Category: Uncategorized

Sunday, 2nd May, 2021

Lovely, warm & sunny morning. Going to do some gardening – feeding the lawns which I cut yesterday, completing the hedge trimming and generally preparing plants for the summer. Going to do this before our walk later in the day.

I’ve got a couple more entries that involve College days so grit your teeth if you hate it and look away if it gets you down.

There were a lot of Johns in my College intake. In 1951, I think it was the most popular First Name in the country. This young man was a John but popularly known as Tash – I don’t know why! What really struck me from this photo was how ‘old’ it looked. Frighteningly so. The curtains, the chair, the television and the calendar on the wall all scream another age. Who has a printed calendar nowadays? We use online, synchronised calendars

It is so hard to accept we change with age. Many of us are far too vain to expose ourselves to scrutiny. At least these old men were brave enough to do it. I have written before of my struggles against age. I always hated old men walking round with their mouths open looking vacant. In recent years, I have caught myself doing exactly that and have a campaign with myself to curb it not entirely successfully. If you catch me, hit me!

Monday, 3rd May, 2021

I have to go back up to Surrey this morning to help my sister-in-law with an IT problem. She is 84 and very wrinkly plus partially sighted but she fights to use modern technology more than many of her age. It is important not to let yourself fall behind. Fight to keep up. Giving in is decidedly aging. P went to the Blue Coat school in Oldham at a time when people generally had no conception of a computer at all. It is a steep learning curve and I applaud her for making the effort.

You hear of people who don’t even have email accounts. Can you believe that? I couldn’t cope without one. Actually, I’ve got three for different people. How do people buy things online if they don’t have an email to send a confirmation or invoice to? How do you do online banking, investing, reading an online newspaper, having a BBC account without an email?  You can’t even register an iPad without an email. All our televisions are online and surely you need an email to signup to Netflix and Spotify. How does anyone cope without one?

Admittedly, I have been involved in IT and computers for 40 years. My whole life is controlled by and recorded on them. I am a natural teacher and I cannot bear to see intelligent people failing to keep up with the technological world. A few days with me and they would be converted. It is one of the things that you must do before you die. In fact, it will prolong your life. Book Medical Appointments online, record them on your web calendar along with your hair dresser appointments. It gives you such control.

Being one of the 20 men (boys) in a college of around 600 women was quite a stressful experience but I survived it. The men, being in such a minority did develop a group identity and I was one of 5 Johns. 25% of the male intake were called John. I am in contact with some of them. My old friend, John Ridley, who held my head over the toilet that night I got drunk will always be on my contact list.

I haven’t seen John Coates for years now although he bought me an egg-coddler as a wedding present and I have never seen John Holden since 1972. I don’t think anyone has apart from John Ridley.

I don’t think I had one conversation with John Morris while I was at college but he was told of my political views by John Ridley and contacted me to discuss them. I have really enjoyed corresponding with him. He is an interesting man who has travelled all over Europe as an Education Adviser and has lots of interesting tales to tell.

Received a Messenger contact from Peter Holgate at 7.00 this morning. I’m not sure why but he is trying to keep his spirits up.

He’s a sad kid! Actually, if I’m honest, we are all a bit sad at the loss of our youth. We just struggle to keep cheerful.

Tuesday, 4th May, 2021

Lovely, sunny, mild but breezy morning. Going to do some work outside, a walk and then time in the gym. Got to keep active. Might nip down to the beach to see a fairly rough sea crashing dramatically on the esplanade.

I wrote recently how much I enjoyed and was quite surprised to enjoy a 3 series drama called Keeping Faith. I casually watched Series 3, episode 1 and then realised it was important to watch from the start and I was so pleased I did. The narrative is gripping; the central character is compelling and I found the soundtrack quite obsessive. It reaches deep down inside me quite frighteningly.https://www.youtube.com/embed/7gzZEtiusO4?feature=oembed

Who has ever heard of Amy Wadge? I’ve captured my favourite songs and embedded them here for you to try out but they are all worth listening to and available on YouTube. You can even access it without an email address because you don’t need to register.https://www.youtube.com/embed/Gun6Jsmf7WQ?feature=oembed

I am not an actor. I can’t pretend to be someone else convincingly. I find it hard enough to play myself at times. I had to do subsidiary Drama as a concomitant of English Literature. Right from the start, I wasn’t comfortable with rolling around on a Drama Hall floor pretending to be imaginary animals, animated trees and reluctant lions. My strength and interest was in analysing text.

The Drama teacher was a 30-something, rather scatty and scruffy young woman who always looked like she had just got up. Soon after we left, she married an air force officer from nearby RAF Topcliffe and moved away. I understand she is still alive although her husband died quite a while ago of cancer. She got us to put on our own productions for the end of course. Most selected a piece from an established play. I, of course, in my arrogance, wrote my own on the subject of Sentimentality. It was a typically pretentious teenager piece which I would cringe at now.

Unfortunately, it was low tide when we got down to the beach but had a lovely walk for an hour in wonderful sunshine.

Wednesday, 5th May, 2021

Absolutely beautiful, warm morning again after wall-to-wall sunshine yesterday. Watched a good game at Man. City last night after they had scraped snow from the pitch at Maine Road. I support United but wanted City to win last night and they were excellent.

The sunshine makes me want to walk. Actually, I will drop my wife at the supermarket and then set off for my own walk in the sunshine. No clothes to be returned today. The past few days seem to have hit a rich seam for her. The bank account lists:

• Weird Fish Ltd
• Crew Clothing
• Kettlewell Colours
• Joe Browns
• SeaSalt
• Wrap
• Whitestuff

… and that’s just this month. She’s also looking for a new, Garmin smartwatch so we are going to Currys/PCWorld this morning.

Actually, I’ve got a couple more day’s entries of College photos to store. Today I am focussing on girls/women. Of course, throughout the 3 years, I was fairly saintly and really didn’t get to know many of these girls at all. As a result, I am struggling to name them. Maybe others can. For example, I visited the Cottages once or twice in 1972 but haven’t got a clue who this is.

This woman/girl was definitely in Cottages and called Annette. I can half recognise her face:

The Sports Teams are largely a mystery to me. In the first cricket photo, I can name just 5 girls:

In the second photo I can only name 4:

This posting is a bit niche but I hope some people will appreciate it. It’s always nice to reminisce occasionally. 

The memory box stabbed me with a 9-year-old memory this morning as it featured these photos from 2012:

We had already been in our Greek house for a month and enjoyed Greek Easter celebrations. The weather had been wonderful and we had completely repainted the outside of our house until it was a blinding, Cycladic white. It needed doing every 3 or 4 years because of the strength of the sun. Happy days!

Thursday, 6th May, 2021

In our house, I have nothing to do with spending money only saving and investing it. Total control of spending was handed over to my wife on Day-1 of our marriage. Money really doesn’t worry me. I wanted her to feel secure in the event of something happening to me. I am confident that I will always have enough for what I want to do. When she first rescued me from the Brothel, I had 3 or 4 uncashed monthly salary cheques in a draw. I really didn’t need them. We have joint accounts but my wife does all the monitoring of them. I set targets for our savings and investments. I do the research and preparation. I know which investments will pay what over which timescale. Pauline micro-manages the current account recording every single outgoing daily on an accountancy software program just as her mother did on scraps of paper for years.

Retiring, inheriting, paying off the mortgage, selling the Greek house have combined to make us feel totally relaxed. It is a lovely feeling and one within which I can happily hand over all responsibility. So, the list of shops I posted yesterday that purchases have been made from recently was nothing other than a casual observation.

I had two, new pairs of trainers ordered for me. They arrived yesterday and they are fine. They’re trainers. When I went to store them in my shoe cupboard, I found I had three new pairs already there unopened. I won’t need any for years now. Note to feet: don’t change size!

Just to make her smile, I left an accusatory symbol of her reckless spending on the stairs this morning. She was completely unashamed and unapologetic about them. Apparently, they were bargains. I will be 80 before I have outworn them. Will I still be running? You can be absolutely sure I will. I will not give in until I drop!

Three years ago, there was a lot of excitement amongst the Ripon alumni. York St John University invited past students of Ripon who graduated before 1980 to apply to have their Certificates upgraded to Honorary Degrees. The excitement generated was so great, it bordered on the orgasmic. Arrangements were made months in advance. Wardrobes were co-ordinated, gowns & mortars booked and meals arranged. I didn’t go. I didn’t need an honorary degree and I didn’t want to be spooked by ghosts of my past. Little did I know.

These young things without a care in the world thought they could carry the Common Room furniture, paintings and standard lamps out onto the lawns and have their pictures taken. Oh, how we laughed!

Now they are aged and world weary. They will all have seen, countered and survived life’s problems. I have been fascinated to hear about some of them. Not one of us escapes them. And although I’m broken, I am still breathing…

2019 saw the 50th anniversary of our year’s entrance to the college. I was abroad but was sent some photos of the day.

Few of these people have met for 50 long years and are suddenly converging on their past. It is a hard concept to struggle with. I wonder how they related to each other.

Friday, 7th May, 2021

Sometimes life can feel so optimistic. At the age of 70, it is important to have new challenges to look forward to. I am beginning to see my way forward to setting some new goals. Fitness and weight loss are high on the agenda. I’m really punishing myself at the moment. Just one, small meal mid-afternoon and about 30% more exercise. I’ve gone through the hard part when mind and body fight to adjust and am in the sweet spot of actually enjoying it. It’s going to be a very energetic Summer.

Went out to vote twice yesterday. The first time, the queues were so long, we turned back. On each occasion, we walked. It was about a 15 mins walk each way and, until recently, I wouldn’t have considered doing anything other than driving. Now, I can’t believe I did that. Walking was so enjoyable. I’m now covering about 200 miles per month. My smart watch and phone app set the targets. I am a sucker for targets. I have to meet/beat them. Sad really, isn’t it?

This morning, my wife is having her first haircut for 6 months. She has got so used to longer hair that she has decided not to have much off. Still, it will make her feel better. My attempts to reunite her with friends from her London College have worked out spectacularly. She exchanges almost daily emails with Blondie aka Christine who was her best friend at college and will soon be arranging to meet all three girls who live close together in Milton Keynes. I’m really pleased for her. At least my research works sometimes.

Before her appointment, we walked on the promenade. The Worthing ‘Eye’ is back up for the Season.

While Pauline was in the hairdressers, I was having a wonderful time in the sunshine pacing the totally empty rooftop of the multi-story car park overlooking the sea. Suddenly, a car park worker appeared in High Vis. jacket and approached me very cautiously.

Are you alright, Sir? he asked.
I’m absolutely fine, I replied.
Only, he said, we’ve been monitoring you on the cameras for the past 20 mins and we were a bit worried about you.
Why?
We thought you might be thinking of jumping.

I was so touched that I gave him a hug. Bet they’ve got that on camera as well. I know I look desperate and, probably, I am but it would have taken something to get me scaling the barriers if I wanted to die. I don’t.

I have so much to live for. The reasons to live seem to increase every day. Might be a bit depressed about the Hartlepool byelection and the fact even some intelligent people think Boris Johnson is doing a good job but jumping to one’s death is on another level!

Saturday, 8th May, 2021

What a wonderful morning. The world has changed! It is pouring with rain – quite a rare event. At 6.30 am, the lights are on in the kitchen for the first time for weeks. Water is bouncing down on the patio and Breakfast is liquid too. I am losing weight rapidly and looking to the future. It was a lovely day yesterday and they will get increasingly better now. The Summer is coming. The rain is just an intermediate but necessary stage.

I wrote a few weeks ago about the artwork I had in past houses and how it hadn’t seemed appropriate in more modern homes. Before the pre-Raphaelite period moved into the radical edge of James Whistler it had dissipated into the indulgence of Lawrence Alma Tadema and Frederick Lord Leighton and the walls of our house depicted that.

Gradually, we moved a number of pictures to our Greek home. Ultimately, everything went to the Hospice in Worthing. I’m not scared of doing away with the old and starting afresh. To get what one wants, sometimes breaking things is the only way. It can be a strength and a weakness.

So it was that our next two properties have had blank, white walls for a decade. Having lived in galleried walls for so long, it has been quite a release. However, we are edging towards something new. I don’t know if you like Hockney because for a long time I didn’t.

However, over this decade of purity at home, Hockney has been working his way into my consciousness. This is especially significant because he has refused to accept his age and, unlike many wrinklies, now works exclusively with his iPad to create his pictures. For that reason, the larger ‘canvasses’ are constructed of panels from the screen of an iPad.

Hockney, in his 80s, now lives in Normandy and he has spent the pandemic creating scores of pictures. He has a new exhibition of this latest work in London which I’ll have to visit. Something else to look forward to.

My dear friends in Greater Manchester will be pleased to know that not only did Andy Burnham retain his Mayoralty by a proportion of 4-1 against his nearest challenger but Labour retained control of the majority of councils across the borough. They held on to power in Rochdale, Bury, Oldham, Salford, Tameside, Trafford , Manchester and Wigan. The people of GM are eminently sensible of course.

Sunday, 25th April, 2021

A really good sleep last night and woke up refreshed to a lovely morning. Didn’t last long. All but the main Sky-Q box were refusing to work. Breakfast orange juice, tea and coffee accompanied by frantic resetting of all the boxes without success. As soon as you consult the website, it says check your internet connection. How it is possible to read that website without one, I don’t know. Anyway, I have as strong an internet feed as it’s possible to have in UK. Fibre to the door providing Gigabit – well 940mbs download and 120mbs upload – delivery. 

