songs people hum. I keep reading about it in reviews, it immediately, in ourselves or elsewhere. It must be
whether of road movies, political documentaries, or learned and relearned, these ways of expressing love or
a sex comedy about a widow in middle age. I hear pain; ways of cracking ourselves open just enough that
it in interviews with artists who work with clay and we can hear and hold someone else, but not so much
paint, and pop stars talking about love. On TV a Star that we can’t restick oursel ves together by morning.
who spent his formative Wars series, a Sally Rooney show, a prison drama and If you are new to tenderness, fi nd it in today’s pop
From the years in an orphanage.’ a comedy about the friendship between a gay and culture. If you need assistance achieving the required
In 1959 he created his straight student have all recently been described as level of tenderness beyond a tear stick (available for
archive fi rst revolutionary cut, ‘Th e “tender” too, as well as a menswear collection inspired £7.90 from reputable makeup stores), scheduling a
Shape’ – a layered cut, the by 18th-century nightwear. We see tenderness in tender interaction for right after you have watched a
A look back hair swept forward from the unlikely places because, I think, there’s a yearning for horror fi lm is useful, too. The hours between 3am and
crown to fall in points at the intimacy right now. A need. 4am are handy, as is candlelight, heartbreak and the
at the Observer
curve of the jaw – which When the lockdowns were lifting many of us recollection of a recent grief.
Magazine’s past was the basis for ‘Th e Five predicted the year ahead would be wild and raw – we’d I like it. I like the idea that everybody is reaching
Point’ in the early 60s. be like animals, released. There was a kind of sugar in out, tentatively, with our gnarled computer hands,
‘Women wanted, needed, to the air, which I was certain would lead to feral hookups wanting to be understood, maybe loved. I like that we
be freed from the ritual of and lust, a bawdy celebration of uncomplicated touch. are naming it, too – this soft thing, this soft warm thing
‘Vidal Sassoon was here’ back-combing and teasing But it turns out what people wanted was not to be that bruises easily. I prefer tenderness, as a concept, to
proclaimed the cover of the their hair,’ he said. invited out for a frantic shag, but instead to be invited its big sister, kindness. The latter is often revealed to be
Observer Magazine of 21 Hairdressing was ripe in, for tea and pillow talk, to let the soft animal of their disappointingly empty, like the fi rst time you break an
April 1985, likening his craft for revolution and Sassoon body love what it loves. Where I thought there’d be Easter egg and discover the void inside and the world’s
to graffi ti, as if he had tagged loathed the ‘chi-chi’ orgies in Tesco’s frozen aisle, instead we’re obsessing brittle truth. Tenderness, however, while grounded in
all those tresses before approach. ‘Oh, you know, the over eye contact and the brush of someone’s hand on a a gentle empathy, has that hot artery of pain running
dashing off to look after his “Oh, madaame” syndrome, wrist and a poem about peaches. We were like animals through it: the soreness of a muscle strained. And
global product line (which he and the kiss on the hand.’ when we fi nally left our houses, just, not the dogs that pain allows for vulnerability, which means the
sold in 1984 for £75 m) – a He said he was proud and tigers I’d assumed, more – baby chicks and the connection runs both ways – it gives and takes, waves
cut and run. Well, his slogan of the scores of young You Tube farm cats that mother them by accident when build and crash, friendships are born. I welcome this
was: ‘If you don’t look good, hairdressers who had left they’re orphaned by a fox. new tender world. ■
we don’t look good.’ to set up their own salons. As well as a reaction to lockdown, I wonder if this
Th e man who ‘ started When he sold the product modern yearning for tenderness is also a reaction to Better Th ings is back! Th e
a revolution with his company, he owned only years of irony and attempts at coolness, that self- One more fi fth and fi nal season of
scissors ’, then in his late 26% of the shares – the rest imposed psychic distance which ran parallel to the the best auteurist comedy
50s, referred to hairdressing were owned by past and pandemic’s physical one. We were exhausted, many thing… about dysfunctional
as an artform in his present employees. of us, after so long trying to appear as if nothing motherhood and the
interview with Sally ‘With a touch of acerbity,’ mattered, as if things just happened to us and we put deepest, dullest love started
Brampton, to coincide with wrote Brampton, ‘Vidal up with them one by one. And on all those Face Times, this week on the BBC, with
a retrospective exhibition suddenly added, “You don’t all those Zooms, we became aware of something all seasons still shimmering
at H amiltons gallery in think X bought that house missing. Even if our wifi was working, our connections there on iPlayer. Pamela
London. Such an accolade in Belgravia with spit, were faltering. We emerged different. We emerged… Adlon is a genius.
