Chapter 3 Charlotte’s story
After finishing my work, there was still time to enjoy the late afternoon sun, I changed into leggings again and took myself off on a walk up to Middlehope Moor to where Charlotte had been, and looked back over the village towards Chapel Fell, It was a glorious view and I could have sat and breathed it all in for the rest of the day, but the sun was now dropping over Cross Fell distant in the West and I needed to get back before dusk set in.
Back at home I felt an urge to get into my studio and do some painting. Once again my artistic muse took over and images seemed to flow from my brain to my hand and onto the canvas. I must have been exhausted by all the events of the day and the trek up on the moor and dozed off. I woke later to find that it was pitch black outside, as you only find in the depths of the country, with a magnificent skyscape of thousands, if not millions, of stars on a jet black background.
I didn’t remember falling asleep or know how long for, but on waking up I felt strangely refreshed. I looked over at the easel and instead of seeing a landscape as I previously painted for my earlier work, it was just a head and shoulders image of a worried-looking young man turning to glance back over his shoulder seeing a young woman disappearing into the distance. After a cup of coffee to help me get going again I pictured the image of the view back to Chapel Fell that I had seen earlier. and added it as a backdrop to the young man.
A few hours later after a shower to freshen up and putting on a clean set of clothes, having given Julie a chance to clear breakfasts for her guests, I called her to ask her to pop over as there was something she needed to see.
“ Morning Julie , it’s me, are you free to talk or are you busy?”
“ I’m sorry, who is that, who is me?”
“ Stop playing games with me, it’s Lexie.”
“ Oh, sorry pet, I didn’t recognise your voice, I thought you were a woman, but then you are at the moment, sort of, what am I saying, I am babbling.”
“ Never mind about that can you get yourself over here?”
“ Ten minutes, ok?”
“Hi Lexie, you’re looking good this morning, I hope that’s not what you called me over to see.”
“ Of course not, I’m not that vain, but thanks for the compliment, I have been up most of the night and must look a sight.”
“ Not at all, seriously you look fresh as a daisy.”
“Have a look at the painting on the easel and tell me what you see.”
“That’s another wonderful view, is that Chapel Fell in the distance, is that Charlotte running away, and who is the young man?”
“I don’t know who it is but I was working away and just fell asleep, when these paintings come to me they just drain me. It is definitely Chapel Fell because I painted that from my conscious memory after being up on the moor yesterday. I think that is Charlotte in the distance, we need to compare her dress with the one I painted the other day. I was hoping that just as Charlotte’s image is reasonably true, that the young man may be who she was up on the moor to see, and that you might have seen someone that he resembles.”
”He vaguely rings a bell, but I can’t put my finger on it, I’ll show it to Jeanette, Jane, and Josie to see if they have any ideas. By the way, Jeanette showed your last painting to Gran and she burst into tears, saying it was a beautiful picture of her mother-in-law, you definitely captured Charlotte, let’s hope that her fella is just as accurate.”
“The other night Jan and Mark asked me if they could buy the painting of the two of them running to meet on the moor, Jane, Jeanette, and Josie want a copy, has anyone else asked about it?”
“ I have had a few people asking where they could get a copy or print, why do you ask?”
“At Mark’s suggestion I was thinking of getting a small print run done, I don’t want to spend an awful lot of money, but it might be worth giving it a try, particularly if we can turn it into a collection tracing the story of what went on between them. What do you think?”
“With the economy as it is at the moment, diversification is the in buzzword, maybe using the spare wall space in the pub as a gallery for your work could work for both of us. But when you get this story out of your system you will need to find another theme, maybe the old lead mines up the dale at Killhope and things like that, industrial heritage.”
A few days later it was time for the quiz tournament and Jane came over to make sure I was presented at my best. When she arrived I was all ready for her, I had styled and brushed out my hair, applied a very subtle make up, and for the first time, put on a dress rather than a skirt and top. As I had been told, I needed to make an extra effort to stress my femininity to make up for any manly traits that were still present.
“ I don’t know why I bothered to come to check on you, you have done a good job yourself, in fact you’re probably better presented than the other three of us. You suit that red dress, it looks a lot better on you than it ever did on me. You have taken to living as a woman like a duck to water, you are a natural, are you sure that you have not done this before?”