I phoned Sky Technical Help. I was answered by a lovely young woman who I soon found out was 26 years old and called Katy. She was working from Leeds but came from Bradford. She had been intending to get married over a year ago but had been forced to postpone it twice because of Covid and was hoping to go ahead this June.

There are quite long gaps between doing some resetting of the equipment and waiting for the result. We chatted away quite happily. Suddenly, and I am rather slow, I realised she was flirting with me. I said, I am 70 you know. She said I didn’t sound 70 and asked me how I spent my retirement. As I told her about all the travelling I did, she said, I need to get to know you. I told her I would arrange another Sky technical problem before I set off abroad again just to give her the option. She ended the conversation with, Is there anything else I can do for you? before collapsing into a fit of the giggles. For anyone else considering it, this is how to raise the spirits of a sad, old man. The technical problem still isn’t solved, by the way. They are sending an engineer out for that.

Aging can be scary. My wife is obsessed with it. Everyone says she looks 20 years younger than her age but she worries about wrinkles, sagging skin on her arms, sun spots on her skin, lines around her eyes. The two young ladies above were in the 3rd year when we arrived at College. They were thought to be ‘movers & shaker’ by some. Moving and shaking changes its connotation as we age. We just have to learn to embrace it. Fortunately, aging has passed me by and I have retained all my youthful features!

Monday, 26th April, 2021

Wonderful start to the day. Beautiful sky, warm sunshine and …. the lovely girl I spoke to at Sky yesterday had ‘fixed’ all 4 Q-boxes over night. I suspect that she arranged for the software to be ‘flash’ upgraded remotely. All done. I might have to phone her this morning to say thank you. I am getting better at phone calls.

Memory is a mystery to me. Somethings were so delightful that I will never forget them. Somethings were so unbearably painful that I can never wipe them from my mind. In between, there is this continuum of pleasant and dispiriting experiences that quickly fade into the morass of time. That is what the Blog is for and that is what the Cloud storage system serves.

In ‘normal’ times, we would go to France 3 or 4 times a year shopping. We always have a suite in a pleasant hotel on the outskirts of Coquelles with wonderful, well-kept grounds. It is a short drive from the Tunnel and major shopping outlets. Food & wine is the very stuff of life. My Memory Box delivered this scene this morning.

I remember it well although it is more than 12 months since we stayed there. What I didn’t remember was that, on this day 4 years ago we arrived in a heavy hailstorm.

We did some shopping, had a wonderful meal in the most unpretentious restaurant before checking in at the hotel.

As we entered the hotel car park, we were greeted by these little creatures who were herding a flock of chicks supervised by a fat, tabby cat who showed no interest in eating them. Only in France would one not be surprised by this scene although, come to think of it, could have been a donkey or goat in Greece but without the tarmac.

These little memories get us through our lives and keep the major movements at bay to surface in the waking hours.

Tuesday, 27th April, 2021

Today is the 13^th anniversary of my Mum’s death. The pain of it has faded now as it becomes a blur of memories. My mother was articulate, educated, forceful (controlling even), snobbish, Conservative and conservative, strongly Roman Catholic. She gave me a very stable childhood which she took too far. She really subscribed to the Jesuit, Ignatius of Loyolla, maxim: Give me the child for the first seven years and I’ll give you the man. She tried to control every area of our lives from how we dressed and ate to how we thought. She was quite clear to me that my girlfriends weren’t appropriate and made it clear to them as well.

For someone like me, who inherited her articulacy and strength of character, it was like a red rag to bull. Anything my Mother said, liked, thought, believed, had to be totally rejected and opposed. This particularly centred around religious rejection. I was impressed by the James Joyce character, Stephen Daedalus who rejected his Mother’s entreaty even on her death bed to come back to Roman Catholicism by repeating Lucifer’s Non Serviam. This meant that we weren’t close after I left home. I went home very rarely other than in emergencies although I did ring her twice a week to make sure she was alright. I was aware of my filial duty.

Right to the very end, having survived umpteen medical problems including cancer and bad falls, she continued to do things her own way. I regularly entreated her to sell her house and move into a community of people. She lost her temper and put the phone down. Even at the end; unable to breath and suffering from worsening Pneumonia, she went to hospital without telling most of us and she was effectively dead before I could get to the hospital. It is one of my big regrets that I didn’t get to say goodbye to her in person. However, I wrote and delivered the Eulogy in one of the few times I have been in a church since leaving home. It did give me some sort of closure.

I was amazed at the views of my brothers and sisters after Mum’s death. I had always thought she saw me as a failure and all of them as more successful. It turns out that they had each been given that view of themselves. She played us off against each other. I’m not sure why but others believe it was to drive us on to compete to be better. There is also that strand of a Catholic catechism that installs original sin in the psyche and leaves us feeling forever unworthy. I rejected Catholicism internally soon after leaving Primary School but feelings of unworthiness have remained with me all my life.

Bit of an emergency yesterday rather threw plans in to disarray. Phone call mid afternoon from Brother-in-Law up in Surrey to say that Pauline’s sister had been taken in to hospital with a suspected heart attack. It took just over an hour to drive up there on what was the most beautiful afternoon of delicious sunshine. It involves a spell on the M25 which seemed quite light luckily. They are both well in to their 80’s and quite frail. Pauline was the ‘mistake’ baby of the family and 14 years younger than her sister. Their daughter is currently in America chaperoning her son at a tennis academy so we had to step in to the breach.

We went round packing bags with clothes and toiletries, phone charger, etc. Off to St Peters Hospital in Chertsey. It felt strange to be back somewhere we lived for 5 years. I didn’t miss it. Hospitals are a nightmare at the moment and this one was worse than most. Spent more time in the carpark than the hospital. When we did get out, we drove back late at night under a pitch black sky with the most beautiful, huge full moon illuminating everything. The M25 has never looked more lovely. Shattered when we got home but had to be up early this morning for a Sainsbury’s delivery. Going for a walk down to the village Post Office to post back … more rejected clothes.

Wednesday, 28th April, 2021

I was looking for a photograph for Pauline’s friend yesterday when I came across this picture from 1974.

I messaged her last night and attached a copy of the photo. She says that she no longer has the duck. However, she does seem to have turned out to be a lovely girl.

It was eleven years ago that our confidence in the Greek economy was beginning to be shaken. The picture above shows our island branch of the National Bank of Greece (Εθνική Τράπεζα της Ελλάδος). We had spent a decade channelling over £200,000.00 through it for design and building work. On this day 11 years ago, we had over £10,000.00 in our account and there were rumours of financial instability in the country’s banking system. We thought there was a possibility of accounts being ‘locked’. We withdrew it immediately and stored it in cash. Fortunately, we had a few more years before we had to sell the house to protect our investment.

Following on from yesterday’s theme (sorry). Mum was born and lived in London. When war broke out, London children were evacuated to the countryside to avoid the Blitz. Mum was sent to a farm in Wales. I think she was in Builth Wells near Hay-on-Wye. As a 15 year old Townie, she learned to love it. She also fell in love with a lad in the family she was lodging with. After Dad died, she went back to visit him but realised he wasn’t the person she remembered.

However, she always loved Wales after her evacuation experience and persuaded Dad to take us on holiday there. We stayed at Tenby, Saundersfoot and Colwyn Bay. It is there, I fell in love with Carol. I was 15 and she was about 35. I was immediately and absolutely infatuated with her. I think she knew it and rather played along. After the two week holiday, we exchanged addresses and wrote to each other for 2 or 3 months. I’ve always fancied older women!

I just had to ‘dump’ Carol and move on when I was picked up and taken for a walk by this young lady at Scout-Guide camp. It’s all a learning curve, isn’t it?

Thursday, 29th April, 2021

Glorious morning. Going out for a long walk very early because I have to drive back up to Surrey later on to visit Pauline’s sister in hospital. There’s a chance that we may even be taking her back to her home after her procedure. It sounds daft but I’m quite looking forward to 2-3 hours driving because I’ve done so little of it in the past few months.

I’ve been working hard in the gym and walking each day for 4 full months now. I have only missed my targets 3 times in the past 12 weeks. I have also tightened up my food intake quite considerably and am now into my 4^th week without alcohol. I do feel a lot better. In 12 weeks, I have walked/jogged 660 miles or almost 55 miles per week. I am now resolved to increase my efforts. Got to get in shape in case Katy from Sky Technical calls!

At least we have some lovely walks around here. The Sussex Downs are famous for tourist walkers. We have this delicious bluebell wood within easy reach.

Of course, most people come for the sea and the beaches. We are a sunny county and walking by the sea can be quite delightful. This little chap appeared in the shallows the other day.

These things are nice distractions and help me to exercise but there is much in life that is so much more important to me. Really miss friends. Six years ago this morning, we were meeting Viv, a lovely girl who did Reprographics for us in our school and was paid peanuts for doing it. We were having coffee with her in the coffee shop in Oldham Library and then went on to meet Brian in Shaw followed by Margaret in Marsden. So many people in the North that I miss!

Friday, 30th April, 2021

The last day of April, 2021. Everything is running away. It is, I must admit, another lovely, sunny day. Up at 6.00 am for Sainsbury’s delivery and then out for an early walk. Going to do some gardening but, otherwise, it is a bit of an empty day today.

I must apologise to regular readers of the Blog who haven’t any connection with my Training College. I have been collecting and collating pictures of that time all those years ago from and for friends who have lost contact. I have spent the past few years communicating with old friends/acquaintances and collecting memories for myself so I will just store them here for future reminiscence. Over the next few days, I will post a number of photos which I will try to link with narrative but which will mainly be for future reference of aficionados.

I was taking English as my main subject but I was mainly surrounded by artists. My mother was an art teacher. I love art but I have no skill at making it. I enjoyed the work many fellow students produced. I was given a grainy, old brochure for the college with what looked like ancient photos of ex-students. When I focussed in on it, I realised that many of the illustrations were from my time. It is a shock to realise how old we are, how black & white our history is and that now is the only time left to address it.

For reference, I think I recognise one of the girls in the top left photo and I think it is Steve Gill in the top right. However, it is the central panel which features my old Digs-mate, John Ridley and, I think, Julie in the centre. Above is Judy Hall in the foreground, a mature student and the Potter, Victor Priem in the back, centre.

I did a bit of research on Victor Priem because he was a fascinating character. The first thing that came up was one of his 1970s pots for sale at auction.

I was shocked to find that he died at the ridiculously young age of 64 but soon found out what a hard start to life he had when I found this.

It was only then that I realised he had lived and worked just a few miles away from my current home. I even found a Times Obituary of another artist who Victor Priem had taught at school in Brighton.

Kevin Sellers was a significant member of my group and he continues to produce art work at his home in Cumbria.

Chris Tolley & his wife live in France, as I understand it although I haven’t had contact with him.

I lived with Nigel for all three years of my College life in Digs and in a ‘flat’. He was an extremely interesting lad who taught me a lot. I had never heard of Leonard Cohen in my life until I met Nigel. I was immediately attracted by his anarchy. What would my Mother think?

I had never drunk wine in my life but Nigel introduced me to red wine and I have never been able to shake it off since. Within weeks of arriving in Ripon, Nigel got me drunk for only the second and last time in my life and I found myself sitting on the white line at the centre of College Road at midnight singing the Beatles, Why don’t we do it in the road? What would my Mother think??

The last time I saw Nigel and the lovely Julie was at a party at their home in Rochester, Kent in 1974. How lives change. They split up. Nigel became a Buddhist Monk although he has since emerged back into the world as an artist. Julie did an MA in Art History at Leeds but never remarried. At this distance, it makes one’s heart ache!

Just one coda for today. The Head of Art at the College was the irascible Derek Bolton pictured here with John Lee, the Mens’ Tutor.

They both look so young. As a student, I remember them as being so much older. John Lee, who I didn’t find easy to relate to, caught me with a girl after hours in the student bar in the Summer of 1973 and gave me a real telling off until I reminded him that I was no longer a student there at which point he turned his ire on the girl. Such memories!

Saturday, 1st May, 2021

Happy first day of May, 2021 to all our readers. It is the most beautiful day down here this morning and all is well with the world. Hope you have a lovely month. 

I am going to start the morning in quite customary way by walking down to the Post Office in the village. I don’t need to tell you why but I do observe that most of the clothes order is being kept this time. Success was modelled happily yesterday and only two items repackaged for return.

When I arrived at college 52 years ago this October, it was a scrambled event. I had learned at the end of August that my A-Levels were not good enough to get me into Newcastle University and I was scrambling around to avoid having to get a job. Ripon, like many Training Colleges, had been instructed to take English students to fill serious gaps in the country’s Teaching Force. My mother was desperate to get rid of me and saw the advert. 

With about two weeks to go before term started, I went up for interview. I had to report to the Porters’ Lodge like some latter-day, minor public school. It was unlike any interview I had been to before. I was not the supplicant. They were desperate to attract men for the government’s funding-stream. They had heard of Burton Grammar School and were impressed. They had heard of Men and were impressed. What’s not to like? Could I cope with all those women? I had been to an all-boys Grammar School but I pretended to be a man-of-the- world who wouldn’t be phased by lots of girls. After all, I had 5 sisters. How difficult could it be? Little did I know!

