Letters to Ann

Dear Ann,

You would think that with a name like Jean Mustard that she would be a bit of hot stuff! On the contrary, she is a lovely mild person, an ex nurse, an ex Avon dealer & a lovely lady. I met her as an Avon lady who had a very definite aim in life not many years ago.

She infiltrated herself into my life as a very easy going, no pressure lady who is nice to know because I never considered myself as a good Avon customer.

I must have succumbed along the way to the great products Avon offered, because one Christmas a few years ago Jean was walking out of my door after delivering an order to me & I remember having one baby Christmas pudding left. I asked her if she liked Christmas pudding & she answered in the affirmative, so I put the little pudding into her hands. She thought it wonderful that i would do that & from then on a friendship was born.

Then somehow, through my association with Jean, I met her friend Ursula, probably because we all met in Michele’s Patisserie by chance & got chatting. Strong friendships materialised. which again reminds me of that wonderful little verse in the book Sharon gave me “The Quotable woman’ which says:

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, & it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

From then on we met at Michele’s patisserie very regularly for coffees, birthdays & a chat.

Things changed early this year as Jean decided to leave her old stomping ground & move further into the country, specifically for cleaner air as she has a problem with her respiratory organs.

Somehow the weeks passed by & because of the move Ursula & I had not seen Jean for months. Then of course what happens every year happened & her birthday was right in front of us.

That soon made us do something very positive. After some urgent phone calls we were en route to the new address in West Wallsend. Jean had given me some straight forward directions as to how to reach her new home as I am a bit nervous driving to new places. However, with Ursula by my side as co-pilot we arrived at our destination without any wrong turns at all!

Our hostess was looking out for us & out the front to welcome us when we arrived. Jean’s home is brand new in a new retirement village with the homes built in a kind of semi circle all of which looks out onto a golf course. With all mod cons & everything that opens & shuts she has an outdoor setting that is quite lovely.

How quaint to be able to sit there, as we did during the afternoon & watch the pros playing their golf. Jean says she is a regular ‘Miss. Marple’ now as she can check out all her friends leaving & arriving back home, as one can do when living in a semi circle!

Jean had prepared a great feast more than adequate for the three of u,s with little mini meat & also spinach pies, plus delightful ham & pineapple finger sandwiches with no crusts attached!

This was followed by some delectable little cakes, pikelets with jam & cream with fresh strawberries & cream to follow. The country air must have gone to Jean’s head with all that preparation. I am much too lazy these days to go to all that trouble, besides Micheles Patisserie is far too handy to home!!

After lunch I gave Jean her birthday bag with some little knick knacks in it, such as a pretty note pad & personal biro; some of my home made Curried Zucchini Chutney; a bottle of home made delicious pickled cucumber that I bought & everyone loves & which I will tell you about in a minute. I had added a sparkly silver necklace from the LA Fashion District plus another one from there that was antique looking. It’s hard to know what to get someone who has everything they need.

After viewing the bottled gifts Jean opened her sparkly necklace first & put it on straight away, which suited her beautifully. When she opened the last little gift & saw the antique necklace she absolutely fell in love with it, taking off the first necklace to don this one. I think she was a little overwhelmed with all her little gifts, but I did thank the LA Fashion District!!

There is a little story behind the pickled cucumbers as my hair dresser’s sister makes them & some other home made produce because her little four year old daughter had to go to Sydney for some months to the Children’s Hospital with Leukaemia. Her Mum put the produce on the counter at the salon for sale & promised her daughter that all of the proceeds were to be hers so that she could go shopping in Sydney when she got better.

I thought that a lovely gesture & quickly pounced on the pickled cucumbers because they sounded so good. I wasn’t wrong either as one Sat. I offered some to David who said he doesn’t like cucumber but tried them anyway saying “Oh Yum”! After that I was such a regular customer that Vicki, the little girl’s Mum. kept giving me a bottle or two.

I finds things like that good to give as gifts for senior citizens who have everything. I think Emma, the little girl with leukaemia had a couple of hundred dollars to spend. I found that to be a nice little story & have been praying for little Emma even though I have never met her, but I know she has been through a rather tough time during recent months.

So after lunch & all the birthday celebrations were over, we three friends sat outside in the sunshine watching the golfers pass by as we had a long overdue chat. I kept saying to Ursula we must leave to avoid the five o’clock traffic but guess what? We were driving home in the five o’clock traffic!

