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| THE EXTRAORDINARY MAMMY WALSH:, mother, wife, homemaker, trouble-shooter. She won't dress it up, she won't tone it down. Mammy Walsh tells it like it is. |
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Dear Mammy Walsh,
I've been with my boyfriend for almost three years and last night we were sitting at home watching Eastenders and suddenly he blurted out, "Have you put on weight? You have, haven't you?" And yes, I must admit I have. I was a size twelve when I met him and now I'm a size sixteen, so I said, "Yeah, a bit, I s'pose. But you still love me, don't you?" And he said, "Course I love you." But he was looking at me strangely, like he hadn't really seen me for months. His eyes lingered far too long on my belly, which wasn't fair because I was wearing my slobbing around clothes, as you do, in the evenings after work, and obviously no-one looks their best in them. So I sucked in my stomach and said, "Well if you love me, then there's no problem." Then he said, "But I liked it better when you were thin." I was absolutely gutted. If people love each other, how they look should have nothing to do with things. What should I do?
Holly, London
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Dear Holly from London,
have you tried Weight Watchers? Deirdre McMahon from four doors up got great results from it. She was quite stout before she started, but now she is down to her 'target weight' and is pure skin and bone. Mind you, we've heard about nothing else for the past year, except points and plateaus. Sometimes when it was 'Weight-in day' and I'd see her coming, I used to pretend to have cystitis, just so I wouldn't have to invite her in. And since she reached that bloody 'target weight' she has got her hair cut and coloured, bought an entire new wardrobe and talks about nothing but sex. And this is a woman, like me, in her sixties. She was over only yesterday, wearing a tight top that said 'Bad Angel', a pair of 'hipsters' and a pink 'thong' sticking up for all to see, even though I happen to know that that 'thong on display' look is 'so' 'over.' She never sits down any more, because she can display her weight loss better standing up. We were talking about ordering turkeys for Christmas and I said, "I need a nice big one," and she said "Wehay, missus!' and did that vulgar action where you thrust your hips forward and pull your arms back. Then she wasn't able to open the biscuit tin (she always insists on having biscuits present just so she can show how great she is not to be having any.) And I said, "Give it a good yank," and she said, "As Des said to me last night!" Des is her husband, a huge big heavy man, who could do with a bit of Weight Watching himself. Helen sometimes calls him Dessy McFive-Bellies (to his face) and says that she bets he hasn't seen 'Little Dessy' for over a decade. (Also to his face and he sort of broke down and admitted it was true and Helen was horrified because then she had to try to be nice to him until she could find an excuse to run away.)
So, as I say, I can personally endorse Weight Watchers. If you stick with it for a few tough months, it'll be worth it, because at the end, your boyfriend will love you again. (I know he's saying he still does, but let's face it, you know it and I know it: you're on thin ice.)
However, if you are one of these people who is 'addicted' to chocolate and has to have it no matter what, Weight Watchers mightn't be enough; you might have to be hypnotised. There was a programme on about it. There was this woman and in her own words she 'just had to have it!' As Deirdre McMahon might say - Fnnarr! Anyway, this woman, if she hadn't had chocolate for a day or so she used to start fights with people and crying in the street and whatnot, so this man hypnotised her by telling her to associate chocolate with terrible things - the Stalinist purges of the thirties, little calves in abbatoirs, Westlife singing 'Mandy,'especially how they kept reaching out their hands and clutching at the air, always out of synch with each other. It was marvellous television, really interesting. And the hypnotherapy worked. They started shoving bars of chocolate at her - Flakes, Crunchies, Snickers (or is it Snickerses? I'm never sure) Bounties, Yorkies - like they were baiting a bear with a stick, and she begged them to take them away. (To be honest though, I thought I detected a little flicker of interest when they produced the Bounty, but maybe I was only imagining it.)
Anyway, she was going great guns, eschewing chocolate left, right and centre, but after three days she cracked and started milling into the fruit and nut, then lying about it and saying that chocolate still repulsed her. But because of the hidden cameras in her flat, we knew all about it and the producers did a surprise raid on her and she was brought into a veiwing room and made to sit down and watch reruns of her guzzling. Obviously she was shamed to the core but three months later they did a follow-up show and she was still on the chocolate.