The College was still in the first half of the 20th Century, still demure as befits a Ladies, Church of England College. This brochure page from 1970 is illustrative of the interior. Fresh cut flower arrangements were put in the Bishop Chase Common Room every morning. Decorum was the watchword although the young men throwing a ball about rather ruined it.

No men in rooms after 10.00 pm was still in place and there were stories of students’ doors having to be left open when ‘entertaining’ people. The buildings and the regulations, the culture and the staff were rather from a different era. They were definitely worried about the effect the new Men would have on their Ladies. Of course we were saintliness personified!

The Ladies College had begun in 1862, took its first male intake in 1969, merged with the Men’s College of St. John’s in York in 1974 and, finally, moved there completely in 2002. The building has since been turned into private apartments.

Sunday, 18th April, 2021

The beautiful days just keep coming. Yesterday we reached a pleasant 17C/63F. Looks like today’s walk will be just as nice.

I’m really quite enjoying pushing myself more in terms of exercise. Some inherit long life through their genes; some have to work for it.

I was the pioneer of the internet in my school. In 1994, I set up a dial-up internet service in the Resource Centre. In those days, it was very flaky, made a lot of noise as it connected and was totally text-based. I was very excited. Eventually, I designed and built a school-wide Intranet, set up on-line learning, introduced Classroom registration on Tablets with wireless connections across the campus, introduced Staff access to School computers from home so work could be seamless and strove to get as many classrooms as possible stocked with PCs/Laptops.

There was a lot of resistance through fear and unfamiliarity at first. To overcome that, I used to play a game to demonstrate how essential the internet would become in our lives. The game was to illustrate that the internet could provide any answer to any questions within a few minutes. I challenged people to test me on it and they would ask what they thought were really obscure questions. I rarely failed to provide the answer.

I have spent weeks trying to find 3 ex-College friends of Pauline’s from 1973. I’ve found their parents, their births, their marriages, their partners’ names but I’ve really struggled to find their current addresses. What you have to be is tenacious and never give up. Something always surfaces if you keep going. Having tried all the conventional routes, I had a brainwave. I had learnt the names of No.1 Christine’s children. I knew which town she was last known to live in. I reasoned that many kids like to stay within reach of their parents and I went to Linkedin to search.

Linkedin is a professional networking site and it allows job seekers to post their CVs and employers to post jobs. I put in a search for each child by their unmarried name and then narrowed them down to the town where the family had lived. I found three, professional men working for National companies in the town. I just took a risk and messaged them with a request to contact their mothers. A week went by with nothing but then, on Friday night, one emailed me asking for more information. Sometimes, you just have to take a risk to get someone to trust you. I do it all the time. What’s the worst that can happen?

Within minutes of sending more personal information to a total stranger, I got an email back saying that he was indeed No1 Christine’s son and that she was with him at his home. She would love to reconnect with Pauline. Emails between them quickly exchanged. She learnt that No.3 Denise lives just down the same street as Christine and No.2 Ros lives not far away. I had a feeling that, if I found one, I might see a domino effect. Even so, I’m very proud of myself to have provided Pauline with three old friends to reconnect with and sustain her.

Monday, 19th April, 2021

Delicious morning and we eventually reached 17C/63F as we sunbathed in the garden. Up at 6.30 am because we thought we had a Covid tester arriving at 8.15 am. My mobile was on silent and I didn’t hear her call come in until it flashed on my watch to say she couldn’t make it and would arrive mid-afternoon. We will be having our 11th Lateral Flow test and have now been recruited to the antibody research which involves a blood sample as well. It is just a finger prick blood test which I do once a week anyway for my INR self-test so I see no reason for not doing it if it contributes to the national database.

It’s amazing how coincidences occur. Yesterday I was writing about setting up a school-wide Intranet and I was searching through my cloud-based resources this morning when I came across this from almost 16 years ago. I know I’m sad but I really enjoyed designing this and inflicting it on all the staff. We were one of the first schools in the country to establish such an infrastructure.

It took a huge amount of work but, fortunately, I managed to pull in the support of excellent IT technicians and travelled round the country looking at other’s systems. I remember a long trip to Telford in Shropshire who really were pioneers and who inspired me.

Eventually, I met an interesting man who had started a company called Frog in Halifax designing Intranets for Business. He had much more skill than me. I got him over to my school to pitch to the team against the much inferior system that the Local Authority were trying to get us to adopt. We bought it at a cost of £56,000.00 and the LEA weren’t pleased but I was.

Tuesday, 20th April, 2021

Glorious morning to be up at 6.00 am. Blue sky and full sun and mild. Sainsburys are calling at 8.00 am and then we are walking down to the village Post Office to return yet more mail-order clothes. Women seem to have an infinite capacity for new clothes which I can’t quite understand. Never mind, it is not my job to understand this.

There are many things I don’t understand. One of them is the Teacher Training students from my past remaining obsessed with the College and the town of Ripon. They constantly return there to meet up and try to recreate the atmosphere that they remember.

So many of them stayed in the area and have never left. The College building has been redeveloped and is now apartments that some past students actually live in. I loved my time there but I don’t want to recreate it. I have moved on. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t parts of it I don’t cherish and want to retain but I give you just one example that goes straight over my head.

At one of their reunions – and I haven’t been to any – the idea was floated that it would be a good idea to recreate the College ties with the College badge which then expanded in to Scarves and eventually added bow ties to be worn on ceremonial occasions. I was contacted and asked if I would like to join in. I declined. I am very happy for them if that’s what they want to do but I have moved on and don’t need any of that. I did a BA Eng. Degree and had the certificate sent to me in the post because ceremony is not my thing. I love intimacy not group.

When the foundations of our Greek home were being dug out in the 4 acre field that we had bought, investigations had to be made to ensure that we were not building on top of ancient remains or Acropolis (Ακρόπολη). In order to prove that, holes had to be dug out to expose the substrata. Having spent so much money on the field, we were nervous of what would be found until it was explained to us by our Building Manager that, if Acropolis were found, the hole would be quickly filled in and new ones dug which would reveal nothing. Then inspectors would be called in to pass the building work.

Through the wood fringing our Development, another 40 new houses are going to be built. The site of a former, commercial Herb Nursery has been cleared but building can’t start because archaeologists are inspecting for English Acropolis. Holes are being dug everywhere and barrow loads of soil carried off for analysis. A nervous time for the Developers.

On our walk this morning, I stopped at the Estate Agent’s window to look at properties on the market. Admittedly, the market is very buoyant at the moment with properties selling almost instantly. It was pleasing to see 4 Bedroomed Detached Houses starting to go up at £800,000.00 which is gratifying.

Wednesday, 21st April, 2021

The sun is shining strongly again this morning and we have reached the customary 17C/63F already. Been shorts & tee shirt weather all week. No clothes to return today so we will have to invent a reason for our walk. I might even clean the car. Actually went shopping yesterday – well to the Garden Centre. Really enjoyed it. Spent £200.00/€232.00 in about 20 mins. What fun!

After everything I wrote yesterday, I received this picture that immediately took me back.

I wrote a few weeks ago about my first day at Ripon College. This was the house I was in ‘Digs’ in with the Boyd family. Geoff Boyd was in the RAF. I’ve forgotten his wife’s name now but she was a brusque, efficient little Scots woman. (Actually, I’ve just consulted John Ridley who said we never knew her name.)  Geoff was gently spoken, humorous and ironic. John tells me they are both dead now. They had two, nice kids at Ripon Grammar School. I was sharing the upper floor with Nigel and John. You couldn’t have found two more diametrically opposed characters but it seemed to work. Two of us got girlfriends early on and didn’t spend a lot of time at home because we weren’t allowed girls there.

Actually, I spent quite a lot of time here. I even remember that it took exactly 4 minutes to run from the Cottages to the Student Bar at 10.50 pm although I think it might take me a minute longer now.

Mr & Mrs Boyd were really nice, caring people who acted like parents to us – feeding us enormous meals, doing our washing, keeping the house clean and tidy, etc.. For students, we were nice people as well and there was no conflict that I can recall. Nigel and I moved out after two years to get a flat with others. I didn’t see Mr & Mrs Boyd again for many years then, one day, I was doing some work in central London. I had to take the underground. There were huge queues for the ticket machines. I had to push through them to get to my train. As I did so, there were Mr & Mrs Boyd queuing for tickets. What are the chances of that? It must have been 25 years since I’d seen them. I was hurrying for a train and they were keen to get their tickets. Hello/Goodbye was all we managed but you don’t forget those coincidences.

I can assure you that I have had no affinity with Brothels. However, I have almost lived in two. I’ve already written about my Oldham experience but it all really started in Ripon. Four of us – Kevin, Chris, Nigel and I all thought it was time we grew up and branched out for ourselves. We took a ‘Flat’ above a television rental shop and (as it turned out) below a working brothel run by a huge Fijian guy who none of us was going to argue with. It was a dreadful flat and I would probably have been better staying in Digs but it taught me something about the world which I needed to learn. It doesn’t stop me getting hurt but at least I can anticipate it better.

Thursday, 22nd April, 2021

Another wonderful day. Life can be good, can’t it? The sun is beaming down, the sky is blue, the birds are singing their hearts out for our morning walk. An old, colleague friend of mine in Shaw contacted me this morning to tell me that quite a few members of his family had contracted Covid and been very ill although not hospitalised. Throughout this pandemic, I only know of one person in my area to get ill at all.

An old College friend tells me that the cottages I featured yesterday are now rentable holiday homes. The College itself is fully redeveloped as apartment homes. If only the owners knew the past events of their present properties!

The Art Block, where I spent so many happy evenings playing the piano, is still in deserted and dilapidated state. It must be ripe for redevelopment soon.

Certainly Ripon is a very marketable place for property. An Estate Agent is advertising a property a few doors down from where my flat was and it is on at £850,000.00. I’m not sure I’d be prepared to pay that.

I’ve been back to Ripon once for a few minutes since the Summer of 1973. I didn’t find it an easy experience.

Pauline is already getting on well re-establishing old, College relationships. The girls who I have managed to trace bought this mixing bowl for her as she left. Just typical of her, she’s kept it throughout these 48 years and is still using it today.

Friday, 23rd April, 2021

Woke up in the middle of the night with these words beating in my head:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

and woke up this morning with a strange veil of sadness. It is strange because the day is so beautiful, with cloudless, blue sky and strong sunshine. I have got positive things to do like rake and mow the lawns, plant out some new purchases and pot up culinary herbs.

I apologise for what follows but, if you didn’t go to my College around the time I was there, these photos will mean absolutely nothing to you. To be honest, even if you did, they will probably mean little. I am using this as a point of reference for when Dementia destroys my memory and events begin to fade away….

The above photo was for a newspaper article which announced the first cohort of men at the college.

I was young and more naïve than most. Nigel on my shoulders here was 3 years older than me. Kevin was 2 years older. At that age, 2-3 years makes a huge difference in maturity as I found out.

The more I look at these photos, the more foolish I realise I was in those days. Hiding in a corner; hiding my face with a waste bin. What was I thinking?

The above photo features Bob Stephens who died of cancer shortly after we left college. He was a quietly spoken, amusing lad who lived on cigarettes and Opal Fruits. I only found out that Derek had lived and worked near me most of his life after he had retired and moved away.

I was a Rugby Union player and the world’s worst footballer but I felt I had to play for the college team initially. You can only tell this is me by the hair.

Of course we had to leave and make our way in the real world. I have already written of my angst in dealing with that. Before we did, there was the final photo. I didn’t attend the whole College photo. I assume there was one but I don’t remember it. However, as one of the first male intake, I did go for the photo with our Tutor, Mr. Lee.

This final photo was taken virtually as close as I got to the chapel in all 3 years. My hair seems to be a bit more under control by this stage. The photo features:

BR L-R: Nigel, John, Bill, Jimmy, Me, Kevin, Dave
MR L-R: John(Tash), Bill, Bob, Mature?, Mature?
FR L-R: Derek, Chris, Kevin, Steve, Mr Lee, Derek, John, Peter

Missing from the original 20 men (Matures didn’t count) were Bob (who I think was already ill), Andy and Charles (who I think had been kicked out).

Decline & Fall. Definitely starting to put on weight. This photo was taken in some Ripon pub with a few 3rd year students from the Year after me. I was there for a week working with David McAndrew delivering an English Language course to Dutch students. Quite enjoyed it and we repeated it the next year as well but, by then, the place had started to irk me. That’s why I’ve hardly ever been back.

Saturday, 24th April, 2021

It is fascinating how it is possible to run interior and exterior lives in parallel. Yesterday was the most beautiful day. Clear blue sky and very intense sunshine all day. A long walk followed by gardening in a temperature of 20C/68F burnt my face. Even so, the promise of Summer to come certainly is heartening. And yet I dreamt a really lurid, disturbing dream which felt like an alternative reality burning into me. I think it came from something my wife had said to me yesterday.

Pauline is already on her 5^th detailed email with her newly re-found friend. They are quickly catching up on lives missed. Her friend’s husband died of cancer in his early 60s but she is sustained by her children, their wives and grandchildren. Out of my 6 siblings, 4 have families with grandchildren. Yesterday, Little Liz, who still does a very busy job as Director of Adult Social Care for Richmond & Wandsworth Councils, posted a very happy picture of herself cradling her latest grandchild.