However, no worries. We arrived home all in one piece after a great day out in the country with all of us saying ‘we must do this more often’!

Lots of love to you my dear friend & God Bless. Dawn X O X O

Dear Ann,

Wow what a great day this has been for me, I am sitting on cloud nine. David rang me late this afternoon to tell me my puddings are online & my shop, ‘Dawns Own Christmas Puddings‘ at Etsy is open. I am thrilled to bits.

Etsy put a welcome note on my computer. I couldn’t wait to tell you all about it. However, like Julie Andrews sang in the famous film: “Let’s start at the very beginning.”

This project started by an innocent remark Charley made after dinner one night in LA last year when the subject of my puddings came up. She asked did I sell many. I replied that I sold a few, but wished I could sell more & be occupied more. She replied that I could put them online with Etsy at no cost.

After a little more conversation I was immensely interested in this new marketing idea she put before me. I am not a technology whiz by any stretch of the imagination. I am not sure whether she offered to help me put them online or whether I asked her if she would, but I came home with an affirmation that it would happen.

It was a challenge & I am one of many in our family that like a challenge.

So it started off in January shortly after Charley & I arrived back in Newcastle. Charley came to my home to set up the website. I am very ignorant of how it was all to be done. Charley paved the way bit by bit as dozens of questions had to be answered during the process. Charley took me step by step, coming to have lunch with me, but each time also adding a little more to the project .

To start with I had to have a resume about my history with puddings. I pondered a lot about this, talked it over with David in our Saturday afternoon chats who said he thought that Etsy should know far more about me than I had written. So I called on Philip for his help as he is so good at doing this sort of thing, having done it for me all through my pudding career.

When he sent his ‘blurb’ it sounded so good covering the steps of my career as it was done. The only thing I added was that the Queen of England had received my puddings twice as gifts to Her Royal Highness for which I had letters from Buckingham Palace to thank me. The ‘blurb’ was excellent & I had Philip to thank for it.

Then I realised that the next step was getting some stock on hand so with a week here & a week there I made a supply of all the four different puddings I was putting on Etsy, namely: the Traditional Pudding, the No Added Sugar pudding suitable for diabetics, the Gluten Free pudding for those who were gluten intolerant & lastly the Macadamia Nut Pudding Log which David said was essential as it is not only very tasty, but also easy to slice & serve.

The pudding logs were all very popular when I was known in business as Newcastle’s Pudding Lady. We made them by the thousands.

Having made the puddings I realised that I needed cellophane for wrapping so that I could get the photography done. This is where Lauren stepped in & kindly spent time in looking for suppliers of what I needed. This was a great help & the supplier made us smile with the great way he received my order & acknowledged it. I think you will have a smile too when you read it, as this is the email I got from them saying:

Order No. 47494 has been packed & will be Shipped on the next Aust.Post Pickup. Wrapcos highly motivated team of designers, printers & warehouse staff have pulled out every stop to make sure everything is perfect & in the best possible condition before mailing.

Your Australian designed & made gift wrap & carefully sourced accessories have been gently taken from our shelves with as much care & thoughtfulness as possible & gently placed into a snug shipping box.

We all had a celebration when your order was packed & the whole wrapping team marched down to the Post Office where the entire town of Braeside waved goodbye & sang a beautiful rendition of “I Come from the Land Down Under” as the postie headed off on his suped up BMX Delivery Bike.

We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at Wrapco – we sure like your picture over our wall as ‘Customer of the Year’. We are all exhausted, but we can’t wait for you to be back again to www.wrapco.com.au.

Thank you from all the wrapping team.’

I consider that a masterpiece in marketing & I couldn’t keep the grin off my face as I read it. It was even better as I received almost daily reports as to where it was & how it was getting nearer before the final notification being the delivery to my door. Who wouldn’t want to deal with Wrapco!!

With wrapping paper in my possession on a gadget for easy winding off when I needed it I had the pleasure of this new thingamejig to play with as I happily wrapped my beautiful puddings. I was also realising that before the photography could be done I needed new labels for the appropriate puddings.

So I was soon back in touch with Philip who has been the designer for these ever since the pudding business began over thirty years ago. And what a great job he did in preparation for the printing company here who David directed me to.