If you are lucky enough to be 'mortally obese' you could qualify to have your stomach stapled. This is an operation where they cut away several miles of your large intestine and staple up your stomach until it is the size of a pea (marrowfat, rather than petit pois.) This means that if you have more than two spoonfuls of mashed potato at your dinner, your stitches will burst open and you will die a slow, horrible, lingering death. Something to focus the mind when you're looking at that slice of Black Forest Gateau!
Anyway Holly, good luck with it all, whichever route you choose, but for Gods sake, don't go for the cabbage soup diet. You will suffer from severe flatulence and if your boyfriend doesn't leave you for being stout, he will leave you because of the smell. Happy to be of help!
Mammy Walsh
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Dear Mammy Walsh,
Thank you for your detailed diet advice. But that wasn't the advice I wanted. I was thinking that if my boyfriend loves me, surely he should love me, no matter what I look like?
Yours sincerely
Holly, London |
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Well Holly,
I'm sorry I misunderstood, so I am. But the thing is in my day it was all different. Once you had the ring on your finger, you could go to hell altogether and guzzles scones and brown bread and jam all day long. You could put on four stone in four months and there wasn't a damn thing your husband could do about it, because there was no divorce in Ireland. Mind you, all these eating disorders and whatnot weren't invented in my day and although we certainly got stout, it was more to do with having a clatter of children, than 'compulsive overeating.'
But Holly, my point is, there is no ring on your finger. And even if there was, he could divorce you in the twinkling of an eye. There isn't the same security for women these days. To use a term I heard in an economics programme on telly (God knows why I was watching it) you are 'a seller in a buyer's market.'
Helen, my daughter, has just told me that I'm 'a fossilized old dinosaur for whom feminism might never have happened.' Well, maybe I am, but I'm not ashamed of it; I'm simply saying what everyone else is too 'politically correct' to say. However, Holly, maybe you would be better off going to a different 'agony' aunt, one of those feathery stroker ones who will tell you that you are perfect as a size sixteen, that you are a whole and beautiful person and that you don't need to change an iota and that if your boyfriend doesn't agree, that you should both go for couples counselling to 'resolve your issues' where you will be charged seventy euro a week for twenty six weeks. (Payment up front.)
Holly, I'm sorry you and I didn't see 'eye to eye', I haven't had a failure yet and you're my first and I must admit, it smarts, but I wish you and your boyfriend well with this feathery stroker approach. Just please remember that it could all be avoided if you cut out desserts and did a bums'n'tums video three times a week.
Your sincerely
Mammy Walsh
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Dear Mammy Walsh,
I am a young man (aged 27) and I have developed a slight crush on you. I dig your no-nonsense approach. Tell me, if they made a film of your life, who would you like to play you?
Darren, Cork |
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Dear Darren from Cork,
Me, of course! However, I know that often the Hollywood studios insist on a 'star' in which case I think Halle Berry would be perfect. She and I have very similar ears, Mr Walsh has remarked on it more than once. Thank you for your interest, also your gracious comments. I've just had my first failure, due to the no-nonsense approach you mentioned and it's nice to be reminded that you can't please all of the people all of the time.
Yours sincerely
Mammy Walsh
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Dear Mammy Walsh, me again.
I was just wondering if you could do any job in the world, what would it be?
Darren, Cork |
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Dear Darren from Cork,
I would like to present Topgear.
Yours sincerely
Mammy Walsh
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Dear Mammy Walsh,
Why?
Darren, Cork |
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Dear Darren from Cork,
I would like to drive fast cars. I've had a lifetime of sensible stuff like Nissan bloody Sunnys and Toyota fecky Corollas and I'd love a go of a Maserati or a Merc SL 55. I like the thought of motor bikes too but the helmet would have my hair destroyed.
Yours sincerely
Mammy Walsh
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Dear Mammy Walsh,
You rock! Do you believe in monogamy?
Darren, Cork |
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Dear Darren from Cork,
Of course I do, you cheeky imp! I'm a devout Catholic.
Mammy Walsh
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Dear Mammy Walsh,
Hey, you can't blame a guy for trying! Tell me two things, Mammy Walsh. One, if you could be any animal, what would it be? And two, what's your real name? I can't keep calling you Mammy Walsh, can I?
