Rosie Whitehouse: Travels with my Frontline Family

White Van Mum

2009-06-08T07:11:00.001-07:00

Franco’s International Brigades have sold out. The Reportage Press office has been torn apart and the family car is now loaded up to the brim with boxes. In driving June rain Ray and I set off for our warehouse at Littlehampton Books.
Ray is loaded down with files. She wants help with her history revision. It’s the History GCSE in a few days. Last year’s teacher didn’t finish the syllabus. I learn with alarm that although the paper covers both the First and Second World Wars the teacher never got past 1938. We’ve got the four hour return journey to catch up.
I get so excited explaining the role of raw materials in the Far East that we loose our way and have to drive three times round the roundabout before we are back on course. They should up date those stickers “Baby on Board” to “Mobile Exam Revision”.
By the time we get to Stalingrad we are pulling into the warehouse. It’s a publisher’s nightmare. Behind the large blue metal building are piles of books that have all gone slightly soggy in the rain. Two men are laughing at a shared joke as the feed copies of Michael Palin’s biography into the shredder. I am glad he is not here to see it.
“Wow can’t we get a free copy?” asks Ray. We can’t afford the distraction, I remind her.
We unload more than fifty boxes while a man in blue overalls stands by idly.
Then it’s back on the road. We pull up outside the school gate just as Russian troops arrive in Berlin. Perfect timing.

Help! What am I doing being a mother!

2008-03-06T09:49:00.001-08:00

Writing a book is a lonely experience and getting some feed back is the best present a writer can have. Being a mother is a lonely experience sometimes too. I have often thought - what am doing? I can’t cope. I remember very clearly the day war broke out in Yugoslavia and my husband suddenly became a war reporter. I was in Bucharest and had no one to turn to for a bit of advice. There isn’t a single parenting book in the world that has an entry: War has broken out. Your husband is on the frontline. How do you cope and what do you tell the children? In those days it took 12 hours to book a foreign call so I couldn’t even phone my mother for help.

This morning was awful. The kids argued all the way to school. I was feeling ill and had to speak to 150 women at women’s group. I was having one of those – get me out of here moments until a beautiful young woman came up to me and told me Are We There Yet? had saved her marriage. She was not from the UK and had found herself stuck in London with a new baby while her husband was on endless foreign trips. It led to terrible rows and they almost split up. The she read the book and found some inspiration to re-build their lives together. I always hoped that Are We There Yet? would fill that gap and also help young mums stuck at home to face up to the challenges of motherhood with a light heart. Think stuff the cleaning – the kids are fun, together we can conquer the world. She set me back on course.

Long Live the Kartoffelpuffer!

2007-10-30T08:10:00.001-07:00

We have just discovered why Vienna is famous for its cafes. We have tagged on behind Tim and are now in the Austrian capital. He is busy at a conference discussing the world’s trouble spots, while we are trying to find something to rustle up for dinner. Now, that’s not as easy as it sounds here.

The day we arrived it was a national holiday, so all the shops were shut and I mean shut. Absolutely nothing was open. The next day I made a fatal error in thinking that we could buy some supplies after a day’s sightseeing – but everything closes at six o’clock. The next day was Sunday and everything was closed yet again!

Next big problem – I can’t afford to feed them for three days in cafes. That’s why we’ve rented a flat with a lovely fully equipped kitchen. I was never great fan of Mrs Thatcher back in the 80s but now I would like to see the Iron Lady smash down the doors of the Spar at the end of our road.

We are saved however by the kartoffelpuffer, which is a tasty round snack made out of grated potato that is sold on practically every street corner. It lives up to its name and puffs you up!

Postcard from Mostar

2007-10-26T01:32:00.000-07:00

We pull into Mostar. Things are looking a lot better than they were last time I was here in the summer of 2001 - although, from the expression on the kids’ faces you would never guess. Then, the main boulevard resembled Warsaw in 1945. Today, between the ruins stands the occasional modern block of flats and there is a new emergency hospital. Mostar is still a deeply divided city. Muslims live on the east back of the Neretva River; Croats on the opposite side. There is little contact between the two groups.