My slightly younger brother, Bob, in Maidenhead, is retired and styles himself as Grumpy Bob although he doesn’t appear very grumpy and has a lovely family of which he is very proud. He certainly looks very happy even if he has lost more hair than his older brother.

Even my god daughter, Julia, posted a lovely picture of her brood yesterday which exudes happiness.

Growing up in a large family, I always thought I would be a father. However, fate conspired against me. My wife said from the outset that she didn’t want children and I respected that. Actually, with so many children running through our hands as teachers, it was possible to sublimate that desire into them. Over the years, Pauline & I ‘adopted’ kids from school temporarily. Individuals or pairs of young people came to our house to help with IT work, help in the gardens, be taken out for the day, etc. I was an inveterate matchmaker (which is ironic in itself but I thought was a Dad’s job) and one pairing left school, lived together and had a child before parting. Felt a bit guilty about that!

In some respects, as time went on, I recognised the convenience of being able to pick children up and return them without the sense of responsibility. So much of what we have been able to do in our lives would have been compromised by the additional responsibility of family. For so long, we have never had to worry about money, buying what we wanted when we wanted it. I really enjoyed wasting money changing the car every year just for the smell of a new one. It was great to feel we could just fly abroad on a whim without having to worry about anyone else. We would never have built the Greek house if we’d been concerned about depriving our children of time and inheritance.

However, there have been specific times across our marriage when Pauline has panicked, as I cooed over a baby, that she has deprived me of that experience. Of course, I have reassured her with the arguments set out above but she was never fully convinced. Now, at this great age, her concern is that she should have grandchildren to look after her in her old age when I am gone. Yesterday day she said it again as I showed her Liz’s photo. I’m afraid it’s too late.

Sunday, 11th April, 2021

Beautiful day here this morning although I have woken feeling there is a hole in the world. It wasn’t a cold night and there is no sign of frost which my budding figs will be grateful for but my sister in Yorkshire posted this on Twitter early this morning. She takes shots of the changing year from her kitchen window which is both economical but also illustrative of the times.

I also had some photos from an old, College friend who lives in Rochdale. People say this is remarkable for April but I don’t really think so. We once set off for Manchester Airport in April with little time to catch a flight. As we drove from our home in Huddersfield, the skies opened and a blizzard hit the M62. Cars were literally going off in all directions, colliding with each other, sliding up the embankments, stopping dead out of fear. We struggled through and got there but it sticks in the memory.

There are things I miss about the North of England. I was there for almost 40 years after all but I do not miss the weather.

Monday, 12th April, 2021

The morning started out cold and wet but is gradually brightening up. Blue sky and sunshine has arrived but, even so, I’m going to do a big session in the gym today instead of going out. Before that, I am listening to a political podcast and starting on my Blog.

We are often told to stop looking back. Live in the present and look to the future. I try to get the most out of my everyday while maintaining great hope for the future but I do it from the roots of my past. I have been reviewing strands from my history recently and trying to tease out the elements which have been important and anyone following this Blog will know that my connection with my past is as much emotional as intellectual

I was born in the small, East Midlands village of Repton which will always be known for its famous public school with Alumni like Basil Rathbone, Roald Dahl and Jeremy Clarkson. However, it is also known for the Sanders family who were there and prominent for almost 150 years. They arrived there from Leicestershire in the 1850s when they bought the village water mill. By the 1880s, they still owned the mill but my Great Grandfather, Edwin Sanders, went in to partnership with Joseph Dolman and was branching out as a builder.

Edwin was doing well and became elected to the Rural District Council and made a Governor of Burton Board of Guardians. By 1920, Edwin bought Dolman out and partnered with his son, my Grandfather. It cost him almost £2000.00 which was the equivalent to an average man’s annual wages for 10 years. Edwin died 7 years later and Grandad carried on alone until 1938 when he reset the business with my father who had just passed his Building Exams.

I was supposed to be taking on the burden but Dad died in 1965 when I was just 14. Time would not wait and the business was sold. Effectively, it ended our prominence in Repton and the family gradually dissipated around the country. I would not go back to that world for anything but I recognise how fortunate I was to have that stability in my upbringing.

Tuesday, 13th April, 2021

Beautiful morning although a little cool at 6.00 am under a clear, blue sky. Going out for an early walk in the sunshine. West Sussex is reputed to be the sunniest County in UK although I suspect it is rivalled by Cornwall. Anyway, all this walking outside is turning me into a pickled walnut so must put some cream on. Soon be time to return to the local beach.

There is a family Messenger thread going at the moment and we are all now retired or coming to retirement so family research is popular. Members of the family are keen to reacquaint themselves with their roots and these things – people & dates – are so easily lost in the mists of time. I use all sorts of tools and sources to find people and it can be difficult and time consuming but, being a research geek, I love it. There is something really satisfying when you ‘crack’ a difficult case. I am still struggling with Pauline’s former College friends although mine are a little easier.

This morning the thread concerned one of my Dad’s sisters, Kath, who married and lived up the High Street in our village. I use:

Ancestry.co.uk,
192.com People Finder,
FinderMonkey,
Public Record Search
Trace Genie – Electoral Rolls

You can still get seriously frustrated which is why success is so sweet. Although I can picture both Auntie Kath and Uncle Arthur clearly. They were both lovely, kind people but who remembers their dates? This morning I was able to supply them for the Family thread quite quickly.

I remember, they had Dalmatian dogs in the time of 101 Dalmatians being popular. Arthur was Head of Science at a local school and a very interesting, gentle man. They had lived all their married life in Repton village. He retired and they moved to their dream retirement in picturesque Branscombe in Devon.

As so often happens and, particularly with teachers, Arthur didn’t last long and Kath came back to the security of her home village. A tragic addendum to that story is that their eldest son and my cousin, Peter, who was not long married, unexpectedly died of a heart attack in his sleep 2 years after her return at the age of 36. It must have been an almost unbearable time for her.

Wednesday, 14th April, 2021

I shot out of bed at 3.30 am in absolute agony. My left leg had cramped so tightly I could barely walk. It’s all this exercise. I must be over doing it. It took me ages of agony to get over it and then couldn’t get back to sleep until the radio came on at 6.00 am. Lovely, lovely start to the day though. Blue sky and sunshine and warmer.

It is just under 8 weeks since our first vaccination and we know people here have been having to wait almost the full 12 weeks for their second. That would have taken us to the middle of May. Yesterday afternoon we received a phone call asking us if we could go down this morning for our second jab. Who would refuse that? So that is the focus for the morning. Must try to get my exercise in first. Got to do some serious weight training. We have a couple of sets of dumbbells, a step bench and mat in our Home Gym but may need to take it to another level. Goodness knows where I will get cramp next!

Lovely girls at the Medical Centre. Turned out one of them recognised us because she lived not far away. The one who did the injection was so small she only came up to my shoulder when I was sitting down. Most of these people were just volunteering. Nice experience altogether.

Thursday, 15th April, 2021

Mid-April already. We should be away. My Memory Store threw this up this morning from 12 years ago. We had been retired for just 2 weeks and had arrived at our house in Greece. The Spring rains there had left the island very green although another month would turn it all brown.

It is a beautiful day here and we are going out to enjoy the warm sunshine but there is something about a change of scene that raises the spirits. Still two vaccines will soon provide us with travel passports and freedom.

The other photo that came out of the Memory Store was for 5 years ago today. We had been in our Sussex house for about 3 weeks and had been dining off garden furniture because our ordered stuff hadn’t arrived. It was such a relief when it did that I photographed it even before we’d had the blinds put up at the windows.

I’d found the The Dining Table and chairs on-line while we were staying in a Tenerife hotel. Ironically, it turned out to be from Housing Units in Oldham which we never visited when we lived in the North. I was very pleased with it when we finally took delivery. It’s hard to believe that it is 5 years ago. What will the next 5 years bring?

Did a really delightful walk down to the village – about an hour’s round trip. The sun was warm and the bird song incredible. There has been an explosion of robins in our wooded area. I love robins. They are so beautiful but feisty. The fat, brown rabbit seems totally oblivious to us nowadays. The walk was to the Post Office to return another £250.00/€290.00 worth of ordered clothes. It’s a great game.

Weird footnote: Even though I don’t eat pastry, I’ve been fantasising about big, juicy Cornish Pasties. Where did that come from? Is it me or is life strange?

Friday, 16th April, 2021

Glorious morning. Clear blue sky and strong sun from the moment I leapt out of bed at 6.00 am. Must be happy! Actually, we are having a Sainsbury’s delivery at 7.00 am. My increased exercise regime has increased my energy levels which is good. Another walk down to the Post Office this morning. More clothes going back. Never anything for me. I don’t really wear anything worth calling clothes. Anyway, more money coming back into the account.

The BBC R4 Today programme tried to deflate me with an article about China’s approach to global emissions. I know, it’s early for such topics but it helps me engage my brain immediately. China are arguing, and with some justification, that developed countries like the US and UK have been through their industrialisation and, therefore, global pollution process long ago. China is going through that process now and post-industrial nations like us should be considered more responsible for ‘greening’ our economies than them. What shocked me was their target for becoming carbon-neutral by 2060. I will be 109!!

My Ancestry app runs an algorithm which searches for new connections for me and regularly emails me with suggestions. This morning, it found a 1939 Census return which featured our house in Repton. It was No. 81 High Street but Mum & Dad knew it as Ingle Nook because it had an ingle nook fireplace of which they were proud. In the early 1960s, it was replaced with a coke burning stove and central heating and the name seemed to fall into obeyance but it was nice to see the written confirmation.

At the time, he was only 24 years old and single. I think he was quite handsome. Unfortunately, I think I inherited my Mother’s genes. I see her in the mirror every time I look. In 1939, Dad had passed his Building Diploma and was just about to risk his life fighting in WW2. As a builder, he was drafted into the Royal Engineers and found himself in the furnace that was Palestine. He rose through the ranks to Captain and, ultimately Major Sanders He never made anything of it in peacetime but my Mother loved to talk about it.

Although I was 14 when he died, I never really got to know him. He tried but he wasn’t very tactile or communicative. When Bob & I went to speak to him in his hospital bed where he was being treated for angina at the age of 49, none of us had anything to say. I remember it being very uncomfortable and it was the last time I saw him.

Saturday, 17th April, 2021

Glorious morning. We were out early to Sainsburys because they contacted Pauline about a product recall. She has been eating their Majool Dates like there is no tomorrow for a few weeks. They give an instant energy boost if its needed. Too many calories for me so I haven’t touched them. Yesterday, Sainsburys contacted her about the potentially infectious contamination of Hepatitis-A and provided batch numbers. Of course they were exactly the batch she has been eating for some time and she still had two boxes left. She had an immediate discussion with the Surgery about a possible blood test and we took the rest back this morning. I went for a walk in the sunshine while she was shopping.

We went on to the beach for a few minutes just to breathe the sea air. It really looked lovely and made me feel good. There were very few people out walking which makes it even more enjoyable.

I’m getting a bit worried that my neighbours are going to have me ‘Sectioned’ soon because of my behaviour in the Gym. My absolutely favourite television programme to watch at the moment is Would I Lie to You. Nothing I have watched in years has made me just scream with laughter. Particularly, I like Bob Mortimer’s tales. I am a very naïve, trusting person so it’s good training for me but my neighbours must really think I’m losing it as hysterics filter out of the garage.

They won’t hear it today because I’m going out for my second walk of the day to soak up the sun rather than the gym.

Sunday, 4th April, 2021

There’s a hole in the world this morning. What are we going to do? Outside it is sunny but cool. Blue sky and sunshine does help but doesn’t make up for the absence of life. Certainly, money can’t plug it. Travel to France? Not sounding good at the moment. My cousin in Salles-Lavalette, SW France, is clearly in despair about her holiday lets. Even schools are closed again. We were there a couple of years ago and it is delightful.

I’ve requested details on some properties in the Murcian sea port area of Aguilas. Even if they come back favourably, we obviously wouldn’t buy unseen. We certainly won’t travel until a couple of weeks after our second vaccination which will take us close to the end of May. The hole deepens!

It’s amazing how time flies past but, in recollection, events feel so close. Ten years ago today, the removal van arrived to take all our possessions from West Yorkshire to Surrey. Although I remember it clearly, in retrospect so much has happened since then. We have sold and bought three properties since then, travelled thousands of miles in search of the sun, gone so far into retirement that it’s not so easy imagining going back into education now, had five new cars and at least five new diets. Throughout this time, I have carried with me some ambitions that I may never achieve but will continue until my last breath. I did say that I would never need to diet again by the time I was 70. I did say I would achieve fluent Greek. I Failed as I have with so much more. I keep trying.

I did Spanish at school 55 years ago. I can still do bits but it will now be an ambition to learn more. We have driven across many European countries but not Spain. This will be the ideal new, learning environment. Portsmouth is not far away from here. Return journey by Brittany ferries for Portsmouth – Santander or Bilbao with cabin is only around £1100.00/€1300.00 and the drive across Spain will be fun. I’ve always wanted to go to Zaragoza and then on to the coast at Tarragona and then drive down the coast through Valencia.

You see, hope can be found anywhere and challenges are everywhere. This is the future!

Monday, 5th April, 2021

Time and Life are strange aren’t they? The past rises out of the mists, tantalises and then sinks back into it. It can be cruel but that always comes as a shock to me. When you expose yourself as I do every day to public scrutiny, you should expect it.  I never learn.