for a hairdresser sounded do you? No, with hair sincere. Who had the energy, after all that, to fl irt, to
incredible at the time, but conditioner.”’ Chris Hall look then look away, then casually lean against the If you’d told me how much I’m reading Daddy Issues,
then Sassoon was no bar? Who had the stamina for games when they could I’d enjoy visiting the London Katherine Angel’s collection
ordinary trimmer. instead lean into a person and say exactly how they Transport Museum’s Acton of essays about the
Th ough he hadn’t put felt, before leading them to a sofa where they could depot a decade ago I might father-daughter dynamic.
scissors to hair for more together, over the course of an evening, come to a have slapped you. And yet She wonders why we
than a decade or lived in the decision about what to do with the rest of their short – joy! Excitement! Th rills, as always concentrate on
UK since the mid-Swinging and stormy lives? we sat in a prototype tube the child: ‘ We are alert
Sixties, he was a legend Last week there was a small fl urry of interest when, train from the 80s, and a to the daughter’s daddy
and a global superstar, in an interview, act or Annie Hamilton recommended carriage from the 60s, and issues; what of the father’s
said Brampton. ‘Not bad the purchase of a Kryolan tear stick (a movie trick – rode on a miniature railway daughter issues?’ If we are
for a man who started life a lipstick-shaped piece of wax containing menthol up to the entrance. Th ey’re to dismantle patriarchy, she
in the poorest area of and camphor extracts) for when you need to cry but, open three times a year, and argues, fathers must be
London’s East End, and “the actual tears won’t come”. It’s good, she says, at not just for trainspotters. kept on the hook.
The Observer Magazine 24.07.22 5

This
much
I know
Tori Amos, singer-songwriter, 58
Interview RICH PELLEY My father was in the ministry. Once the galaxy. When I look at the stars and in a non-clichéd way. What’s tricky is to
Photograph DESMOND MURRAY my mum heard him leave for work, she think of all those gazillions of suns and learn how to groove.
would take off her minister’s wife apron all that light and energy, I think, “Wow,
When I look in the mirror, I hope to and put on the Billie Holiday, Frank that’s kind of electric.” The Americans call me “Exile in
see bits of my mother because she was Sinatra and Nat King Cole records. She Cornwall” – as in Exile on Main Street . I
my bestie. I was lucky to have her . People was the most marvellous DJ. I can’t imagine we are the only try to explain that Cornwall is one of the
have told me, when your mother dies, intelligent life. I think they’re avoiding us . most beautiful places in the world. It’s
you either mourn the mother you had or My brother would come home from just a bit remote. Our postcode is Devon
you mourn the mother you wish you had. school and have me learn his Beatles It’s a fascinating study to crawl into but Devon is 30 minutes away. If you ask
I found that profound. and Doors records on the piano. My dad somebody else’s song structure and learn the local farmer, she’ll tell you we’re not
would come back from church, sit with how they solved certain musical problems Devonian. She tests us: what comes fi rst,
I was homecoming queen, but only his dog collar, and I would play him what jam or cream? If you don’t say jam, she
because there were a lot of nerds in my people in the church called “devil music” I prefer ladies’ may take out her shotgun.
year. They became Silicon Valley dudes. – but in a classical music style. My father
I certainly didn’t get the jock vote. thought I was practising for church. soccer. The guys I think you B rits are really good at
moaning when things aren’t that bad.
It’s tough being the wife of an I don’t know why I refer to my songs are all right, but When you have a beautiful day and it’s
Arsenal fan. Can I be honest? I prefer as girls. I don’t know if it’s motherly. 90 degrees, somebody will say [does
ladies come out
ladies’ soccer. The guys are all right – They’re not at all childlike. They’re energy British accent]: “It’s boiling!” I giggle to
I don’t want to rain on their parade. forces, like the ancient, feminine energy… myself and think: “You don’t want to be in
with bloody noses.