We have brought Ray to see United World Colleges’ newest school that is situated in the city’s Gymnasium, which was once right on the frontline. Ray is interested in applying to study here. The college is trying to bring together students from all ethnic backgrounds in Bosnia and mix them with international students in the hope it will build a more stable country. It’s an elite corner. In the rest of the building, as in the rest of the country, education is a decisive issue: Serbs are educated in the Serbian school, Croats in Croatian one and Bosnian Muslims in the Bosnian school.

Ray has been to Mostar before but it’s easy to forget just how terrible the destruction here was. She stares momentarily in disbelief at the bullet riddled façade. Before we go in, we take a stroll around the old town. The old Turkish bridge destroyed by the Croats in an orgy of destruction has been rebuilt. It has a Disneyland air about it. The streets that run up to it are full of tourist shops selling fridge magnets, football shirts and key rings. In Mostar, the latter are made out of bullets. A bus load of German tourists wander up and down in the drizzle. Just a street back from the tourist junk are the desolate shells of houses destroyed during the war. The park on the east side is a graveyard.

Tim points at the bridge opposite the Nerevta Hotel. He stayed there many times before the war. It’s still a ruin. Next to it is a brand new United Colours of Benetton shop. He points at a spot on the west bank of the river, the Croatian part of town. “There was an old Muslim man who was driven out of that side of town. He was shot in the back as he fled in terror but no-one could retrieve his body. Eventually, he became a fully dressed skeleton.” Ray glances at the Benetton. I imagine she would like to be an elegant corpse.

Jacobs is hunting for a football shirt. He wants one with the Croatian goal keeper’s name on it. Ray flashes him a stern look. Grumpily, he opts for something more politically neutral and buys one with a German striker’s name on the back.

I hunt around the postcard stand. There’s a good sign. The war has made it onto the postcards. Maybe it is moving into the history books. I buy three: one with the bridge during the Ottoman Empire, one after it had been destroyed and another showing the new bridge. We drive back to Sarajevo which looks cosy in comparison.

Ghosts at the Party.

2007-10-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

There’s thick snow in Sarajevo. It’s an eerie experience to be back in the city for the first time in fifteen years. I am here promoting Are We There Yet? We`are in the middle of a regional tour. In fact, I was very relieved to get here. I flew from London to Zagreb with Jacob and Evie where we met Tim. As we were over Germany, I was subjected to a barrage of questions that went something like this: “When the plane lands will it go straight down with a bang?”; “If the window breaks who will be sucked out first?” and if that wasn’t bad enough we hit terrible turbulence over the Alps and there was a chorus of “Oh No! Mummy - we are crashing!” As we literally bounced back into the Balkans, I was clutching my book, trying to work out what to read. Evie turned to me and asked: “Mummy is that the first time you have read it? Do you think it’s any good?” I was totally lost for words and for once in my life forget how terrified I am of flying.

Ray joined us yesterday and Tim took us on a Sarajevo war tour. We start on ‘Sniper Alley’. He points out a corner where there is a supermarket and he saw a man who had been shot dead in his car; then the sign for the 'Elephant Car Wash' that somehow did better than that particular individual and survived the war intact. I feel there are ghosts all around me and the fear I felt when he was here comes flooding back. Jacob and Evie gawp out of the window. Jacob asks hopefully: "Do you really think he was dead, Daddy? He might have just been asleep." "No, he was dead," says Tim in a matter of fact way. They get the message that this was everyday life in the war. I can se it as their expressions change. Intrige turns to gloom.

Then we cross what was once the frontline into eastern Sarajevo. Snow is falling and the road is icing up, as we drove along the hills above the city where the Serbian gun positions once were. We make a halt at the old Second World War memorial from where there is a perfect panorama across the city. “I’ve never got out of the car here before,” says Tim pointing back at the road, musing. “You had to drive as fast as you could. Remember, if you can see them, they can see you.” I cold shiver runs down my back as I have visions of our red family salon car shooting past on an icy road at 100 miles an hour. There are echoes of the past all around.