Last week someone emerged from the mists in the most magical way. Our house is full of televisions – 7 in all. I think it is a reaction to being denied one in my childhood.  I had the television in the kitchen on in preparation for watching some recording and a programme that I never watch because it is about skilled arts & crafts was on in the background. I was reading not watching until I heard the name, Linda Konieczny announced. I looked up and said to my wife, I used to teach someone called Linda Konieczny in the early days in the 6^th Form.” It was only later that the mists really cleared.

A lad (now aged 72) from College contacted me and asked if I’d seen Linda on The Repair Shop that afternoon. Only then did I remember her. She was in the year after us but our paths had crossed a few times. I told him about my senior moment of memory. Next thing I know, I get a contact from Linda thanking me for the flattery of thinking she had been my student. She had remembered me quite acutely at college and certainly better than I remembered her. She sent me a photo to help.

It was quite an interesting episode she appeared in when she brought a large, toy racing car in for repair. Her recently deceased father had made it for her. As her name suggests, she is of Polish origin and her father had escaped Nazi internment camp and walked across Europe, finally getting to UK. He was a skilled metal worker and had constructed this mechanical toy at the end of the war but it no longer worked. Seeing it brought back to life was quite magical. Good things do come in small packages if you let them.

My sister Jane who lives on the Pennines when she’s not in her London home, posted a scene from her house on Twitter this morning. A smattering of snow arrived over night.

Yesterday, we spent a few hours sunbathing in the garden and it was so strong Pauline actually burned her neck through her blouse. It is beautiful here again today. At least we don’t expect snow this far south. Dispelling the mists of time, we are going out for a walk while the sun lasts although it is a little cooler this afternoon.

Tuesday, 6th April, 2021

I have been dreading this. I really can’t believe I’m 70 years old but, suddenly, it doesn’t matter at all. I have the loveliest people in my life and nothing else matters at all. Not sure why it’s taken me so long to realise. Perhaps I’m a slow learner and, maybe, some of them are as well. It doesn’t matter, I will go forward in the knowledge that I have them.

The morning has been really delightful with birthday wishes from all around the country and from Europe. As someone once sang, Love is all you need. It is certainly good enough for me. I have all the material things any man could want. How fortunate is that? If I haven’t done so personally, thank you to every one who has wished me well.

It is the most lovely day of warm sunshine. I’ve still done my exercise routine because I’ve just beaten my record of achieving it every day for 54 consecutive days. I’m very target driven. People who set me targets regret it because I never give up until I achieve them. Tomorrow, I will try even harder. My birthday meal will be monkfish and king prawns in tempura batter with green salad and garlic dip. Looking forward to that.

Tonight I’m going to be indulged as I watch Real Madrid v Liverpool followed by another episode or two of Keeping Faith. I have really enjoyed this although I didn’t expect to. It is originally made by Welsh TV but I’ve completely fallen in love with this feisty woman. It is 3 series of 20 episodes all together and you have to watch the first series to really understand the rest. She ‘loses’ her husband and the search is gripping. Anyone who has that much intelligence, fight and determination is really attractive. For me, it is far more compelling than physical beauty.

Wednesday, 7th April, 2021

What a beautiful morning of strong, warm sun from a lovely sky. Sussex is a lovely place to be on these days. Yesterday, an old friend from Manchester saw my photograph of Lunch in the garden and said it’s snowing here. If I never see snow again it will be too soon. You really should be here! We spend a lot of time out of the house because of the weather.

I know everywhere can be lovely and there is pleasure to be taken in all circumstances but the opportunities seem increased in our area. Mind you, I would rather be in the Mediterranean walking on a scorching hot beach.

I calculated that we have spent more than 5 complete years living in Greece over our travelling lives mostly in 6 month spells but also 2 months spells pre-retirement. Our Local Authority clung to the 19th Century Mill holiday pattern of Wakes Holidays which, ironically, was Wimbledon fortnight. I must admit I didn’t bother to investigate its origin more than that at the time. It originated from pre-industrial revolution tradition with a night of prayer which was called a vigil, eve or, due to the late hour “wake”, from the  Old English Waecan.

There is jovial, joyous hour,
Of mirth and jollity in store:
The Wakes! The Wakes!

The Village Festival – Droylsden poet, Elijah Ridings 1802-1872

For years before Retirement, we would fly to Greece for Wakes Holidays fortnight and then drive to Greece for 6 week Summer Holiday. Looking back, I can hardly believe it now. I know we were so much younger but the effort we were prepared to go through for this I wouldn’t even consider now.

We would fly through the night, arrive at Piraeus Harbour for about 4.00 am on Saturday morning and wait for the ferry to board at 8.00 am. I woke up once on a dockside bench being licked by a stray dog and having been bitten badly by mosquitoes. I rather snobbily chose Greece as a more bohemian, intellectual alternative to Spain where so many of our pupils’ families were going. I don’t regret it but we can both afford and crave so much more comfort nowadays. If it hasn’t got a 5* Hotel or villa, what’s the point? We might as well be at home.

Everyone everyone can you hear the soldiers coming
Everyone everyone every man and every woman
We all fall in the end we’re just miracles of matter ….

The one thing that yesterday has taught me is that we are running out of time and must seize the day!

Today we have seized some lovely, fresh fish. The quality of this swordfish and salmon is hard to match. You should taste it.

Got a surprise in the post today. It was a card from a lovely girl who I taught 30 years ago. I don’t know where she got my address from. Must have been playing my game and researching Census returns. As she left, she had been going through a difficult time and I suppose I helped her more than most other pupils I dealt with. I even did a bit of match making for her when she was leaving school. I felt a bit like a Dad for a while. She has been happily married to an ex-pupil for some years and has three, lovely and successful kids.

It just underlined what a sad, old man I am becoming because the card got to me immediately. I am shocked and embarrassed at my current responses. It is looking as if internal travel will be our first trip and Greater Manchester will be our first destination. I will have to go and see her.

Thursday, 8th April, 2021

Lovely morning with lots of sun. Even the window cleaners have turned up so sunlight doesn’t make the windows look dirty. The day got better when I received a phone call from Spain. An Agente Inmobiliario in Aguilas was responding to my request for information on a new-build property.

I like people. I can’t help myself. I have to know the sort of person I am talking to on the phone. Before he could tell me anything about the property, I had got from him that his name was David. He was 32 with 2 kids and he was living in Aguilas but had a home in York. He was born in Ripon where his parents still live. I told him of the obvious coincidence and, by the time I had done, his sales patter was shattered and we got down to business.

We established that I only needed a one bedroom apartment but sea-facing. The floor plan fits exactly what we would need with a huge balcony/outdoor living area for Dining/Relaxing.

The Development still has quite a way to go before completion and we would be buying off-plan with payments in 3 stages before. The price on-line had been a come-on for the cheapest, least desirable but even the €145,000.00 is a steal for what is included. As well as the apartment, the Development has two pools, an out-door gym, restaurant and underground carpark. That is important because we would want to drive there and stay 3 months at a time.

How often do you buy something and, within days of the warranty running out, it breaks down. Well yesterday, I was on the treadmill when I heard a loud clicking. I thought there was a mechanical problem so I got off to look but the clicking carried on. It was my knee. It sounded like starting pistol. I know I was 70 on Tuesday but I didn’t know that marked the end of the warranty! I have completed an average of 6 ml/9.7 km jogging/walking/cycling every single day for the past 3 months which may account for it. Even so, I am loathe to miss a day and rest.

Friday, 9th April, 2021

Lovely, sunny morning but not warm. I’m having my haircut again. I don’t have to wait for Monday. I don’t like waiting for anything especially as time runs out. All things will come to pass. 

We’ve spent less than a week in Spain in our lives. Three years ago, we had the most delightful few days in Valencia. It won me over immediately. We stayed in the rather ornate but very comfortable Valencia Palace which was pleasant but the vibrancy of the city and the lovely people really made the visit. It was one of the few times in my life that I considered myself a ‘tourist’ as opposed to a ‘traveller’. It is bonkers, I know, but I can’t do a ‘standard’, 2 week holiday anywhere for just that reason. I have to go and ‘live’ somewhere for a while.

Our introduction to Spain was through the Canary Islands. We had been to Fuerteventura years ago – the 1980s I think but we found ourselves ‘homeless’ 6 years ago having sold our Surrey home before our Sussex house was completed so we spent 2 months in a hotel in southern Tenerife.

I did French and a bit of Spanish at school and I was quite surprised how quickly I could reacclimatise to Spanish while we were there. The ‘Romance’ languages are quite accessible. We were there for the month of November 2015 and January 2016 and we were basically just transferring our lives from UK to the sunshine. I wouldn’t go to the Canaries for the culture. We did a 3rd month over that year but went to the 5* Adrian Rocca Nivaria in the November 2016.

The problem with the comfortable hotels is the food. It just keeps coming. We had Half Board basis for the 3 months and I was eating Breakfast which I never normally do followed by a huge, buffet meal in the evening and I was piling on the weight even though we were working out in the hotel gym every day.

Saturday, 10th April, 2021

A cool, grey morning and wall to wall coverage of DofE death is just so over the top it’s depressing. Have to do a hard gym session today.

I love photography even if I’m not brilliant at it. I bought an SLR 40 years ago and a Digital SLR around 20 years ago. The equipment is a lot to lug around so I usually find my phone enough nowadays. I take dozens of pictures just to get one good one and, even then, I have to manipulate them on my computer. We have a huge box of pre-digital photos from across the past 40 years. Currently, I am digitizing them through my scanner and putting them up in the Cloud so they are available for my wife when I’m gone.

Yesterday, this little girl popped out of the box. It is a terrible, 1978 photo reminiscent of the time. I am her godfather in spite of being a life-long atheist. Now she has her own, lovely family and looks very happy.

It all feels a bewilderingly long way away. How fate deals with our lives! I like to control things and although time is the one thing we can’t control, we can choose how to use it.

Sunday, 28th March, 2021

Rather overcast this morning with a cool, off-shore breeze. We will go on an hour’s walk mid morning. I’ve been watching the political programmes until I began screaming and looking for another country to live in. Now I’m watching cricket from India and writing. Writing does help.

The next stage of the journey began. I preface this with the view that I don’t believe people really change across their lives. They may add things, develop things, emphasise things, try to hide things but, at core, remain the same.

I started teaching in Oldham in 1972. What more can you say about that? How did I get there? I suddenly felt a failure in every area of my life. I was living alone in a grotty room in a former brothel and working in a tough, mill town school. The only ray of light at all was that I found I was good at teaching. It came naturally to me. It was about the only thing that did. I was desperately isolated, lonely and depressed to think how far I had fallen below my own expectations. Suicide was not out of the question. Teaching was taking all my energies and I turned in upon myself. I looked to music for my solace. Just as The Moody Blues hit me 5 years before so a soul singer, of all people, came into my consciousness from where or why I have absolutely no idea. It was another of those seminal moments that have stayed with me over the years.

Like a primal scream, Lorraine Ellison’s Stay With Me stalked my brain in the dark hours. I knew I had to take control of my life. I was ashamed of the fact that I’d failed. I began a programme of self-improvement which had absolutely nothing to do with teaching and everything to do with learning. I went out and bought books on Art History, on Philosophy and on Politics & Economics. In my grubby, little garret I devoured them avidly. At the same time, I worked hard to get in shape physically. Every day in the early morning I went out running in the local area. If you’d been around at the time, I was the lunatic in a yellow striped, bright purple tracksuit charging down the local roads at 5.30 am. I was trying to expiate my failure.

I was genuinely helped by my friends from College, Kevin & Christine, without whom I’m not sure what I would have done. However, ultimately this can only be done alone. It comes from a sense of self. I realised that I had to rid my head of the primal scream and I thought I could replace it with classical music. Chopin’s Nocturnes started me on my way. It was the time of Ted Heath’s 3 Day Week and miners’ strike. The electricity was going off for hours at a time in the evenings. I had moved to a flat at the top of the brothel. I was really going up in the world although it was still only costing me £5.00/€5.85 per week. I can see myself now up in that garret, absolutely alone and in pitch blackness through the power cuts with Nocturne 20 playing on a battery-powered cassette player. I defy anyone to do that and not to be moved.

I knew I had to get a Degree and I have so much to thank Harold Wilson and Jenny Lee for that as I will explore tomorrow.

Monday, 29th March, 2021

Glorious start to the morning. I’ve even put the mower on to charge to start the season off later today. Pauline’s got more clothes to return this morning so our hour’s walk will be down to the Post Office in the village. So much gets rejected. I can’t remember the last time she kept anything. Still, think of all the money I’m saving! I joke about it but we are some of the lucky ones. Money is piling up with nowhere to spend it while down the road ordinary but genuinely needy people are queuing at Food Banks.

In 1974, I was in need of a lift. I was trying to drown out the primal scream with Chopin and then Rachmaninov which I played incessantly until I knew every note by heart. If you discount work, I largely shut myself off from the world. I found a new life in Art, Philosophy, Politics and History and Music but for my own self esteem I needed to formalise it. In 1969, under the inspiration of Harold Wilson, Jenny Lee set up The Open University. They did it just for me.