Mr. Print & Design greatly appreciated Philip’s work & finally I had 800 labels: 200 for each different pudding.. They were done in Gold for the Traditional Pudding; Green for the No Added Sugar pudding suitable for diabetics; Red for the Gluten Free pudding & Blue for the Macadamia Nut Pudding Log. They looked grand with the cello wrapped around their little bodies & the labels attached with matching curling ribbon.

Now it was time for the photography, which Riley was graciously doing in her busy life. There were certain instructions from Etsy as to how they were to be photographed & with what tools. I know nothing about this & made a date to deliver my precious puds to Riley.

It took a little while for her to get them done, but when I received them I was ecstatic. She had done a great job. Every label could be clearly read & the cut pudding looked good enough to eat! I was delighted as it was just how I wanted it all to look.

In between all of this Charley would come & have lunch & put a little more on Etsy for me. However, I am hopeless at technology & solicited David’s help last Saturday as to orders, payment etc. & how it was all to be done. He found my computer very frustrating & said he would rather do it on his own at his home, so today got all he could from what I had on my computer.

I had by this time, realised that all the info Etsy wanted was going to take heaps of time to do. David had said to me that he had a little goal he set himself to have this online for me by the end of August ready for the Christmas season.

David too, had to find out how to get my shop on Etsy working & realised it was going to take a lot of time.

Therefore, when I got a call from David this afternoon saying my shop at Etsy was open I could hardly believe my ears. It had taken eight months during which time I know the family had frustrations with me. I had developed nerves in the tummy & torture in my own mind as, during this time, I had no idea how all this was going to work online & not being able to visualise it made it worse.

I got a bit depressed & was trying to hide it, but lots of the time I was not feeling as good as I wanted to be. This project meant a lot to me in more ways than one. I wanted to have a go at it because mainly it was the obvious hobby to have to give me a good reason to get up in the morning.

Part of Dawn’s Own on Etsy.

With David’s great news I felt overwhelmed with relief as it came so unexpectedly, much sooner than I had thought. I even shed a few tears of relief but mostly of happiness.

David had got to work on it straight away with a suspicion on my part that he knew he was going to give his Mum great joy. He certainly did that!

However, I couldn’t get Etsy up on my computer to have a look at it all so got in the car, drove up to David’s just to see what it all looked like. I am ecstatic about it & even though I have other letters to write to you in my mind, I just had to write about this today because I am so happy & wanted to share my good news with you.

I have sent emails to all my wonderful family to thank them for their time, patience, support & effort they have put into this for me as I am aware how busy they are with their own activities. They knew how much it has meant to me & I love them & thank them so much for being so supportive.

My step grand daughter, Georgia has also been very caring about it all saying one night that when I got it online to let her know so that she can put word around with her work colleagues & friends. I appreciate it all & it has meant a great deal to me.

I think all of my family, particularly from my side of it – the Ayletts, like a challenge. I have been used to very successful fairs, fetes etc. where the puddings have always been judged number one in the country, but this online business is all knew to me.

If the outcome does not come up to expectations I may be a tad disappointed, but I will be happy in the fact that I gave it a go. However, if I have to work my little legs & hands off to keep up with the demand I will love every minute of the back breaking work.

If you could see my little office at home at this present time, you would view a sea of gorgeous puddings all wrapped in their cello from Wrapco, sporting their pretty ribbons with their brand new labels all resdy to be shipped off to their recipients. As all the labels say, the puddings go to their destiny having been mixed, among the usual ingredients, with Lots of Love, Peace, Happiness & every good wish for Christmas.

There is just one person I cannot thank personally, but wherever my Gran is I hope she knows how grateful I have been for her prize winning recipe & also for the time I spent with her & my Mum watching the puddings being made when I was a little girl. This is one of many legacies left to me from my Gran & I have had a suspicion for quite some time that God made her my Guardian Angel as well.

God Bless you my dear friend. I love you. Dawn X O X O

Dear Ann,

It has been a very sad week & particularly a sad day today as we said farewell to my brother in law John in Forster. My niece Michelle, phoned me a week ago to let me know he had been taken to hospital very ill. I was in tears as I loved John deeply.

John had been on dialysis three times a week that had been taking seven hours a day by the time he was picked up, had the procedure & arrived back home again. It got to the stage that he was only living the in between days to get enough strength for the next session the following day.