But when they fall, we all know it’s Arizona in the summer, my friend.” ■
theatre. The ladies come out with bloody I fi nd my energy from all kinds of It’s gladiatorial
noses; it’s gladiatorial . things. Defi nitely from the Earth, but also Tori Amos’s LP Ocean to Ocean is out now
The Observer Magazine 24.07.22 7
Wing and
a prayer
The travel industry has been
hit hard by Covid, Brexit
and, more recently, long delays
and cancellations. Now, as
the country fl ocks back into
the skies for long-awaited
holidays, we meet the
cleaners, security, sales staff,
technicians and chaplains of
Luton Airport who are trying
to keep us aloft this summer
Words MICHAEL SEGALOV
Photographs JOONEY WOODWARD
8 24.07.22 The Observer Magazine
Audrey Eary, 57, duty free manager
I was working in a high street branch of Boots when
I saw an advert for an airport perfume supervisor. I
got the job and started in July 2001, back in the old,
old terminal at the airport, which was tiny. A couple of
months later, I was popping to one of the loos when
I saw a huge crowd gathered round a TV screen. I
assumed there was a football match on, but when I got
closer I saw planes fl ying into the Twin Towers. For a
while it put me off wanting to work here ; airports felt
tense and a real target. Thankfully, I continued.
I’ve worked my way up since then. When the store
here expanded to the big walk-through shop it is today,
I came back as general manager. People say once you’ve
worked in travel retail, you’ll never want to return to
other stores. We rarely deal with refunds or complaints,
and those who pass through tend to be in a good mood,
heading off on their holidays.
We’re a team of over 100 full-time staff: that’s a lot of
people. The thing is, you have to walk through the shop
to make it to the departure gates. We don’t have a door.
That means we can’t ever shut shop for the night; we’re
a 24/7 operation and need staff here constantly. During
Covid, when the airport was almost empty and shops
closed up, we had to call in contractors. They erected
a fence through the entire shop while our staff were
furloughed. It had been a really good year for us in 2019
– the team had worked so hard – so seeing the shop shut
down and locked away was really quite upsetting. It was
an emotional day when that fence fi nally came down
again. And we returned with every single one of our staff:
none made redundant, or lost to the virus.
Reverend Canon Liz Hughes, 63, chaplain
As a chaplain, I offer spiritual or pastoral support to
anyone in need, and wearing my high-vis I spend a lot
of time helping solve problems for passengers. I’m a pair
of hands to be called to any situation ; someone who can
drop everything to come and focus on helping people.
That might mean supporting a staff member who is
struggling, or stepping in when a customer urgently
needs something. Of course, I look like a vicar, too.
People stop me if they need religious guidance. Once
a man stopped me, telling me he thought he had
just said goodbye to his elderly mother for the fi nal
time. I listened to him as we walked slowly together
through the terminal.
My fl ock here at the airport changes every day: there
are both passengers and an ever-changing airport
workforce. We have a new prayer room used by people
of all faiths – both staff and passengers – but most
regularly by the Muslim taxi drivers who work the rank
outside the terminal.
During Covid, I couldn’t offer support face-to-face
or identify those who needed me. That was diffi cult.
When I returned, I realised many colleagues had been
lost to Covid, and staff didn’t have a chance to say
goodbye. So people wrote the names of those who’d
passed away on ribbons and tied them to a tree we
purchased. We’ll do it every year now, I think, in
memory of those who didn’t make it.
Nic Gibson, 28, senior fi rst offi cer
It’s been a tough few years to be working in the aviation
industry. When Brexit fi rst came to fruition, we had
mutual agreements between the UK and European
authorities. We were unsure what to expect, but actually
it didn’t prove much of an issue. Our pilot licences were
accepted the same; there’s no need for visas to travel.
Covid, however, was a slightly bigger problem. We
were the fi rst industry to take the hit, and the last one
to recover. It’s been a challenging two and a half years.
At fi rst, things just slowed down. Then for a summer
and a half I was furloughed and stopped fl ying
completely. Legally, you have to do three takeoffs and
landings every 90 days to keep your licence valid. I did
Holding pattern: these on a simulator through that time, with all our
(from left) Luton planes grounded.
Airport staff Now there’s a whole new challenge, I see it all over
Audrey Eary, Liz Europe. There’s been a change in passenger mindset
Hughes, Nic Gibson, now things are opening up. People who’ve been locked
Laura Stringer and up for years are desperate to get away, putting pressure
‹
Abid Hussain on infrastructure and – whether inside airports or
The Observer Magazine 24.07.22 9
Wish

you were
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