“ Can I be honest with you? No, I have never even considered dressing or living as a woman. However since coming here and getting involved with Charlotte’s story, I am sure that I am being influenced by some sort of spirit guide who is helping me adjust to living as a woman to give me a greater affinity with her so that I can understand what she went through so her story can be told. I’m not a great believer in spiritualism or ghosts or anything like that, I just feel that I’m being nudged along by something outside my control.”
“You might be right, but that is getting a bit deep and weird, I’m not sure that I believe in all that stuff either, just tag along for the ride at the moment and see where life leads you. Grab your bag and coat and we can pick up Julie and Josie and head off to the venue at Stanhope and see what we can do.
When we arrived at the hotel in Stanhope hosting the quiz, I was surprised to see the list of teams that had entered. We were expecting just a handful from local pubs i Weardale, but there were over 40 entries from as far afield as Bishop Auckland, Consett and Durham, some had travelled over 20 miles on country roads to get there and were obviously serious quizzers. We weren’t sure that we wanted to continue and show ourselves up.
“Come on girls,” said Julie to Jane, Josie and me, “we are as good as any of them, let’s show them that we’re not dumb country hicks.” In a similar manner to the quizzes Kelvin organised in the Maltby Arms, there were ten rounds covering different topics, geography, history, sport, films&TV, Art, music, science, politics, fashion and mythology. Between us we had most subjects covered but we were weak on sport, I was the only one who admitted any knowledge at all.
As it turned out, even the sport section was not too bad for us, luckily most of the questions were athletics, skating and tennis which the other girls had some knowledge of, whilst I covered cricket, football and rugby.
At the end of the evening there was a buzz of excitement around the hall as it was realised that two or three sets of team scoresheets were being re-examined, obviously it was going to be a close run thing. We knew that we had done well, but also knew that we had some missing answers.
“ Ladies and gentlemen the results have been confirmed. After the prize winners are announced you are all welcome to pick up your answer sheets and check against the official answers if you so wish, but the winners we are about to announce are the final placings, there will be no appeals allowed.”
“In third place are the Dun Cow Dons who have joined us all the way from Durham, runners-up are the Moormen from Consett, but the winners by a clear result are…………..The Robson Lasses from The Maltby Arms just up the road in St John’s Chapel.” The MC was interrupted by shrieks of delight from the other girls. “Ladies Pease step up to receive your prize.”
We stood up and gave a group hug before making our way to the stage. it was not a major prize, only £250 and a celebratory magnum of champagne between us, and a plaque to go on the pub wall but we could hardly contain our excitement, the country bumpkins from Upper Weardale had beaten teams from Durham University and several major companies, as well as other local pub teams.
We were well on our way with emptying the champagne bottle when we were approached by a young casually dressed extremely striking young man.
“Excuse me Ladies, can you spare me a few minutes, if you don’t mind me interrupting your party. I’m Jim Newell and I represent Channel 5 TV, but I am just here tonight as a member of one of your rival teams. You may not be aware but Eggheads. the TV team quiz, is moving from the BBC to Channel 5 later in the year. We are currently taking applications for teams to challenge the Eggheads, and I wondered if you would be interested. Normally we wait for applications to come to us, but I would like to make a special case for you and guarantee you one of the early slots. you have proved tonight that you have what it takes to challenge the Eggheads and if you don’t mind me saying, you are a young and attractive family group, the kind of team we are looking for. We need a team of five, have you got anyone else?”
The other girls looked so excited that when they gave me a questioning look I didn’t have the heart to say no.
“ We’ve beaten this lot, the Eggheads don’t worry us, sign us up Pet, and our Jeanette will make up the team.” Julie trilled back at him showing the effects of the champagne. Before we embarrassed ourselves with him, I gave him my contact details and asked him to get in touch when they needed us and he left us to finish our celebrations.
The drive back up the dale was a big giggle, Jane as the driver was perfectly sober, but the rest of us were over-excited from too much fizz and the adrenaline rush from winning the tournament, Jane however got us all back home safely. Back in the house I just threw off my clothes and climbed into bed, and fell straight to sleep.