Darren, Cork |
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Dear Darren from Cork,
Why can't you? Mammy Walsh is my professional name. I can't be revealing my real name to every Tom, Dick and Darren who wants to know it. Darren from Cork, I am beginning to think you are a bit of a 'weirdo' and I know what you're trying to do with that animal question - that sort of thing is as old as the hills: If I say my favourite animal is tiger (which it isn't) you will say that it means I'd be like a tiger in bed. As it happens, I don't like any animals, they are dirty, stupid creatures. I have enjoyed our correspondence, but I now consider it to be at an end. For the love of God, make friends with people your own age, instead of badgering the likes of me.
Mammy Walsh
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Dear Mammy Walsh,
Wooh! Tough babe! Love it! But I hear ya!
Darren, Cork |
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Dear Mammy Walsh,
I am in a dilemma. My boyfriend has bought me a nurse's outfit and wants me to wear it while we're having sex. I love him but don't feel very happy about it, especially because it isn't even a short sexy nylon nurse's uniform, the type you buy from Ann Summers or somewhere like that, but a real nurses uniform which he bought from Oxfam. What should I do?
Aileen, Cambridge |
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Don't write to me again, young lady, that's what you should do! This column is not some kind of 'sexpert' thing. I dispense solid common-sense about matters of the heart. I have no interest whatsoever in anyone's 'sex' life and I consider our correspondence to be closed. And what is it with men and nurses? Clearly your 'boyfriend' has never been in hospital because if he had he wouldn't consider nurses to be in anyway sexy. Nurses are hardhearted types who dress you in humiliating blue paper nighties that are wide open at the back for the whole world to see your bottom and nurses say things like, "How are 'we' today?" when there's only one of you in the bed and they make you do your wees into a shallow metal bowl when you're perfectly capable of walking to the bathroom. Mind you, men wanting to have sex with nurses isn't the half of it. I believe there are some men who find it a 'turn-on' to dress in babies nappies and waddle around the place, knocking things over and being fed pureed carrots and behaving exactly like babies - no shallow metal bowls needed for them, if you get my drift.
And other people - in the US, of course, where they're stone mad for the 'kinkiness' dress up in - wait till you hear - bunny rabbit outfits and furry bear outfits and the sort of chicken outfits that sometimes a grown man will be wearing, as he stands in the street handing out leaflets about a new 'fast-food' chicken restaurant. There are 'clubs' for these people and they meet up in their furry rigouts and for reasons that baffle me, they find it a ferocious 'turn-on'.
The latest thing, I hear, is something called 'dogging.' Have you heard of it? I thought it meant doing it 'doggy-style' which of course I have heard of, because I am a woman of the world, even if I have never tried it. Then I thought it must mean having 'sex' with dogs, which is an unholy thought. But it transpires to be something entirely different. What it is, is lots of people go to a park or forest in the dark of night and 'have sex' with strangers. Some people 'have sex' in their car, leaving their lights on and other people stand around watching and 'pleasuring' themselves, although I cannot see the connection to 'dogs' in all this. I first found out about it when my daughter Helen told me she was going out for an evening's 'dogging' and although it was a quarter past twelve, I thought she meant she was going to the greyhound track to try to win some money as she was 'skint.' But she soon put me right on what 'dogging' means and at first I thought she was making it up, because that's the sort of thing she does. Having a little laugh at her gullible mother. But then she showed me an article about 'dogging' in Mr Walsh's Marie Claire and there it was in black and white and not even Helen could pull that much of a 'hoax' on me. It beggars belief. Wouldn't you get cold standing around in the raw night air, 'pleasuring' yourself. Or what if you bumped into your dentist? Or someone from bridge?
However, as I said, I have no interest whatsoever in discussing 'kinky' sex. Also your boyfriend sounds very stingy - how much did the second-hand nurse's uniform from Oxfam cost as opposed to a lovely new nylon one from Anne Summers. That's what you'd want to be considering, young lady. No-one likes a man who won't put his hand in his pocket. (Unless he's the kind of man who puts his hand in his pocket to 'interfere' with himself.)
Please do not contact me again.
Yours, in high dudgeon
Mammy Walsh
PS Unless you find out the origin of the phrase 'dogging.' I am keen to know
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