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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Anita and Joanna


Anita and Joanna : A Columnist's Columnists

The principal reason that I buy The Costa Blanca/Costa Levante News is for its page twenty-six girls. “The name’s Bond-Anita Bond,” and Joanna Cruickshank. Anita is a columnist and author of fiction novels, and Joanna is columnist and journalist. Together they make Page 26 the most powerful in the entire paper, and that is notwithstanding the competition they have on page 24 and 25. There we find at least four columns plus Vox-Populi, but in spite of that they are able to hold their own.

Anita is the elder of the two and is well-known for intensive research for her articles, and Joanna, bless her heart, gets the plum job of attending all those fabulous events such as Formula One and the America’s Cup top floor cocktail parties. Well, I suppose somebody has to do it but it must be tough.

Both ladies are British born, (I think I’m correct), and through their writings we have come to know quite a bit about them. They have shared some of their men problems with us, and curiously they both suffer from back problems. Anita seems to have had the worst time of it, having gone through a complicated operation and a follow-up remedial operation and an on-going long period of recuperation.

I underwent an operation in October to repair a broken leg, and while feeling sorry for myself I continued to read Anita’s columns detailing what she was going through. That made me realize that my problems were not problems at all, not compared to what she had to face, and often alone in spite of having some truly wonderful sounding friends.

Imagine being in her place and being told that you will never walk again, or if you do manage ,it will be a very messy and tricky experience. Then your darling dog and very best friend comes to the end of its life. It’s very probable also that her editor told her that she had written enough about her own problems. “Go back to writing non-related stuff in your time-honoured fashion.” For those of us who are her fans it was very important that she shared her trials and tribulations, and we want to hear how she is progressing.

Anita wrote a column for the March 5th –11th edition entitled “ And so Life goes on…” In it she displayed that she is focused, strong, determined and unrepentant. This is her life and she WILL triumph over all the odds. She is a survivor! I am convinced there will come a time when the whole horrible experience will be but a distant bad memory for her.

I must meet this lady, and buy both of her books.

I have written about Joanna before (When Life Doesn’t Disappoint) and she is such a wonderful person. I had the good fortune to meet her completely by chance. I have agreed that her mother can be her number one fan, but I’m second in line, which is not to say that I’m number two. I have read every one of her columns from the time she first burst upon the scene as “An English Girl in Spain” seven years ago. Joanna has written about every topic under the sun, so part of the fun is seeing what her fertile imagination has come up with. She never fails, and her writing is always eminently readable.

So, The Sun may have its Page Three Girl, but we have our Page 26 ladies, and they have so much more of substance.

Copyright © 2010 Eugene Carmichael