The next morning I woke up feeling quite fresh and happy until I saw the mess on the pillow and sheet from my makeup which I hadn’t bothered to clean off and the state of my my smeared face and totally messed up hair. I quickly threw the bedding into the washing machine and went for a long shower to clean myself up and give my hair a good wash to get rid of the tangles. I just put on the bathrobe while I had a light toast and coffee breakfast before I felt fit to get dressed and get on with my work. Today, for a change I had no urges to do another painting of Great Aunt Charlotte, the guiding spirits within me were letting me have a day of rest.
“Hi Julie, it’s Lexie, how are you feeling today, you were really knocking it back last night?”
“I’m fine, they do say that you shouldn’t get a hangover from champagne but I’ve never had the opportunity to test it before.”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said to me about painting scenes of our industrial heritage, do you fancy going up the dale to the Killhope Museum to see what is there?”
“Why not ,I haven’t been back since a school trip many years ago, the pub will be quiet today, Kelvin can hold the fort for a few hours.”
Having read on the website that Killhope was still a rugged industrial site and included a trip down one of the old mine shafts, I dressed in jeans, a loose crop top, and sensible flat shoes, put on a light moisturising foundation, mascara and lipstick and was sitting waiting for Julie when she arrived an hour later. (https://killhope.org.uk/about-us/history/)
I was surprised when we arrived at Killhope, it was a lot more extensive and interesting than I had anticipated. We walked through the restored buildings and took the trip down the mine shaft where the lead had been gouged out of the ground and having taken lots of photos to use as a guide for my paintings, we were wandering through the main exhibition area which had displays telling the history of Killhope and the lead-mining industry in the area, when Julie gave a gasping, “Lexie, over here now !’”
She was staring at an old sepia photograph labelled Stanley Graham, one of the owners of the mine at the end of the 19th century.
“ That’s Charlotte’s love interest if I am not mistaken, he is so like the portrait you did. If it is not him, at least it must be a family member. I think that we are beginning to piece it all together. It’s a typical Victorian story of a wealthy land owner, or in this case a mine owner, having an affair with a local peasant girl and then spurning her to follow his family’s wishes to marry for money and influence, just like in all those Catherine Cookson books I have read.”
“You are getting ahead of yourself, we need to do a bit more research on this, let’s take a few more photos of the family history in here and then go back home to do a few checks on the ancestry website.”
We soon dissevered that it could not have been Stanley Graham, he was the wrong age to match with the man in Charlotte’s paintings, but he had several sons who would fit the bill. Two of them had already married and had families, but the third, James, was the right age and we found that he had got married three months later to the daughter of a landowning family over the moor at Allenheads. We also found that his descendants still lived in the area, and were still important local dignitaries.
We dug a bit more into Charlotte’s life and found that about the same time as she gave birth to Arthur, Julie’s Grandfather, the family seemed to come into money and were able to buy Manor Lodge which they had previously occupied as tenants. Obviously it was a pay-off to Charlotte and her parents to keep the Graham family reputation intact. As Arthur was growing up Charlotte met a new love, George, but no more children followed. Unfortunately WW1 and WW2 took its toll of the extended family and “The Robson Girls’, including me, were the last of the family line, waiting for the next generation, but it would be left to me and Jason to carry on the Robson name, unless cousin Josie kept her maiden name if she married and had children.
“ I think we can call that a successful day Julie, let’s get together with the others, show them the new portrait and the photos I took and get them up to date with the family history.”
“ I’ll ring around and get them to meet us down at the pub, go and get yourself changed and do your makeup, I can sort myself out later back at home.”
“I thought that would be best if I went reasonably casual, so just changed into my denim skirt and a cotton blouse with Broderie Anglaise trimming, smart but not too dressy.” I was just sorting all these things out automatically now, it was no longer deciding on suitable women’s clothes, but selecting from my clothes, the guiding spirit was still in control of my thoughts leaving me totally comfortable with the life I was now living.
I collected the portrait and my camera, grabbed my bag, and Julie drove us down to the pub, where we found the girls all waiting for us.
“You are still with us then Lexie, I thought you were just being a woman for the quiz tournament?”asked a rather surprised Jeanette.