We drive on to Pale, a village masquerading as a town that was once the Bosnian Serb HQ. It has a desolate frontier feel. Along the fairy tale roads lined by fur trees with branches laden with snow are the odd groups of men. What they are doing standing about in the snow I have no idea. I assume there is nothing else to do up there now. They stop and watch the car we hired in Croatia with suspicion. It doesn’t make you feel like lingering.

It’s back to Sarajevo to buy Jacob and Evie a birthday cake. Life goes on. I draw the blinds in the flat we have rented and shut the world out. At least I try to.

The Wonders of the Book Tour

2007-10-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

I have been busy driving the length and breadth of England reading passages from my book. It’s pouring with rain as you drive into a small market town. The streets are deserted. It doesn’t look promising. You hope that in fact they are all crammed in the church hall waiting for you to arrive. Your heart sinks as you walk into the venue and find two old men asleep in the front row. Why put yourself through such torture? Easy, it’s the thrill of discovering who lives out there in this mad cap country. In Warminster, I was put on a panel with an sixty-year-old lady who wrote pornographic literature.

Yesterday, I sped up the M40 for Birmingham with co-author and friend Vesna Goldsworthy. Armed with a printout of the route from the AA route finder, we thought we were heading for the city centre but were amazed to find ourselves directed to Sparkbrook instead. The book tour is a fascinating unpredictable thing. We inspect the decorations for Eid as we sit in a traffic jam. We arrive twenty minutes late having negotiated the ring road and made a number of illegal U turns and read manically from our books.

Then it’s best bit of the evening – people queue up to buy them! Yes, I love to sell my book but the truth is that this is my favourite moment. Who is in the queue? I have been kissed by Mormons, squeezed by elderly Scottish ladies from somewhere near Orkney, who tell me I look fifteen, and last night met a couple who had decided to leave their worldly goods to Kabul Zoo. As Vesna so wisely said, only in England could you meet people like this.

Toy Boy

2007-09-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

So the holidays are over and the kids are installed back at their desks. Yesterday was Jacob and Evie’s school meeting. It’s always tricky since they are in different classes and I can’t, however hard I try, be in two places at the same time. So, as Tim is usually away one of the older kids has to step in and help out. This year it was Ben’s turn.
Just before the meeting we went up to introduce ourselves to the teacher.
“Hello, I’m Jacob’s mother.” I say offering to shake her hand.
“Oh! How wonderful. It is so nice that both parents could come. We love to have the father’s involved.” She enthusiastically shakes Ben’s hand; mine is left floating aimlessly.
Now, this is a French school and my French leaves something to be desired. For a split second I think, I must have misunderstood. Then Jakie pipes up:
“He’s not my Dad!”
The teacher looks momentarily confused and asks whose father he is before Jakie adds: “It’s my brother!”
I am left unsure what to think. Does she by the look of me think that I am the kind of woman who would seduce teenage boys or should I be flattered that I am the kind of woman who could attract a handsome toy boy?

Listen with the Khmer Rouge

2007-08-01T05:39:00.000-07:00

Our family have been decamping southwards for the summer, to Liguria. Sitting on the balcony, I’ve been working on the translation of an extraordinary account of Denise Affonço’s fight to survive under Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. It was published in France as ‘Les Digue des Veuves’ but will be published by Reportage Press in the autumn as ‘To the End of Hell’. Affonço’s peaceful life was over turned when the Khmer Rouge seized power in April 1975. She was driven along with millions of Cambodia’s out into the countryside where she endured hard labour and starvation. Her husband was executed and many members of her family starved to death, including her nine-year-old daughter, Jeannie.
To check that the translation is correct, I have been reading it aloud to my husband, who is following, French text in hand. We are seated at the table on the balcony as Jacob and Evie play around with their toys on the floor. Evie arranges her Barbie’s and Jacob his toy soldiers. Today on the way back from the supermarket, Evie said to me: “You know Mummy, I have really been enjoying listening to that story you are working on, but what made the Khmer Rouge behave like that?” Yet more big questions. We drive back through the rough and tumble streets around the port in Genoa, discussing communism, fascism and the plight of workers and peasants, as I realise that the long slog to get the translation of ‘To the End of Hell’ correct has in fact been fulfilling the role ‘Listen with Mother’ did in my childhood – a relaxing but in this case highly informative after lunch entertainment.

