Posts from — December 2008

Radio 4 is running some repeats of Christmas editions of Alistair Cooke’s “Letter From America”. What struck me in listening to one of the broadcasts was the breadth of subject matter he could draw on to write about. He was talking about people dying in the snow at Christmas time during the Klondike gold rush. They were buried anonymously in makeshift graves at the side of the road. Nobody knew who they were. It was dramatic.

Now Alistair Cooke was not alive during the Klondike gold rush but he certainly lived through some momentous times in history. The Second World War, the assassination of President Kennedy, etc, etc, etc.

Most of us don’t get exposed to these experiences. This isn’t to say that historic events aren’t going on around us and in my lifetime. Collapse of the USSR, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, the death of Princess Diana, 9-11, and so on and so forth. These days however our experience of these events is limited to what goes on on the television, which we typically see in real time.

My father recalls that during the Second World War he was in hospital in Swansea having his appendix removed. He was released from hospital early because they were clearing the decks for the D-Day landings. Swansea Bay was filled with warships as far as the eye could see. He was born in a wollen mill in South Wales. His own father died of a mining related respiratory disease in his early fifties. It was the fate of most miners in those days.

My mother grew up in a place called Mohil in Ireland. She used to take the milk  from the family’s sole cow to the dairy,  in a donkey and cart. She attended a convent school where the nuns were classic bitches, beating an education into the children. She was one of seven children who had to be farmed out to relatives because they didn’t fit into the two bedroom cottage.

These days peoples’ experiences are far more tame. They go to school, get a job, find a partner and have 2.3 kids, or whatever the latest number is. Often they lose their job. Over this they typically have no control. They will find something else, good or bad. The take their holidays, watch their inane television programmes and sink into a routine that slides deeper and inexorably into anonymity. Then they die.

Of course Alistair Cooke died. In that he is no different to the other anonymous people mentioned here. He did make a mark though and I’m sure enjoyed the process of doing so. How long the mark will last doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he made it in the first place.

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I eat my peas with honey,

I’ve done it since I was one,

You may think it’s funny

But it’s actually really yummy,

I could eat it by the ton.

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Members must have

Ageless beauty

And inner strength,

Be hard working

And fun loving

With a positive outlook to life.

A net source of love

They will have kids who

Are often a joy

Though a constant worry.

Membership is by natural selection

For Mam.

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Six sorry looking taxis standing in a rank

Five days to go but

Only four small turkeys left at the butchers.

Three ducks scooting across the water, surely cold.

Two bag laden Christmas shoppers, heads bowed into the drizzle

A grey December day, never in sight of the sun

And there’s the traffic, why do they do it?

There is really only one place to be

And that is at home in front of the fire

The cards are dispatched, logs piled up by the back door

Plenty of time yet to get the big shop done,

Turkey ordered and a couple of parties to come.

The chink of glasses and the cheery sounds

Open that bottle of malt and pass it round

Mince pies smell of brandy

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It starts off slow

We smile because we know

For now we’re safe.  The show though

Will soon start to go with a little more flow.

Back to the beginning

The tune starts going

More quickly. People start looking

Some even start clapping

In time and stamping.

We’re still smiling,

But back again to the beginning

It’s now about trying

To keep going

As people keep clapping, and stamping

And singing and pushing and speeding

And shouting.

And with one big flourish it’s over

We’ve done it again, it’s always a winner.

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I sit in the window enjoying breakfast at my leisure,

Taking in the traffic on the pavement outside.

It is cold out there and

The anonymous scurriers are

Wrapped up against the biting December wind.

They have been up early to get there

Though I am now just sitting down to start the day.

Full English, tea and toast and then

I leave the warmth of the hotel and venture forth

Looking for my destination,

Unsure of my options.

Heading for Victoria Station I swim against the flow of office fodder,

Miserable looking people subjected daily to discomforts of the commute,

Crushed into compartments,

Standing within sweat smell of strangers

Trapped on the treadmill of the city.

Trapped.

I take the taxi option.

It is the only one available

As the voluntary queue for compression

On the Underground looks longer than the taxi rank.

A good meeting and later I do take the tube

For a lunchtime get together.

Plenty of time to people-watch.

A mother speaks Spanish to two young girls

Who reply in both Spanish and English

As they see fit, lucky girls.

Otherwise few speak.

A  busker enters the compartment

Complete with bedroll and survival gear.

Tattooed, with shorts and worn leather gaiters

He entertains poorly with a penny whistle.

The carriage ignores him with a practised survival instinct.

But I give him a pound as I leave at the next stop

Poor pickings, and all he got.

Homeward bound

On the train a phone sings out “swing low sweet chariot”

And a voice answers “hello?”

Others doze or are sucked into their laptops,

There is little talk as the chosen ones

Head home after a long day at their machines.

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What do they want for Christmas ?

Every year the same

Thinking about gifts for others

A book, some socks, a game ?

It’s better to think of others

Than always to think of me

But getting it right at Christmas

Is never a certainty.

Have they already got one ?

Perhaps they’ve got two or three

Will they want chocolate golf balls ?

I wouldn’t if it were me.

Whatever you give at Christmas

And when the excitement mounts

Remember to think of others

It’s really the thought that counts.

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A couple float horizontally in mid air. His right arm is around her shoulders, holding her close. Her right leg is over his and her right arm is spread over his chest. A state of bliss.

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Friday morning.  I got up earlier than I would have done on a normal weekday, and didn’t mind.  Packing the car up mostly with things that I wouldn’t need, but nevertheless wanted to take, I remembered that I ought to check the oil.  It’s not something that I often do, but the last service was back in March, nine months ago, and I didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere at the side of a busy road waiting for assistance.  Assistance, I might add, for which I would have to pay extra, not having renewed my membership last time it lapsed.