“ To be honest, I never really thought about what to wear it just seemed to be the natural thing to do, my guiding spirit still seems to be keeping me under control. Besides, you have all seen me dressed before so why worry about it. You’ve all known me as Lexie for a few weeks now, a lot longer that you knew Leckie, I’m quite comfortable like this, so let’s just forget it and talk about why we asked you to come here.”
“ Sorry Lexie, I didn’t mean to offend you, in fact it was a compliment, you just seem to fit in with us, as you are.”
“ I had another one of my dreams about Charlotte and did a painting from my minds-eye just like the other two, here, have a look.”
“ Oh, he is a bit of alright” said Josie, “it’s a pity he must be over a hundred yours old now.”
“ He might be a looker Josie but we have pieced together what we think is the real story and you may not like him so much when we are finished.”
“ Lexie and I were up at Killhope today and found this photo of Stanley Graham the mine owner who was very similar to the man in her painting. We then did a bit of research and found that one of his sons, James, was about the same age as Charlotte. We think that they were lovers and that he was forced to break it off to have an arranged marriage with the daughter of another wealthy family, leaving Charlotte with a child, your Grandfather Arthur. We reckon that his family bought off the Robsons by giving them the money to buy Manor Lodge, which Lexie now owns. We are planning on going over to Allenheads, where James Graham lived and seeing what we can find out about his descendants. Does that all sound plausible to you?”
“I’m not to sure, I think that you should let sleeping dogs lie. I know that Lexie feels she is being driven from the spirit world to get to the bottom of all this, but I don’t believe in all that stuff.”Jeanette threw a bucket of cold water on our enthusiasm.
“I’m with Jeanette.” added Jane.
“I’m in with you and Lexie.” Josie quickly jumped in, “it all sounds so romantic and just like all the Victorian and Edwardian tales you see on TV.”
“Still searching for your ideal man then Josie?” Jane quipped with a giggle.
“It’s alright for you three all settled down and married, but Im still at home with Mam and Dad.”
“Are you free on Monday Josie, Lexie and I will be going over to Allenheads to see what we can find out about the Graham Family, you’re welcome to come with us.”
Once again, as I was leaving Kelvin walked out with me. “I hope you know what you are doing, the girls are taking over your life, you are dressing like them, walking and talking like them, and looking just like one of their sisters.”
“Don’t worry Kelvin, this is just until we get a few things sorted out with the family history and have our appearance on the Eggheads. I am enjoying belonging to a family again, and if it is easier to join in with the girls as one of them, I can put up with it for a while.”
“ In that case, I’ll say the same to you as I say to them ‘Be careful walking home in the dark late at night, an attractive woman on her own is putting herself in danger .”
To be continued.
Chapter 4 New Experiences
Back at home, I sat in the garden with a bottle of wine, thinking about what Jeanette and Kelvin had said about me still dressing as a woman, As I had said to Jeanette, it was just becoming automatic for me. Obviously with the breast forms still fixed in place, putting on a bra just seemed the right thing to do, and everything else just followed on from that. I still felt that my guiding spirit, whether it was something buried in my genes and sub-conscious, or whether it was a ghostly influence on me, still had work for me to do as Lexie. I was comfortable and enjoying life, seemed to be accepted by everyone I met as a young woman, and had adopted my woman’s voice as normal, even when talking to myself.
I also had to consider the commitment we had made to appear on Eggheads, the girls were still on a high after the tournament win and Lexie would be needed as part of the team. Whether I liked it or not, for their sake, Lexie was here to stay until at least after that and I saw no reason not to just continue as I was.
That night Had another dream visit from Charlotte, but this time I heard her voice.
”Thank your what you are doing for me. I made a good choice in picking you to right the wrong done to me. I will help guide you where I can, but in the world of the living only you can discover things and put things right. If you help me I will help you discover who you are.” with that she just faded away and I returned to a deep sleep.
Feeling refreshed and with my mind buzzing when I woke, I set things up on my easel and started to sketch out a picture I had in my mind. It was a typical ‘turn of the century’ posed family portrait showing a seated teenage girl and a younger boy standing to her side, dressed in their Sunday best, against a backdrop of the garden of Manor Lodge, looking up towards the fell. The girl looked like a younger version of Charlotte, and I assumed that the boy was Harold my Great Grandfather. It may have been only a dream or a recollection from my early childhood memories, but I was becoming more and more convinced that the spirit of Charlotte was clearing up a lot to the family history for me.