I was ashamed of the fact that I hadn’t got a degree and I decided to do something about it. I applied for an Arts course. I could have got funding from the Local Authority but, almost in a sense of self-flagellation, I punished myself by doing everything the hard way. The degree was done in spare time while teaching. The cost was borne totally by me. It was me saying, You deserve all this pain. It’s your fault. Now, get your head down and do it. I worked all day, came home and worked all night. Often, I survived on 2-3 hrs of sleep a night. You can do that when you’re young and desperate. I made no attempt to find companionship. I was too busy beating myself up.

Every Monday evening I travelled to Manchester Business School on Oxford Road for a tutorial between 7.00 – 10.00 pm and then home to write up my notes before catching a few hours sleep and then walking to school at 8.00 am. It was gruelling but essential. The only way was up.

I am strong, when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be.

Suddenly I was being thrown a lifeline and being forced to struggle for it. From Vasari’s Lives of the Artists to Cartesian Dualism, my mind was exploding. Every month new Units of Study were arriving by post and I was actually looking forward to them. I am good at researching and writing essays. What an admission. Why couldn’t I be good at the essential things in life?

Through the writings of Marx and Engels to Mendelssohn’s rediscovery of Brahms, I was growing in self confidence. I do realise how sad that sounds but we cling on to small victories and they were mine. For my 3rd year Honours course I took Twentieth Century Poetry and was lucky enough to have a very special tutor. By day, I was teaching the poetry of Philip Larkin to A Level in school and by night I was being tutored by Larkin’s publisher and Biographer, Harry Chambers. I was in my element. Who would have thought that, as my first Degree came to a close, I would be taken off the market again. I wasn’t even in the market! See tomorrow’s exciting developments …

Tuesday, 30th March, 2021

Up early for a Sainsbury’s delivery at 7,00 am and then a fresh fish delivery after breakfast. Wonderful, wonderful day. The back garden has reached 22C/70F which is slightly warmer than Mojacar Beach in Spain. We have done a really enjoyable walk for just over an hour and then spent lots of time resting with iced white wine and olives on the patio.

So little is happening and moving at the moment in our lives that I have been filling my Blog with retrospectives. It is always helpful to reconsider how we got here. Not living in the past but preparing for the future. At the moment, I am tying it loosely to Music over the years. Music has been so important to me over my life. Very early on, I realised the massive emotional effect it had on me. It seems to speak to a core of my inner life that thoughts and images cannot begin to reach. It may be the sentimentality of an old man but I’ve found this response has increased over time.

Harry Chambers had been Phillip Larkin’s confidant. You don’t get much more impressive than that. He wanted me to write for him but I was already moving on. I had corresponded with a professor at Huddersfield University about my developing political views. Professor Bill Stafford was incredibly encouraging and invited me for interview. He was putting on a research degree course for post-graduates. It was based on a Marxist analysis of the world and covered Socialism and the rise of the Labour Party. It was exactly what I needed. I finished my B.A. in 1979 and started my Masters in 1980.

However, I have omitted two, crucial events. This young lady took me out to Dinner at the end of May 1978. Life changed rapidly and fundamentally and, at the end of June, she arrived at the door of my flat and announced, You’re coming to live with me. I always do as I’m told. Every item of my possessions apart from the bookshelves were crammed into the back of an ancient, white Mini and I moved to Yorkshire. We began a longer journey together of hugely challenging events.

Pauline was a cordon bleu standard chef who trained in London and was teaching Home Economics in my school having previously also owned and run a fashion shop in Oldham Precinct. She was also a nationally accredited Rounders referee. Every day, we would drive across the Pennines to work and back again in the evening. The 15 miles over the bleak moors was so often the most relaxing thing to do. I loved to play at full volume Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. Pauline was incredibly tolerant and indulgent of me. Beethoven was the last thing she wanted in that situation. She liked Elton John, Moody Blues and Fleetwood Mac.

She hardly got a look in. I know and I have learnt over the years that I am a dominant personality. I get my own way and people give in to me. I can control a room and a discussion easily. I have had to try very hard to moderate my opinions and give in against my instincts. I still have to try hard to accept that mine aren’t the only views.

I moved in at the end of June and five months later we were married. It was lovely sharing and exploring a new life. We didn’t have a honeymoon. We married on December 30^th in deep snow and were back at work a few days later. Our honeymoon period lasted almost exactly 18 months when, in June 1980, we were driving to work in our brand new, pageant-blue mini when some office worker in an old, Ford Cortina lost control on the bend as we entered Oldham crossed the road and drove straight through our car virtually cutting it in half. Pauline managed to get out with a gash to her head and damage to her leg. I was dead … or so Pauline and the ambulance men who arrived on the scene thought.

My leg was cut through to the bone but my head had been smashed against the side window causing brain bruising. The ambulance men initially pronounced me dead but had the foresight to put an oxygen mask on me. Apparently, in my unconscious state, I fought like mad against the mask. Two burly ambulance men sat on me to hold the mask on and sat on my leg cut through to the bone. I’m told I made one, last bid for freedom by biting forcefully on the man’s nipple nearly severing it. He left the ambulance screaming and clutching his chest. Although I was dressed in a suit, he asked my wife if I was a builder’s Navvy.

Live or die? All will be revealed tomorrow.

Wednesday, 31st March, 2021

Another lovely morning. Feeling happier than for a while. Must be the sunshine. Pauline has found me a new-build property in Spain for consideration at a fantastic price. Who knows? We’ve even considered buying two and letting one out. Investments here are making nothing so this would be an interesting alternative.

Going out for a walk in the sunshine. At 10.00 am, we are reading 17C/63F but we hope for better this afternoon.

Back to the story and the aftermath of the road accident in June 1980. I have virtually no memory of the next few months. I was unconscious in hospital for the next week and behaving very strangely. Apparently, I was prone to walking round totally naked, asking the nurses inappropriately intimate questions and I took over total control of the ward television. Just reverting to type I suppose. We went to stay with Pauline’s sister and Mum who looked after us in early recuperation but I was out of it for months. I fought hard to get back to work in September but was really struggling with memory loss, concentration and depression – all classic head injury results – and had to take more time off. We did finally achieve a reasonably sized compensation pay-out but nothing made up for that lost year.

One of the things I should have been compensated for was my addiction to Dallas. This rubbishy, American drama was dominating the airwaves as I drifted in and out of consciousness. Half the time, I didn’t know I was watching it as I sat on a sofa dribbling down my chin but, as recovery came, I found I couldn’t stop watching it – not that I felt comfortable admitting it at the time. After all, I was a respectable intellectual.

At this time, I was looking for promotion and preparing to start a Masters Degree and Pauline was doing her BA at the Open University. To make matters worse, just as we began to feel a little better and went back to our own home in Meltham, we were sitting in the Lounge feeling still quite shocked when an almighty bang announced a speeding vehicle had run out of control on the bend and crashed into the side of our house. The house was 120 years old with stone walls so thick a tank wouldn’t have made an impression and the car was the only thing damaged but it was a real shock.

Over the next couple of years, we got Pauline through her Social Sciences Degree and it was real testament to her determination because, for quite a while, I was a nightmare to deal with. What am I saying? I’m always a nightmare to deal with.

I had done 3 years of the most exciting, intellectual challenge of my life. I was Head of Lower Counthill which I found enjoyable and I was left with a 50, 000 word dissertation to write for my research degree to be awarded. I had chosen the works of R.H.Tawney, English economic historian, social critic, ethical socialist, to research. It was extremely demanding on time and money just as we had bought Slade House in Helme, a new car and booked lots of travel to Greece.

I was spending hours combing through the university ‘stacks’ of files in the library basement and lots of trips to the Rotunda Library – Manchester Central in St Peters Square. I was sending off to Oxford University and to Manchester’s John Rylands libraries for copies of rare books. I was doing all this just for my own self esteem. If anything, my professional life was fighting against me in this. Under this pressure, the thesis stalled. The deadline was the end of May 1989. By April, I had given up. It was just too much. Until my wife gave me a good kicking. She had given up too much to let me fail and she knew how much it meant to me. Throughout the Easter holidays I just sat and wrote in long hand page after page of analysis while Pauline typed them up on my first ever computer the Amstrad PCW.

Suddenly everything clicked. My thesis revealed itself as if by magic. It was done. I had to have it professionally typed and bound to publication standard. It had to be with my thesis supervisor, Professor Bill Stafford by the last Friday in May, 1989. Actually, we drove up to his home in Leeds and gave it to him two days late which he accepted. It was done. I felt as if the failures of the past had been salved. But why did it take so long? Why do I always have to do everything the hard way?

Thursday, 1st April, 2021

“April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.”

T.S. Eliot – The Waste Land

Like one of my heroes, T.S.Elliot, I went out early into the garden this morning and smelt the Summer coming. Having gone through a rocky, late Winter patch, I can feel the awakening Spring rain stirring memory and desire. I realise that, as I race rapidly in to 70, every moment must be grasped and savoured. At 7.00 am the ‘official’ temperature is 12C/54F but felt so much warmer in the micro climate of the garden.

It would be strange to list 1989 as the climax of one’s life but, in one sense, it was. What started all those years ago in Ripon College 1969 ended twenty years later in Huddersfield University in 1989. What a long haul but I got there. Of course, life doesn’t stop. We have to seek new challenges. I decided to make a new life in Europe. At the same time, I was trying to improve my cultural development at home.

I wrote a couple of days ago about my dominant personality. Like an alcoholic, I would periodically feel ashamed and give myself a good talking to, make resolutions and then quickly go back to old ways. I was determined to explore art. My research period had incorporated the 19^th century Romantic movement, neo-Gothic, neo-Medieval, Pre-Raphaelite and Arts & Crafts movements. I flooded our house with giant, framed prints of Rosseti, Burne-Jones, Waterhouse and Morris through to Whistler, spending thousands of pounds in the process. My wife said she liked them but I’m sure she had to work quite hard to do so. What a selfish soul I am!

I became obsessed with Waterhouse for a while and actively searched out paintings for the house/Gallery.

Whistler marked the end of this movement historically and in our house. Soon after he arrived on the walls, we were selling up and moving to Surrey. Pauline carefully bubble-wrapped and labelled all 53 huge pictures. They were loaded into a lorry and taken in to store. As soon as we got into our duplex apartment near Woking, it was immediately clear that the paintings were totally inappropriate. They were too big for any of the walls. We gave them to the local Hospice to sell for their charity and for a few years we received information as they sold another and raised more money.

I bought two, leather bound computer chairs for the Office in January. The moment I sat in one, I knew it wasn’t good enough. I ordered two different ones and, today, the originals are going to the local Hospice shop. After that we are doing an hour’s walk along the fringe of the woods that bound our development. The temperature is a pleasant 18C/65C and the sun is tanning my face. I quickly revert to Mediterranean which is polite way of admitting I look old.

Friday, 2nd April, 2021

Awake at 5.00 am and up at 6.30 am. It really is a good Friday. The sky is blue. The sun is out and all seems well with the world. Sainsbury’s delivery at 8.00 am and then a walk.

In the 1990s, I was determined to induct myself into the world of opera. I started with a monthly primer magazine as an introduction and progressed through cassette tapes, video tapes and live performances.

Before I went to my first live performance, I had spent hours listening, learning and singing along to numerous performances. Opera makes me cry. Everything makes me cry. Never attend an opera with me. I was banned by my wife when I took her to a performance of La Boehme by Opera North in Huddersfield. Pauline wanted to leave after the first act because I was singing loudly under my breath while simultaneously sobbing. It’s not something you’d pay good money for is it? ? I loved the emotional fragility of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and the heart breaking pathos of Puccini’s La Boehme. Sunday morning opera sessions in our Lounge were near suicidal!

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you again …

As a counterpoint to this, I want to introduce two, final pieces of ‘pop’ music. I would drive across Europe from Calais to Ancona – 1000mls/1600kms/circa 18 hrs continuous driving. I did all the driving and it can be tiring particularly because we started on the day we closed school for the summer. It is easy to fall asleep at the wheel and, if you don’t drive at an average of 95-100 mph, you may miss the ferry. Consequently, my navigator and partner had to keep talking, pinching and slapping me to stay awake. We always hit the Swiss Alpine downhill roads at 2.00 am in pitch blackness as the rain had softly fallen and made them like glass.

You and me we can ride on a star
If you stay with me, girl, we can rule the world …

We found one other way to maintain concentration. We would play songs and sing along as we drove. My choice was James Taylor. What an intelligent performer! You’ve got a friend / Don’t let me be lonely tonight / Shower the people you love with love /  I could sing them in my sleep although, at the time, the purpose was to not do that. For Pauline, it was Take That. I actually began to enjoy it myself. Back for Good / Relight my Fire / Never Forget. They will always be in my memory and associated with good times. I loved living in Greece with all the challenges it threw up but one of my favourite times was the drive through Europe – Belgium Luxembourg, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy. I drove that route one way or the other exactly 30 times – more than 30,000 mls – and even got to like the same service stations that we called at for coffee.

I’m continuing to explore Spanish properties while they are so cheap. I think it’s got to be a new-build. This one looks ideal. It is in the area of Murcia. Our friends had a property in Mazzaron. This is in Aguilas which is a bit further south and looks nicely positioned. The development has a number of facilities we like with pools and a gym. The apartment has a large balcony and floor to ceiling glass sea views. I’ve sent for details.