A Happy Ending

2007-07-05T00:53:00.000-07:00

A most extraordinary thing happened yesterday evening. The BBC World Service programme, World Have Your Say called me to ask if I would take part in the programme, as I was one of the many people who have written a broadcast letter to the BBC’s Alan Johnston, while he was in captivity. They asked if Jacob might like to say a word. Nothing too surprising in that.

So Jacob and I huddle around the kitchen table in Shepherd’s Bush both with a telephone sealed to out ears. Then things take an unexpected course. We discover we are about to chat to Alan himself. He tells Jacob that he has heard me talking about him not only on World Have Your Say but also on Outlook. Jacob tells Alan that he celebrated his release with a chocolate biscuit. At this point what is truly amazing is that Alan Johnston cracks a joke and tells Jacob that there is more to life than nutrition. I have nothing but admiration for him as after over a hundred days in captivity he can emerge so calm, professional and considerate that he has a few minutes to speak to an eight-year old and make him feel so happy.

I cooked supper glowing with optimism. Small things matter and if even an eight-year old can make difference, we all can if we have the courage to speak out. Life never ceases to amaze me!

A Celebration Breakfast

2007-07-04T01:35:00.001-07:00

Not only has the sun come out for thirty seconds this morning but we wake up to the amazing news that Alan Johnston is free! Jakie celebrates by eating chocolate biscuits as he listens to the news, his feet propped up on the kitchen cupboard in a nonchalant fashion. It spreads an upbeat anything is possible mood around the house. Jakie’s big sister Ray announces that she is off for celebratory shop at H&M after school.

A letter to Alan

2007-06-27T02:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was in Oxford promoting my book when I received a call from the BBC World Service programme, World Have Your Say. Once a week they ask someone to broadcast a special message to Alan Johnston, in the hope that his captors let him listen in and they wanted me to write this week’s, Letter to Alan.

Now, it’s not everyday that you are asked to write to a hostage. I was a little unsure what to say. I felt it was a very intimate link with someone I have never met. It was made all the more so by the fact that I did not have my computer and penned the letter by hand. This is my message to Alan:

Hello Alan,

This is Rosie in Shepherd’s Bush a bit of London I am sure you know well. Over the last few months I have been wondering how to get a special message to you, which may at first surprise you, as we have never met.

My husband is a frontline reporter and as those of us in this line of work all know, it’s a job that invades family life. My youngest son, Jacob is eight-years-old and is always asking me how you are doing. Just the other morning, when they announced you had been held captive for a hundred days he turned to me and munching on his toast asked again – “What do you think Alan Johnston is having for breakfast?”

Well, I know breakfast is the least of your problems at the moment but because Jacob is aware that his dad could easily be in the same situation he deserved an answer and we discussed various scenarios. I do hope you get some breakfast.

A few weeks ago, Jacob and his twin sister Evie were watching an idiotic game show on TV. After it had finished, Jacob came over and said to me:
– “Wow! That was a great show but I feel very sad.”
- “Why?” I asked.
-“Because it said Alan Johnston made it and now there won’t be another one until they set him free.”
Well, there’s a new line of work for you when you get home!

I know when Jacob comes back from school this afternoon and I tell him that I have sent you this message; he’ll be delighted as he wanted to send you a picture and ask you what football team you support.

I know this might sound a little flippant in the circumstances but these are the things kids worry about. I hope the knowledge that we are all thinking about you gives you courage and when you get home, Jacob and I would love to invite you for breakfast. Keep safe.

Our Man in Estonia

2007-06-22T04:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening I received a lovely e-mail from a gentleman in Estonia who wrote to tell me how much he had enjoyed Travels with my Frontline Family. It’s a lonely experience writing a book, let alone getting it published, so to have comments from readers is wonderful. It makes the whole family very happy too - my children were delighted.

I have a little desk on top of a cupboard in the corner of our chaotic sitting room. My office is rather a mess as eight-year old Jacob stores his clothes in the cupboard underneath my computer and the floor is always littered with t-shirts, football shorts and odd socks. When I read the e-mail the younger ones were sitting right next to me watching TV and all cheered when I told them someone in Estonia had read the book and liked it.