I worked on the painting filling in the details for the rest of the day and when it was completed I could actually see some family resemblance to my father, the same high cheekbones, the deep dark eyes and the jutting chin, I was now even more certain that this was Charlotte and her brother Harold in the early 1900s. I also felt that this was more personal to me than to the Robson Lasses, it was a link to my side of the family, but with both my parents having passed away a few years previously in a car accident I had no way to get it confirmed. On the off chance that Julie’s grandmother Edith may have met Harold at some time. I dropped the painting off at the pub, asking Julie if she could get Edith to have a look at it.
“I reckon that you are right and that is definitely Charlotte, she has the same wild hair, even though it has been brushed tidily for the pose. From the family tree we have pulled together her brother was 5 years younger so that could very well be him. Where did the inspiration for this come from.? Have you had another of your visits from Charlotte?”
“ She spoke to me this time and has promised to help me find out more about my family.”
“ What are you going to do next Lexie, is this all not worrying you?”
“ As I keep saying, I do not believe in the spirit world and all that sort of stuff, it must just be some deep rooted memories of things I saw and heard as a young child, and my mind is linking them to the fact that I am now in the old family home at Manor Lodge.”
“Anyway Lexie, I will get this over to Gran Edith and see if she remembers anything. While you are here, let’s sit down have something to eat and drink and have a chat.”
The following day I decided to go ahead with organising some professional prints of the three ‘Charlotte’ paintings and drove up to Consett where several artwork quality Gicleé printers were located, showed them the paintings, discussed the quality of the print material and colour intensity with them, reviewed some of the work they had done for other artists and got quotations. The prices were reasonable, but if I was going to market them even unframed it would mean a selling price of at least £100 for a full-size print. I decided to order prints of the ‘Cathy and Heathcliffe’ for the girls, and for Jan and Mark, to see how they would turn out and whether they felt that they would be value for money. The printers I selected offered a while-you-wait service including simple mounting, so I left all three of the paintings with them and decided to travel up to the Metro Centre in Gateshead to do some shopping and have lunch until they were ready.
It was a new experience, in a shop buying women’s clothes for myself, not something that I had ever expected to do, At first I was very nervous and wary, but I gradually relaxed and actually enjoyed browsing through the racks and selecting and trying on various outfits. The clothes my cousins had given me were perfectly fine but I just felt that it would be nice to have some that were all my very own. I did not go too rash, a few tops, a couple of skirts, a smart cocktail dress, several sets of undies, and a pair of leather court shoes with a 3” heel. It was all a bit more than I had planned on spending, but I was happy with what I had bought and made my way back to the printers.
“ How did they turn out then Harry?” I asked with eager anticipation.
“They scanned and printed very well and they are super paintings.”
“ Come on then, let’s have a look, I can hardly wait. That’s a brilliant job Harry, they have turned out a lot better than I thought they would, the print quality is amazing and the textured paper you have used make them look like they are originals on canvas. How much do I owe you?”
“I have a suggestion for you first. We run a website selling fine-art prints for some of the other artists that use us, if you let us put them on the site and see what sales we get, I will open an account for you and offset today’s costs against any income they generate. The money from the first few sales will all go to us to cover our costs, after that we will charge you £20 a print for that size and £10 for a smaller copy, which is a lot lower than the retail costs as I expect that they will sell quite well, the rest of any sales will be yours. How does that sound?”
“ Sounds ok to me, although I don’t have any experience of doing this before. Let’s see how it goes.”
“ I thought that you might agree, so I’ve run off a few smaller prints from all the paintings, as samples for you.”
“ Thank you so much, my cousins will be delighted with them. See you soon Harry.”
“If you have any more, either email me a high-resolution photo or bring them up to me for scanning. The photo will be fine for the website and depending on the quality may even be good enough for the printing.”
I could hardly wait to get back home to give the girls their prints and get their reaction. To the untrained eye the prints were virtually indistinguishable from the original although they would never pass the critical eye of art experts. As expected they were delighted and even more so when I told them that they were gifts to repay all the friendship they had given me. Jeanette, who was probably the most cultured of the three suggested that she had seen similar size and quality prints from local artists in the £140 to £200 range, which gave me a bit of hope that I could even turn this into a viable business.