Saturday, 3rd April, 2021

Woke feeling a little sad this morning. Outside is grey, cool and distinctly unwelcoming. I’m told it’s Saturday but I really wouldn’t know. It’s strange but, when one feels sad, the world seems to be punctuated with sad things. As I woke at 6.00 am, BBC R4 was broadcasting a programme from Stormont in Northern Ireland. The historic, Good Friday Agreement was negotiated by the wonderful Mo Mowlam 23 years ago and she has been dead now from a brain tumour for 16 years. How transient life is!

On this day 12 years ago we retired from work. We were both 57 although I was going to be 58 in 3 days time. Prior to retiring, I had spent weeks and months calculating our final salary monthly pension, our lump sums and we were negotiating redundancy payoffs as well. I had to balance it all against our outgoings which were dominated by a huge mortgage. It took one entire salary every month. Retiring allowed us to pay it off completely and instantly. As a result, not working meant we were immensely better off. I wouldn’t want you to feel sorry for us. We were never poor but retirement has been wonderful.

One of the things that (some) people worry about in retirement is the gradual erosion of their pension’s purchasing power despite our inflation-proofed income. This happens when wages across the country rise above the inflation rate. The 12 years of our retirement could not have been more useful in this respect. Wages were frozen or went back since the financial crash of 2008 while ours have increased with inflation. We have felt incredibly fortunate and still do.

I quite enjoyed Teaching but I don’t miss it at all. I sometimes miss the sense of purpose that daily work prescribes but there is always that lovely feeling of waking and thinking that we can do exactly as we wish. I like to burn the candle at both ends and always have. Up early and late to bed but now I do it out of choice. Life is short and, in my view, it is important to squeeze as much out of it as possible. Sleeping is not part of that. We had always intended that retirement would be dominated by travel. In fact, we have been travelling since 1981 – 40 long years.

Our first house was on the roadside in a smallish village. Just down the road was the famous David Brown tractor factory. We would regularly see trails of brand new tractors chugging through the woods to their test track. Our first holiday together was to the small, Greek Ionian island of Zakynthos nowadays called Zante. There was no island airport in those days and we flew 4.5 hrs to Athens, 5 hr bus to Killini Port on the Peloponnese followed by a ferry to the island. We were exhausted even as fit 30 yr olds. The very first thing we were confronted with in Zakynthos port was a David Brown tractor.

We had booked 3 weeks in a ‘villa’ in Argassi, Zakynthos. Neither of us spoke Greek, had eaten Greek food or experienced Greek heat in August. Within a couple of days, we were completely hooked. It began a 40 year project which involved more than 15 islands but with the Cycladic island of Sifnos at its heart. I hope to explore that next week but, now, although we can go no where, we are planning for the future which we think will be in Spain. There has to be a future. I will not give up!

Sunday, 21st March, 2021

Glorious, warm – 15C/59F – and sunny morning. Been out for an early hour of walking. Sitting, shattered in the kitchen with the conservatory doors wide open as the sun and warmth streams in. Annoying little reminders keep popping up on my iPad telling me to complete the Census form. I love census data. It is so useful for finding people. It is a researcher’s dream. Of course, everybody should fill it out on pain of paying £1000.00/€1161.00 fine if they don’t.

I filled ours in on line a week ago and payed specific attention to two discrete areas. Religion is one. As a life long atheist, I am delighted to shout that and I was pleased to read predictions that, over a 20 year span, those ticking Christian will have fallen from 72% in 2001 to 59% in 2011 and possibly 48% in 2021. The other area which gave me pleasure was in identifying as European in National Identity. Like so many others, nothing will make me a Little Englander!

As we were planning to establish ourselves on a remote Greek island with a sizeable and potentially expensive  bridging loan for £60,000.00/€70,000.00, we knew we would need to raise money for the building. We put our home in the country on the market and decided to use some equity from that to help. Effectively, we expected to downsize. In reality, we bought a bigger home in a smaller plot of land. We were never at home to look after the garden so it was a sensible swap.

The Helme house sold very quickly, we paid off the loan and moved into Quarry Court on the day we also set off for a drive across Europe to Greece for a six week stay. We thought we were trading down but it turned out to be a delightful place to live with beautiful views and lovely neighbours. The triple garage was a real bonus! We stayed 10 happy years before moving to Surrey via a temporary let in Huddersfield.

We had retired from work, sold our home, were spending 6 months in our Greek home and 6 months in UK. It made sense to have a smaller home. Pauline’s Mum died shortly after we came back from Greece in October 2010 at the age of 97. Having sold our Quarry Court home, we had the unique experience of being with her for her last few weeks and we were living in her sheltered accommodation. We actually slept in the Hair Dressing salon of the establishment. It was worth it. She wasn’t alone.

We had bought a duplex apartment off-plan in the heart of Surrey. We needed somewhere to use for Winter which wasn’t too big and could be locked-up and left for 6 months of the year. It was also so much closer to the Channel Tunnel for our drive to Greece. I’d always fancied apartment living but soon realised it wasn’t really for us and we only stayed 5 years – until we’d sold the Greek house.

Monday, 22nd March, 2021

Bit grey although mild this morning. Bin Day – all 3. How will I cope? At 9.00 am, the Covid tester arrived and we both completed our 10th, throat & nose swab test. Another £50.00/€58.20 in the bank. So far, we have been paid £600.00/€700.00 which should buy us a nice hotel room when we can travel.

I’m looking for small things to cheer me up at the moment. This cartoon appeals to my rather warped sense of humour:

Almost at the end of the journey now although I hope not literally. Once again, we looked to buy a new-build property off-plan. Having left Greece, Pauline was desperate to be near to the sea. The difference about property selling in Surrey was the speed at which it sold and the fact that it had almost doubled in value over 5 years. West Sussex is an incredibly expensive place to live if you compare it with West Yorkshire. It is amusing and shocking to calculate that we could buy 120 of our first home in Meltham in 1978 for the value of our current home in Angmering, West Sussex in 2021. How anyone gets on the property ladder for the first time now?

Who knows what is next? We are never really settled or satisfied. We have become rather addicted to moving and setting up new homes. At one point, it almost became a way of life in itself. In some ways, being itinerant allows one to leave problems in the past like Norman Nicholson described in his poem about a little lad desperate to be older than he is, Rising Five:

The new buds push the old leaves from the bough.
We drop our youth behind us like a boy
Throwing away his toffee-wrappers. We never see the flower,
But only the fruit in the flower; never the fruit,
But only the rot in the fruit. We look for the marriage bed
In the baby’s cradle, we look for the grave in the bed; 
                           not living,
But rising dead. 

Sorry if that is a bit of a depressing note to end on but it rather catches my current mood. …..

Well, the grey skies having completely departed. Not a cloud in the sky as we’ve done our walk in strong, warm sunshine. Hope you did too. There is always hope.

Tuesday, 23rd March, 2021

Up early on a grey start to the day but a little pinprick of sunshine has just broken through and I am very grateful for that. Let’s hope it develops over time.

Just received a text from an old friend which has left me very sad. A couple – Pat & Derek – who were on our staff and about 10+ years older than us retired to the Yorkshire countryside. We last saw them three years ago when both appeared well and happy. A year later, Pat was dead of bowel cancer. Today I learned that Derek has been taken in to a care home exactly on the second anniversary of his wife’s death. His dementia had become such a problem that he was no longer able to look after himself. The huge, strong man who had so much life has fallen in to such a decline that he cannot look after himself over a period of just two years. It is almost unbearable to consider.

I have tried to live my adult life on a calm, controlled and thoughtful level. I am not an actor. My face gives me away immediately. I was quite a good Bridge player because of my memory for numbers and sequences but my face and eyes and body language reflect everything going on inside my head which betrays my game to opponents. I wear my heart on my sleeve and cry easily. As I have written before, music is particularly a trigger. None of these things am I ashamed of. They are part of me. In some respect they are admirable qualities because they speak of honesty and truth. I have never subscribed to the stiff upper lip, be a man approach. I do not feel any weaker because of my character. People who have tried to stand in my way will testify to that!

However, there are times when I would be grateful for the ability to act and to shield my feelings. At College, I took subsid. Drama because it seemed to naturally fit with English Lit.. A lot of it was rolling around on the Hall floor in the darkness pretending to be trees or ghosts which was never me. I spent an enjoyable few days as an extra on an ITV police series in 1971 but mainly because the professionals like Alun Armstrong, were so interesting. The Drama goup had to put on a production and I appeared in Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt which I can’t say I was either good at or particularly enjoyed. I am better analysing the text.

Just like yesterday, the afternoon has turned Mediterranean with clear blue skies and strong sunshine. Been out for an hour’s walk. After spending so many years living in Greece, I find my skin tans very easily. Even March rays are giving me a colour.

Wednesday, 24th March, 2021

The start of the last week of March already. We are well in to the Spring Equinox and clocks go forward at the weekend. In Europe – C.E.T. – this may be the last time. They voted to keep their clocks unchanged and this will make an interesting difference when we/if we ever start travelling again.

I lead quite a strong interior life – thinking, reading and writing. Looking back, I always have. I love physical activity and need it desperately to make me feel alive but I live in my head a lot. The former friend and ex-colleague who I wrote about yesterday moving in to a Care Home for Dementia sufferers made me think over night about my own memory which someone described recently as ‘Dodgy’. Although I don’t think I am at dementia stage yet, my memory has always been extremely selective.

I was lying in bed trying to recall the name of an artist from my past and try as I might, it just wouldn’t come to me. I fell asleep worrying about dementia. I’m sure this happens to most of us at times. I woke up this morning and her name popped straight into my head.

As that name arrived from outer space aka my memory, it brought with it a book I read at around the same time. Although we probably didn’t verbalise it or even acknowledge it at the time, it was an early introduction to socialism in action. I became a student just as the student protests of 1968 were being softened and addressed by European governments.

There was a broad movement in opposition to the Vietnam War all over the United States as well as in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome. Mass movements grew not only in the United States but also elsewhere. In most Western European countries, the protest movement was dominated by students. The most spectacular manifestation of these was the May 1968 protests in France, in which students linked up with wildcat strikes of up to ten million workers, and for a few days the movement seemed capable of overthrowing the government.

I was no radical. I had come from a very middle class, conservative home and very sheltered even stultifying village life. I had never eaten fish & chips out of newspaper for goodness sake and my Mother sent me off to college in khaki slacks, a striped nylon shirt with a mustard-coloured cravat topped off by a newly bought and very expensive £50.00/€58.00 country gentleman’s jacket which I quickly sold to my friend in digs, Nigel. She thought she was doing her best for me in spite of my protests and she was devastated to see me come home in the green coat I bought for £5.00/€5.80 from Millets. She called it a toilet attendant’s coat.

My memory may be dodgy but also rich and selective. I will resist being disposed of yet by anybody.

Thursday, 25th March, 2021

Pleasant but quite cool morning. I’m feeling a bit of a lethargy today. Pauline has been buying clothes and is now vacuuming and steam cleaning all the downstairs floors while I am reviewing travel plans for the coming year. I have jobs to do but just can’t be bothered. 

We recouped all the cash we laid out last year for travel which amounted to about £10,000.00 all together but we allowed one booking to be carried over because of the generous deal on offer. We had booked a suite for 4 days of late August at the Electra Palace Hotel in Athens. We paid in full around £1200.00/€1400.00 long before the pandemic hit in March. It was the first time since 1981 that we hadn’t visited Athens at least once each year. We’ve also got £700.00/€815.00 tied up in flights as well which we deferred. They will have to be rolled over again unless things change rapidly.

We have been regulars at this hotel and they offered to roll over our booking for 18 months and return the cash in full if we didn’t use it. Throughout the last horrible year, we have expected to be there in late August 2021 but, recently, we have begun to have some doubts. We genuinely thought we might be driving in France in June. I’d love to go back to Paris. It seems years since we were there. It appears as if we may have to put dreams of France off a while. All of this is depressing but I am holding the faith. It will happen!

Now I’ve got that out of my system, I’m ready for some exercise. Actually, just before that, my cloud photo storage system’s memory for today is the picture above. We were in our Greek home for school, Easter Holidays and Greek Easter 2008. Half a lamb was collected from Apostolos & Moshca and our lemon trees were fruiting heavily. There is nothing better than picking lemons from your own tree and splashing its ultra-fresh juice on hot, roasting lamb. Must do some exercise!

Friday, 26th March, 2021

We were told it would be raining here today but at 11.30 am there is still absolutely no sign. We were up at 6.00 am for a Sainsbury‘s delivery at 7.00 am. Beautiful, sunny morning. We were doing our walk by 9.00 am. The only problem with all of that is what to do with the long day stretching out when we get home.

I left home in September 1969 and we had never had a television at home before I went. It felt strange because all the lads at Grammar School would be talking about things they’d watched the night before but which I knew nothing about. My parents theory was that it would be too distracting from our homework. Most of my access to popular culture was from the radio and stultifying post-war singalongs like Workers’ Playtime and The Cliff Adams Singers which Mum loved. At school some of the older boys talked about Dylan and Baez and I managed to hear some and they felt as if they were speaking my language.

There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

Oh please let it shake my windows. That’s exactly what I needed. I needed to be somewhere else and that’s when I first heard Go Now by The Moody Blues.

It was one of those seminal moments and it is no exaggeration to say that when I first heard it on pirate Radio Caroline, I thought something had exploded in my head. It was like a signal that was talking to me. I had never been so affected by anything like that before. I had enjoyed the frisson of anarchy that early Beatles had provided as a backdrop to my teenage years but this was something entirely different.

