*Creative Non-Fiction inspired by the writing style of Alejandro Zambra*

Watching videos was a staple of my childhood. My first experience of Cinderella was the Disney straight-to-VHS Rodger and Hammerstein’s version with Whitney Houston as the fairy godmother and Brandy as Cinderella. I suppose now, I could pretend that this experience was a deliberate attempt, on the part of my mum and grandma, to give me black idols who looked like me so I wouldn’t grow up hating the colour of my skin. I mean, my mum did look like Brandy at the time because she also had single braids. However, I think the actual reason was that it was the only video my grandma owned apart from the animated version of The King and I.

She loved musicals and any version she could get her hands on she would. Every Sunday, we would sit on her seventies, velour fabric sofa and watch The King and I and Cinderella – well considering she was blind, I guess I watched, and she listened. We would then watch Songs of Praise as an intermission and sing the hymns. When I got older, and became more disenfranchised with my faith, singing the hymns with my grandma was my only tether to the Church. I hated watching it, but it made her happy when we sang together, and nothing made me happier than her being happy. Afterwards, my mum put on the Collin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice (and from 2005, the Keira Knightly version) for us to watch whilst having our tea. As the years went by this Sunday routine spread over the weekend to fit in more musicals like The Fighting Temptations, Sister Act one and two, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King Two: Simba’s Pride which would be the only film in the Lion King franchise that I would see up until the age of twelve. I want to be clear, it was not for lack of money, time or resources that I never saw the original Lion King nor the third film in the franchise, it was solely down to my lack of interest as I firmly believed nothing could surpass the musical genius of Simba’s Pride.

Most people make fun of this routine, as if we didn’t know it was ridiculous but not many people my age can quote, in their entirety, both proposals and responses from the Pride and Prejudice adaptations. A sociologist could argue that this routine enriched my ‘cultural capital’. But this routine helped create a bond within me and my grandma that would withstand the ups and downs in my relationships with my mum and dad, the dementia, and eventually, even her death.