I sent a rolled, unmounted, copy in a protective tube to Jan and Mark as they would probably be more objective than my cousins. and a few days later got a call from Jan.
“ Thank you so much Lexie, it is beautiful we will get it framed and hang it in our living room so we are reminded of the wonderful few days we had up there with you. How much do we owe you?”
“ How much do you think it’s worth, if you saw it in a shop what would you be prepared to pay?”
“ You can buy poster prints that size for about the £50 mark, but artwork prints on quality paper are a lot more expensive, we bought one from a studio in the Derbyshire Dales for £135, and it was not nearly as well done as yours is.”
“ Thanks Jan, I’ll bear that in mind, but there is no charge to you, please accept it with my compliments for being a test-bed for me. All I want from you is a promise that you will come back to see us all again before too long.”
“ Try and keep us away ! Please tell Julie and Kelvin we will be back soon, and thanks again for the painting.”
On Monday, I picked up Josie and Julie and drove to the head of the dale and over the bleak moor to Allenheads, only to find that the Graham family had moved from there some time ago and settled in the larger town of Hexham in the Tyne Valley, where Charles Graham and his recently qualified son Russell ran a small solicitors practice. Using the excuse of needing some advice regarding some land purchase, we managed to get an appointment with Russell and an hour later we were ushered into his office, to be met by a modern version of a dead-ringer for James who had treated Charlotte so badly.
i blustered my way through a proposal to purchase a field behind my house, and he advised me of what would be involved and what their fees would be. He was a pleasant enough young man, and whilst he may have inherited his forebear’s looks, he seemed to have a much more reliable and friendly nature. we left him with a promise to let him know what we wanted him to do.
“What do you think of him then, girls?” I asked, to be met with a smile from Julie and a bit of a blush from Josie.
“ I was right when I said his grandfather was a bit of a looker, he is absolutely gorgeous and was so nice to us.” Josie answered too quickly.
“ Do you think that we should talk to him again and tell him why we are really here?” I asked, and again rather too quickly Josie agreed that it was a good idea, so I called back to his office.
“ Hello again Russell, Lexie Robson here, we would like have a talk with you, but it is more of a personal nature rather than business, can you meet us out of the office. We are not far from you, in the Abbey Tea Rooms. I’d rather not try to explain over the phone it will be much better face-to-face. Ok see you in a few minutes then.”
“ I’m intrigued Ladies.” he said as he came into the tea rooms, “I see you already have coffee and cakes, does anyone need a top-up or should I just sort myself out?”
When he came back with a pot of tea and joined us, I started by showing him photos on my phone of the paintings I had done without explaining what they were.
“It’s like looking in a mirror, where did you get these?”
Keeping away from the fact that I was really Leckie rather than Lexie, I told him the story of me returning to Weardale and my dreams and inspiration for the paintings, and what we had found out, or thought we had found out about Charlotte and James almost 100 years previously.”
“Excuse me a minute Ladies, I have to phone the office. Laura, is there anything urgent for me to rush back to deal with, otherwise I will be out for a while? No, good, see you later.”
That actually ties in with something I heard my Grandfather muttering about when I was younger. In your early teens you are not interested in things like that, but there was talk of a family scandal about that time. Can I come back with you to St John’s Chapel and see the actual paintings?’
“Of course, do you want to do it now, you can follow us back there?”
“ I’ll go with Russell just in case we get separated.” Josie volunteered, and Julie and I exchanged knowing looks, she obviously wanted to have some time to talk to Russell one-to-one.
I stopped of at the pub to get the ‘Cathy and Heathcliffe’ landscape and drove home to look at the two portrait scenes.
While I made coffee and sorted out some cake, they made themselves at home, looking at and talking about the paintings, and Josie made sure that she and Russell were side-by-side on the sofa, leaving Julie and I the two armchairs.
“ These are amazing pictures Lexie, you have a lot of talent.The one of James could be me, if you just updated the clothes and hair a bit. Can you do one like that for me? When I am stuck in the office going through dreary property transfers or divorce papers it will clear my head to look up and see that wild landscape.