It was his decision to go off dialysis. He had given up the fight & knowing what a positive person he was, that decision would not have been made lightly. It seems he had lost the will to live as the quality of life was no longer there.

My niece Kassandra notified me soon after his passing last Wednesday, 27th July – more tears.

I had asked David if he would come to the funeral with me & drive me to Forster, which is a good two hours away. He kindly arranged to pick me up this morning at 9.15 a.m. I was ready & waiting & got a most wonderful surprise.

As David was coming towards me he was saying he knew that I am used to sitting in the back seat, so I naturally thought Lauren had decided to go to the funeral as well. However, when I got to the front seat my sister, Kim, stood up before me.

That did it. I had been feeling very vulnerable all week & when I saw her standing in front of me I could only say “Oh Kim how wonderful to see you.”  Tears were not far away as we hugged each other very meaningfully.

It was such a beautiful surprise. She had flown over from Tassie the previous day & stayed with David & Lauren last night.

But my surprise did not end there. As we drove off I remarked that Joice would be surprised to see her too, but David said he didn’t think so because Joice had been in touch with Kim asking her if she would conduct the funeral service for John.

Kim, Joice, Dawn, Michelle and Dianne after the funeral.

As you know, she has been a lay preacher with sixty years of experience so who else would be better than our Kim for this most important service. It could not be more ideal & I admire her strength in being able to do what she did today for Joice & John. She did it so well & no one could have done it better. I am just so proud of her.

The service commenced with Amazing Grace being sung by Nana Mouskouri & that really did it. I can never hear that without it causing me great emotion & particularly as it was for John.

It was no better when the hymn How Great Thou Art was also sung – these are my two favourite hymns which cracks me up & were sung beautifully. I was taking some deep breaths from the start of the service!

Kim had mentioned a lot about John’s life in her foreword, which she followed with the Bible reading in Corinthians about love. This was followed by tributes to John by his daughter, Christine & son, Andrew that were lovingly made.

However, when John’s step-daughter Michelle got up to make a tribute, my heart went out to her as she was so emotional. I said a little prayer that God would give her strength to continue. She was absolutely wonderful as she told at length of all the attributes which John possessed during his lifetime; how much he was loved; & the great respect & admiration we all had for him. I was also very proud of my loving niece.

Joice gave the Eulogy herself saying how her son -in- law Stephen, Kassandra’s husband, had often said how resilient she is & she felt that as John’s wife she knew him better than anyone else & should carry out this task.

Joice and John’s wedding with John, Joice, Dawn and Max, 1980.

Stephen is not wrong as she certainly is a very strong lady. With only a very short emotional stumble to begin with she gave the most magnificent eulogy ever. What hadn’t been said at this stage of the proceedings about John’s life was said by Joice.

She spoke very firmly all the way through telling of John’s earlier life when at the age of fourteen he made himself a home out of huge pipes that he lived in for a couple of years when working in the rural part of England where he was taken by the Government during World War II as a child to live & get away from the bombs.

She told how he later got a job as a postman, but because he couldn’t read as his schooling had been interrupted by the war when his school was bombed, he went to night school for the next seven years.

Then she told how he was so bright that he attained his degree as a first class hydraulic engineer: a career that had always interested him.

Joice brought into her tribute John’s first marriage with Rose & the five children they had & how they had emigrated to Australia.

Nothing was missed out. She spoke at length very strongly & firmly. I admired her more than I can say & I am so very proud of my little sister.

After Joice’s wonderful eulogy, we watched a video of excerpts from John’s life to the tune of ‘Memories.‘  I don’t think any friend or family were omitted . This in itself was wonderful too.

Dianne, a very close & valued friend of Joice & John, then gave a short talk finishing with a lovely poem.

The service closed with The Lord’s Prayer & the Committal. As John was taken from the packed church to the tune of ‘We’ll Meet Again‘ sung by Vera Lynn there were not many dry eyes.

Joice, John and Dawn in 2011

He was one of the most positive people I have ever met. With each setback in his later years – when he had bowel cancer, a double heart bypass & prostate cancer – he would be planning what project he would next work on when he recovered.

John Manthorpe was every good thing a man could be: a loving father; partner and kind, caring, thoughtful, patient, sharp witted, gentle & indeed a Gentleman’s Gentleman.

He was loved by all & we are the richer for having him with us.

May God Bless you & you have my love. Dawn X O X O