‘In Paradise..’
Dear Jo..and a fond farewell to Jools Topp.
Dear Jo,
As I write this, a small spider is exploring my hand and autumn sunshine is pouring onto the deck; we’re sitting here with racks of sheets out to dry. I wonder, have you planted tomatoes and basil on your sunny apartment deck?
How are you doing dear Jo? You’re often in my thoughts. I’m writing at last, as you move into summer and we head towards winter. Possibly next week..
I’m just back from a walk on Days bay beach, where I met a fluffy Labrador called Uno, and his person. I found a cup handle, a double sunset shell and a small heart-ish shaped piece of green sea-glass. These are still in my jacket pocket. All the many cups of teas this old cup will have held. The many conversations. How about a cuppa? Herbal or gumboot? ☕️☕️
I wonder if you’ve heard the sad news that Jools Topp has died? It feels as though the whole country fell in love with the Topp twins...and now..a big out breath. And in again..holding and letting Jools go with gratitude, holding Linda in our hearts.
🌿
I remember when you and I were settling into Wellington. Once a week through winter, I’d walk to Mt Cook after a day in the bookshop, to stay over on the divan bed in the lounge. We watched The Topp Twins on a small boxy TV, laughing helplessly over warm, bolshy Camp Mother and impish Camp Leader. Your friendship and our Top Twins nights were a winter tonic, helping connect me to a bigger sense of my life.
🌿
I first saw the Topp twins play in a hall full of women, in 1979, back in my teens when the twins were 21 and fairly new to Auckland. Someone said they’d been in the army. Two singers with guitars, sharing one microphone. They played. Play was the operative word. Were they sisters? twins? Both wore shiny leggings - and…was it gumboots? Leaping, dancing, singing. Jools, kept putting her tongue out, fast; both kept pulling up their leggings, with maximum wiggle. Incredibly cool and incredibly silly; they had a way of moving and singing together as if they were the same person. We’d never seen anything like them. Lesbian twins performing a kind of musical clown show. After that, we saw them everywhere.
🌿
My mum would come home from town and tell the family she’d seen the Topp twins busking, or just missed them. Linda was at a Clown Workshop I attended. Friends and I often ate at La Cava, a cozy basement restaurant in the city. If the Topp Twins were playing, they’d came to say hello. Always open, always warm and enthusiastic. They were at every women’s concert or dance (acrobatic back leans featured in their dancing), every protest, Sweetwaters, Nambassa, Albert Park concerts. Their music, a soundtrack to growing up in Auckland. Later, in my early 30’s and living in Taranaki, I sat in the New Plymouth Opera house, surrounded by farming couples and their families. The twins brought people up onto the stage for an impromptu group called The Randoms to play percussion with the Ginghams, hilarious Country and Western characters. Hundreds of conventional looking New Zealanders, laughing with tears in their eyes. Or soft, listening quiet when the Topp Twins sang ‘Paradise.’ They were, as one of the Ken’s (another pair of Topp Twin characters) would say, ‘Bloody Gorgeous.’
Here we are, in the midst of all this life going on all the time, all this laundry and visiting spiders. Soft dogs on the beach. And you, in the warmth and heat of a new northern summer. This autumn into winter, I’ve been reading out loud and it is a joy. It slows time and helps me savour the words on the page, the story as it unfolds. We have our own stories, which we get to read out loud..and savour. To dance and sing and twirl and leap. To laugh and cry. What a big life it is. Strange, wonderful. Thank you for being part of my life, here and now and back then.
And thank you Linda and Jools 💜
If you have yet to meet the Topp twins musical harmonies, their irrepressible sense of fun and whacky clown characters - and would like to: type The Topp twins into your search engine.
Thank you for reading and thank you for your likes and comments - they really do make a difference and help keep me writing.
Love, Sue
Thank you for the llively memories of the Topp twins. As you say, they were ‘a soundtrack to growing up in Auckland’. I remember them busking on Ponsonby Road and popping up at most women’s events to belt out their songs and bring us into bonding through our differences.
I love the moon and sea watercolour. I delight in the pinkpricks of stars breaking through the inky sky and wonder how you did it.