I have always had a soft spot for Estonia. When I was studying in Leningrad in 1984, I went with some friends to Tallinn and it was like a breath of fresh air. The atmosphere in Russia was oppressive but in Estonia the people were so much more approachable and open. I have to admit however that it was the Baltic States that drove me out of the BBC World Service! One grey day in 1989, I spent ten hours doing nothing but dial the numbers of opposition spokesmen in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius all of whom were out. I had one of those old telephones with a manual circular dial and by the end of the day my index finger was red and sore. I thought: “Help! I have to get out and get a life. I must find out what is going on myself and not just ring people up and ask them what was going on in the world.” So a big thanks to everyone on the other side of the Baltic Sea – you changed my life!

Testing Times

2007-06-20T03:18:00.000-07:00

It's the exam season in our house and that goes for my eight-year old twins as well. They attend the French Lycee here in London. Over the years I have learnt that the French take a tough approach to eductaion. The mantra is testing, testing, testing. The children are continually assessed. They know their grades and their class ranking. If you don't get good marks you are held back a year. But even I was taken aback yesterday when my youngest daughter Evie came home to annouce she had 1 minus in reading, or at least that's what she thought she had scored. "It was a bit difficult to hear as everyone in the class was shouting out what grade we should all get. The boy near me was yelling 2 minus at the top of his voice." It sounded more like a cattle market than a classroom.

A Wife With One Earring

2007-06-12T09:27:00.000-07:00

My husband is enroute for Lithuania as I write. Nothing much to worry about there you would think but the thing is I have become increasingly superstitious. He once had a lucky grey t-shirt that I made him take with him wherever he went. When he lost it I was convinced the worst would happen. It didn't.

All the same these days he never leaves home without one of my earrings. I know it is totally irrational to think that a £4.99 bauble can save him from a plane crash, a sniper's bulllet or any of the long list terrible things that could happen - but what else can I do? In my hit parade of disasters plane crashes come a close second to car accidents, who are just ahead of sinking ferries.

Breakfast with Alan Johnston

2007-06-11T03:24:00.000-07:00

My eight-year old son Jacob is munching on his toast as the Today programme announce that this morning it is thirteen weeks since the BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston was abducted.
“What do you think he is doing now?” he asks swinging his legs. “Do you think he gets breakfast?”
“I hope so Jakie but I expect that is the least of his problems,” I reply.

Jacob eats breakfast at the same time every morning and everyday there is a mention of Alan Johnston on the radio. Jacob asks about him on a daily basis. Now most eight-year olds in Britain have probably never heard of Alan Johnston but Jacob’s dad, my husband Tim Judah, is a frontline reporter. The morning that his abduction was reported Jacob was eating a croissant. I was getting something out of the washing machine and Tim was pouring a coffee. I thought, shall I mention this? Tim was silent. I decided against it but we had all heard it. Ignoring that your husband has a dangerous job and getting on with life is the best policy.

Yet you can never push it out of the way entirely. The other afternoon I was sitting at my computer in the sitting room. The kids were watching some silly game show on CBBC. When it finished Jacob came over and said:
“Alan Johnston made that programme – it was really good.”
My mouth fell open slightly. I can’t be harsh and tell him not to be so stupid so I say:
“Really – I’m glad you liked it.”
He looks downcast. What have I said wrong?
“The thing is now he can’t make another. When will they let him go?”I wish I had an answer to that

Fail that Agent!

2007-06-10T04:35:00.001-07:00

Hooray! At last my book is published. It is one in the eye for the agent who rejected the manuscript because she already had a book about women in Solidarity on her list. At the time I was outraged as there is no mention of a Gdansk shipyard anywhere in Are We There Yet? Travels with my Frontline Family.

After a week helping my sixteen-year old daughter Esti revise for her GCSE History paper on the fall of the Soviet Union, I am left in a state of shock. Not by Esti who can explain what Gorbachev was trying to acheive in the 1980s but by the realisation that this reknowned lady agent might need to join my younger daughter in the classroom next year. I am worried that she in fact thinks that Solidarity was a Romanian trade union.