“ Of course, I will be pleased to, let me take a photo of you so that I can sort out your portrait.”
“It is an amazing story that you have pulled together, however as a hard-nosed lawyer I am sceptical about your guiding spirit idea, but something has obviously led you to dig all this up. I will make a few discreet enquiries with my grandparents to see if the story makes sense from our family’s point of view, and will give you a call to arrange to come over again. It took a lot of nerve to open up to me about all this, I could quite easily have accused you of raking up scandal to shame my family.”
When he had left we talked through what we had found out.
“You don’t waste any time Josie, do you?” Julie looked over at her.
“You don’t know the half of it, we are going out for a drink next Tuesday.”
“What? you are giving up a quiz night out with your family for a first date with someone you hardly know, what are you thinking about?” Julie kept on at her, with a big grin on her her face, refusing to drop it.”
“You’ll all have to manage without me, I’m sure that you will survive, but you might end your winning streak without me there to support you.”
Josie walked back down to the village, happy at how her day had turned out, but Julie stayed behind.
“With a bit of luck that’s Josie sorted out with someone. What about you, is there anybody special in your life?”
“ I’ve had close friends and several potential partners, but nothing seemed to have worked out for one reason and another. I’m happy just on my own, and I can hardly go searching for someone looking like this can I?”
“You do not seem over-eager to go back to being Leckie, are you sure that you are ok as you are, I wouldn’t like you to think that you have to remain as a woman just to fit in with us?”
“After what Jeanette said the other day, I have been thinking about it. I am working from home, everything comes to me and is returned via email and document transfer, the only people I meet in person, other than casually, are you and the girls. I have no problems with other people I meet, I just seem to be accepted as a woman, and the longer it goes on the more normal it is becoming. Let’s get the “Eggheads’ over first and then see what I really want to do. I was perfectly happy as Leckie, and the thought of living as a woman had never entered my head, but now I am living as Lexie, I am just as happy, I have found family I can relate to. I enjoy meeting up with you all and the girlish chatter, and I seem to be able to socialise better, I am in no hurry to go back.”
“ If you decide to go back to being Leckie, that will not change what we think of you and you will still be in the family circle, but if you decide that you prefer life as Lexie that will be fine too, we have got used to having her around.”
It was two weeks later when I got the call from Jim at Channel 5 asking us to go in to record our challenge to the Eggheads. To make an impression We all had our hair done in similar styles, or as similar as they could be with the varied styles we all normally wore, and all dressed in the same primrose half-sleeve blouses and black short skirts, we looked not quite quins, but definitely a close family group.
At the end of the four rounds, Jeanette and Jane had won their individual challenges, Julie and Josie lost their rounds, and I, as team captain, went through automatically, leaving the three of us to take on the three remaining panel members. At the end of the final round, we just scraped through on tie-break questions to win the prize pot, which had grown since the last win up to £25000, a nice reward of £5000 each, but the main prize was actually beating the experts on the panel.
That night I had another dream of Charlotte. In it she walked towards me, smiling, gave me a hug and whispered “Thank you for bringing the Robsons and Grahams together again after all these years, you will hear from me again.”
A few days later I had a call from the media company behind ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ apparently they had been tipped off about me by Jim at Channel 5, inviting me to a regional audition to take part in the show, just me not the rest of the girls. I was worried that they would feel snubbed and jealous, but they were delighted for me and wished me luck.
Two weeks later i was in a studio in Leeds sitting in a chair similar to that on the show with one of the production team representing the show host. At first I was uneasy and nervous, not about the questions, but more about making sure that I was 100% Lexie and that no trace of Leckie would show. However, the audition went well, I answered most of the questions they threw at me and found it easy to chat to the ‘host’.
“Thanks for coming in Lexie, I’m pleased to tell you that you will be on the show being recorded at the end of next month. You performed well, weren’t bothered by the cameras and crew and should make a good contestant. Good luck and I look forward to seeing you win a large amount of money.”
Another hurdle had now been passed by me, even with the camera close-ups and the pressure of what I could potentially win, I came across as naturally feminine, my time spent with the girls had now been ingrained into me and there was no trace of masculinity left at all. I was really looking forward to appearing on the show.
To be continued.