It was still dark as I grappled with the bonnet release catch to get at the engine.  Getting the dipstick out was easy; it was getting it back in which was problematic.  After some minutes of trying I headed back into the house to find a torch.  I keep one in the airing cupboard upstairs because it’s always too dark to find anything in there.  There was enough oil.  There always is.  It was time to go.

My leaving-the-house routine is always the same when I go away for more than a day.  It starts upstairs always with the same questions. Are all the windows shut, and are all the taps off ?  The fact that it’s winter and I know the windows haven’t been opened in the first place is irrelevant.  Then there’s the decision about the central heating.  Off or timed.  The downstairs routine involves checking the oven about three times, and wondering whether to leave lights on, to make it look like someone’s in.  This time I decided to switch the central heating and the lights off.  It’s actually the same decision every time, but I still have to make it. 

Before I left the house, I rushed back upstairs to make sure I’d switched the alarm off properly.  I’ve gone off before and left it on snooze.  It makes an awful racket, and I didn’t want to annoy the artists next door.  I closed the font door behind me, locked it, and rattled the handle a couple of times just to check the door really was locked.  It was still dark, so the usual mental chime to clear the fallen leaves from the garden didn’t happen.  It would, though, on my return.  I drove away casting the usual backwards glance to check the padlock on the gates.  Lincoln Christmas Market weekend.  Messiah CD.  Tradition.

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Another Saturday was here. I woke up at about half past 7. I tried to get back to sleep, but failed. Then I heard the Knock. My Little brother peeped into my room. I pretended I was still asleep and thankfully he disappeared. However thirty seconds he came in again and caught me off guard. In a whiney annoying tone of voice he asked “Joe, can I go on your computer?” Whether it was a punishment from above or not I do not know but my brother was obsessed with his new computer game. For some reason it wouldn’t work on the family computer. So he had to use my own. After some nagging I accepted defeat and slumped downstairs to watch the T V.

After a good session of television watching I filled my bowl to the brim with coco pops. From half past ten till one o’clock I did some boring homework and apart from that nothing much happened.

At One pm I ate lunch consisting of a cheese sandwich, a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, a slice of chocolate cake and a banana. This was all usual apart from the chocolate cake my sister had made as a special treat.

One thirty and at last something exciting happened. By this time my other brother had returned from presenting his radio show and my mother was complaining about being cold. So my brother and I decided to light a fire. Cleverly I thought I knew what do and set and lit the fire. After five minutes it went out. Tom (my brother) had a row at me and said he would do it himself and went to the bottom of the garden to chop more wood, armed with a saw. Meanwhile I settled down to watch a strange film about a detective named Jane Doe whose base is in a super market. 

Worryingly my dad piled in and forced me to change channel. He never wants to watch the television unless. Oh no, the rugby! I sat through half an hour of England, which is not my favourite team, being thrashed by South Africa which was rather entertaining.

Finally my friend Rhys rang up asking if I wanted to play football. I gladly took up his invitation and spent two hours of running up and down a large area of grass he asked me to stay the night.

Half a pizza later I arrived at Rhys’s house and we played on his computer and finally we watched match of the day to end my football filled day. At eleven thirty I finally got to sleep.

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Lincoln Christmas Market was fun. At each turn there were interesting stalls full of wonderful goods to buy. Black Yak hats and candle powered steamboats stirred it with Lincoln Red burgers, dodgems and mulled wine. Festive music and flashing lights, mesmerising, mixed in with hot and spicy seasonal smells. The noise of the stallholders competing for attention. Children clutching their helium filled Father Christmas balloons, momentarily appeased. Fingers sticky from sugary doughnuts and lips brown with hot chocolate. The warm glow from sitting in the pub, snug with a pint of beer. A favourite date in the calendar.

The other market was different. It was bitterly cold and it was crowded. Movement was reduced to a shuffle. There was a limited range of attractions for children and some of the old favourites were no longer there. The big wheel was four pounds per person. That’s a pound per revolution. Dad can you buy me this, can you buy me that drowned out the calls of the vendors pushing their wares. I passed a pavement cafe that in the summer we had sat at sipping refreshing drinks. Now it was bitter, windchilled and uninviting.

Home now. Next year I will have forgotten the second Market. Blanked it out. I am programmed only to remember the good.

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I bought some new Christmas tree lights from Woolworths during the week. Woolworths is closing down so I thought I’d see whether there were any bargains to pick up.

There was nothing in the store that I was interested in buying. Quite possible one of the underlying reasons they have gone bust. This isn’t totally true because I did buy some Christmas tree lights. 50% off and then 3 for the price of 2. Bargain.

I unpacked them and switched them on. Perfect flashing lights. Unfortunately after taking 15 minutes to untangle them they stopped working. Not perfect. Reading the instructions they suggest that you replace each light one by one until you find the one that is a dud. There are 200 of them!!!!!

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Crisp, crunch, cold. Twinkly lights.

Sugar-dusted waffles, warm spices.

Hats, gloves, scarves, thick woolly tights

This year’s Christmas delights 

Goldfish bowl horses yellow red green

Up down round up down round

Cameras flashing, laughing, keen,

Go again if you pay your pound.

One-legged fire-wheels, cap on ground,

Tall, double-green, Christmas tree.

Elbows, toes, lost, found,

Bath Christmas market memory

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Terry’s on the urn; it’s his turn.

Tea for two ?

More like two hundred and twenty two.

It’s Tref’s turn too; he’s volunteered to do

The washing up

Of two hundred and twenty two teacups.

Sue’s out in the hall, collecting back all

Of Terry’s teacups

For Tref, in turn, to wash up.

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