And go I did. I wanted to go to Newcastle University to read English Lit. but I had no conception of the competition at the time for Arts Degrees. When I went up for interview, I was shown in to a candidates room with the most wonderful collection of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen in my life. Never had I wanted to go to university so much but it was all too late. I hadn’t worked hard enough for the 3 x Grade A A’ Levels that they demanded. As so often, the girls were snatched away before I got started.

I grabbed at anywhere that would get me away from home and there were girls. I found an all-women’s training college that was accepting a handful of men. In that interview, they were begging me to take the place. Would I be able to cope with so many young women and only 19 other men? I told them I would do my best. I didn’t need to. I was taken off the market in the first week.

On my first day, I was driven up to Ripon by my mother. Mr & Mrs Boyd were letting out their top floor to students. We carried my trunk up those steep stairs and heard a very loud noise coming from one room. It was a small, communal room with a table and chairs. On the table was a record player blasting out a noise I had never heard in my life. Under the table was a young man who was going to be my Digs companion for the next two years. Nigel, like so many of the other lads in my year, was so much older than me although I didn’t know it at the time. The noise he was playing was Leonard Cohen’s Songs from a Room. My mother looked at me as if she had delivered her eldest son to an alternative circle of Dantes Inferno. She left very quickly for the peace of her quiet Midlands village and never returned.

Saturday, 27th March, 2021

The most beautiful day after a wonderful sleep. Early walk again today. We are expecting an extended warm period over the next week so the garden furniture will be brought out and cleaned up for early use. Goodness knows when we will get abroad. I was even looking at hotels in Paris yesterday and then the news that Pas du Nord had gone in to tougher lockdown measures rather put me off.

You, who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so, become yourself
Because the past is just a goodbye

Teach Your Children – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

At the risk of boring you, I am going to continue with the theme of My Music including a story that I have never spoken to anybody about in 50 years. I busked my way through much of college time doing as little as possible. I remember talking in a tutorial about a Joseph Conrad novel, The Secret Agent for about 20 mins having only read the blurb on the back of the book. I was very pleased with myself although I learnt later that my tutor had been in despair.

I was just too busy learning what life was about, learning what sort of person I wanted to be, learning a code to live by. I wasn’t even that sure I really wanted to be a teacher. I learnt I hated discos but I loved music. The college discos were playing Motown which I really didn’t appreciate and Elton John was also particularly popular. He did little for me either although I liked his piano playing.

In our final year, I had to write a dissertation and with the help of my dear, old friend, David MacAndrew, I chose to write on the poetry of Cumbrian poet, Norman Nicholson who I’d done a poetry reading with at Leeds Town Hall. It is the only time I worked really hard and enjoyed it. I actually spent time in the Library researching.

I knew a lot of the students who worked in the Arts Block and they had practical Exhibitions to put on instead of a thesis. They had to put in hours of work in this separate building before they were finished. On the ground floor of that building was a piano. The room was always empty and quiet and I sat there in the evenings while the others worked upstairs on their exhibitions. It was a lovely opportunity to have the piano to myself. Night after night I played down there alone. I was teaching myself a slow, sad tune. The left hand was syncopation and the right hand overlaid cadences of sadness.

One evening a figure appeared in the room as I played. It was a lady with grey-white hair scraped back into a bun like a typical, spinster school ma’am. I think her name was Miss Rimmer – a teacher in the Art Faculty. So you’re the source of this sadness night after night, she said. Yes, I’m sorry, I replied. No, not at all. I’ve been enjoying it, she said and left. The next evening as I played, she came in and said, Move up. and she sat next to me on the stool. Much more expertly than me, she took over the left hand and we played for a few minutes. With a twinkle in her eye, she was gone. We never spoke about it again but I learned that the piano is the most moving instrument to accompany the human condition as I will describe in the dramatic developments of the next stage of life in Sunday’s Blog.

One, final coda to this stage: David MacAndrew and Tony Axon – my English tutors – and a lecturer who I did a brief Philosophy unit with all tried hard to persuade me to stay on for a 4th year to complete a Degree. I assume it was a B.Ed.. Possibly I should have done but was just too keen to get in to the next stage of life. I wanted to build a life. I thought I could do it. It proved harder than I expected.

Sunday, 14th March, 2021

Out for an early walk this morning under a weak sun. It is amazing how short 5 miles begin to feel the more you do the same route.

Time and perspective across it have been occupying my thoughts for a while and I suspect my upcoming 70^th birthday is partly the driver of that. There is a desire to look back as much as forward when more stretches behind than appears in front. I have something of an understanding of my origins in family and place. Recently, I have been reaching out to that intermediate time when I left home and started to forge a life for myself.

It is a shock to think that I left home over 50 years ago. A couple of months ago, I put a photo up of Pauline & I celebrating 42 years of marriage. A girl who I knew at College and who I haven’t seen since a party in Rochester, Kent in 1974 saw my posting and contacted me to say she would have been celebrating her 49^th this year had things worked out for her. I immediately felt sorry that my posting had evoked that emotion in her but it left the images of her, her ex-husband who I had shared Digs with, the place, the events, the feelings, the music, the art, the poetry flooding through my head, almost overwhelming my Present. On Friday, I was watching an cricket match in India when she announced she was doing exactly the same thing. A simple thing but an absolutely weird feeling reaching across 50 years!

I have an unbearable desire to reach my hand across the time to touch the past. It’s not so unusual. People like to touch old artefacts – Stonehenge, Roman coins, etc. – in an attempt to feel a connection with past times. My need is almost visceral. I have always had this desire to return to places I have known if only to touch base. Sometimes, they disappoint but it still fulfils a need.

Last night I forced Pauline to endure a difficult, historically-based film. Fanny Lye Deliver’d is a British period drama film, set in Cromwell’s period of 1657 on a Shropshire farm. It stars Maxine Peake who I love. It is a difficult and slow first half hour and an almost unbearable subsequent hour. How anyone really managed to survive the conditions of life in mid-17^th Century England goodness only knows. A life of harshness and cruelty, of cold, dark, smoky, wet and muddy, insanitary existence. I do not have any desire to reach back that far.

Monday, 15th March, 2021

Half way through March already. What is happening? Well, it’s a sunny, mild day but we know that is deceptive because cold weather is due to return later in the week. At least that will be moderated down here.

Went on a blind date with a girl who mixes concrete for a living. Things were going great till I put my foot in it.

I’m a bit set in my ways.

Major panic this morning. The bin men came early. Only black bag today so I just managed to catch them.Wouldn’t want you worrying about me.

Amazing how memories can fade unless they have real meaning. I have never been one for going to pubs or clubs. I prefer small, intimate gatherings. I think I could count all the pubs I’ve been to over the past 50 years on the fingers of two hands. The poorly focussed image above is of our Student Union building where I would make a mad dash at night to be there in time for Last Orders. Actually, the barman, who was called Maurice and who boasted that he regularly drank 12 pints a night, was easily open to extending the deadline for friendly people like me. What worries me is that I probably look as out of date as those cars!

Tuesday, 16th March, 2021

Up early for a 7.00 am Sainsbury’s delivery on a warm morning. The kitchen still smelled of the aromas of Pauline’s activities yesterday afternoon.

She normally makes wholemeal but had white flour to use up or throw away. With one or two lapses, I have not eaten bread for nearly ten years. I have not eaten potatoes, pasta or rice either. The sources of carbohydrate fuelled my blood sugar and Type 2 Diabetes. Cutting them out completely eradicated my Diabetes and absolutely amazed my doctor.

Yesterday, I was contacted on Twitter by Dr. Mitchell. That name haunts me. Having recently retired, he was burning stacks of his old case notes. In May 2000, I went to see him about a back problem. His first words were, Never mind your back. Can I come and view your house? which we had just put on the market. He was in the middle of developing his Practice surgery in Meltham. Our house was in the lovely, nearby, Conservation village of Helme. A Huddersfield Town footballer came to bid for it as well but, eventually it went to the doctor who we’ve stayed in touch with ever since.

It’s turned in to quite a mild day – 15C/59F – but rather grey and uninviting. I’m doing a workout in the gym and watching Politics Live. Later, we will griddle Tuna steaks out in the garden and eat them with green bean salad. If only I’d stuck to this diet while living in Yorkshire. I wouldn’t have to struggle so hard now.

Wednesday, 17th March, 2021

Beautiful, sunny and warm morning. We are going to have a walk on the beach before High Tide. Still feeling like a hand grenade has been thrown in to my life and I can’t understand why. Still picking up the pieces. The header on my Blog carries the T.S. Eliot line:

These fragments I have shored against my ruin ….

and I feel I need them more than ever now. Partly because of that, I am continuing to spend some time digitising and preserving past memories.

Slade House, Helme on the day we moved in – October 1984 – was fairly raw land. It had
¾ acre of garden which attracted me. I wanted to grow things.

We were very busy at work and wanted to develop a good garden with lawns and shrubs on one side but with a deep bed vegetable patch down the other as an antidote to our daily lives.

It was very hard work but great fun. I found I really loved gardening and, particularly, growing vegetables as my father had done before me. A local man installed the hard standing and the beds. Pauline did the weeding. I just enjoyed growing things.

During our time there, I was head of a school housed in a pagoda-style building which first opened in 1891. All the furniture was original, ornate, integrated mahogany. Every classroom, office, toilet had these huge, heavy doors. Every classroom and office had built in storage units/bookcases fashioned just like the doors. When it was finally closed and demolished, I had the door of my office delivered to my Yorkshire home. Pauline stripped it of a century of paint and had it installed as our back door. As a tangible connection with the past and my past, it really appealed to me.

In reality, we probably spent too long there. I loved it and resisted Pauline’s urgings to move on, make a profit and reinvest. We did sell it for 4x the price we bought it and I did finally realise that there was a life beyond Helme.

These images and thoughts swirled round my mind as we walked for an hour this morning. One of the people we will visit when we return to the North will be the doctor and our old property. I wonder what happened to the door?

Thursday, 18th March, 2021

Everything in our house is insured and serviced comprehensively. Nothing is left to chance. Today, the house security system is being serviced. The maintenance contract only cost about £100.00/€117.00 per year and probably isn’t needed so often but we set it up anyway. The boiler/central heating was done recently although at just 5 years old, it shouldn’t really need it. Today, our new house warranty which covered everything from structure to decoration, fittings and white goods comes to an end. Tomorrow, we’ll probably find the dishwasher, washing machine, wine cooler, fridge-freezer, built in oven, etc, will pack up in acknowledgement of the passing deadline. They don’t have to worry. We’ve got them covered.

I’m digitising houses at the moment and this was our first – a 19th century Coaching House in Meltham. In June 1978, all my worldly possessions were packed in to the back of an old, white mini and delivered to this house above. We spent our first 6 years here. It had 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, large kitchen, large lounge and a walk-in pantry. Outside was an open double garage with inspection pit for when the Rolls-Royce was stored there and serviced by the chauffeur of the big house.

Pauline liked to scour the local antique/junk shops for period pieces to furnish it. She found the wallpaper in a Philips television advert in a magazine. I wrote to them and they told me it was from Osborne & Little. We sourced the wallpaper and bought the TV which you can see is state of the art. My one real claim to DIY fame was to open up the fireplace, source the stone surrounds from a local quarry and install them along with the hearth.

Sunday mornings were often spent collecting logs for the fire from our nearby wood. It was all so long ago. We sold this property in 1984 for 10 x the price we bought it and it gave us the platform to move on and up.

Friday, 19th March, 2021

On the 14th April, 2000, I had been 49 for just over a week. We had finished school early for Easter Holidays and dashed home to Helme, got out of our suits and into our jeans. We stuck our pre-packed bags into our car and set off for Manchester Airport. The flight to Athens airport – the now defunct Ellinikon International – was late evening so we ate in their best restaurant before take-off. The flight was timed to arrive at around 3.00 am in time for a bus down to Piraeus Harbour and the F/b Agios Giorgios via Kythnos & Serifos to Sifnos. Leaving at 8.00 am, it was a 5½ hour ferry journey which always left us exhausted.

We were renting Villa Margarita for a fortnight and a small car to get around. Very soon after we arrived and settled in, we were offered a 4 acre field across the valley to purchase. It was far too big and much more than we wanted to pay for land. Back in 2000, it seemed very expensive at £60,000.00/€71,000.00 just for a big field. We hadn’t got that amount sitting in our Bank Account for such an event.

Pauline phoned our bank on her mobile from this little blob of rock in the middle of the Aegean sea. She asked to speak to our personal account manager. She could hear her assistant calling across the office in the 10 Yorkshire Street Branch in Oldham. Sue – our personal account manager, could be heard to shout, What do they want? The assistant said, A bridging loan for £60,000.00 to build a house on a Greek island. Sue’s instant reply was, Tell them ‘Yes’.

We had good jobs and decent salaries but even we were a bit surprised how easy it was to get the money. Sue, our personal manager, who became a friend before she moved on to work for the Private Bank of Coutts, had already visited our island of Sifnos and had dreamed of having a house there. After agreeing the loan, she visited the island again and viewed the field she had helped us invest in. She was personally invested in our project which would take nearly 5 years to fully realise.

More about the Greek Story tomorrow. Yes, I know you’re desperate but, like all good things, it will come later. Today is the most magnificent, warm and sunny day. We have driven out 50 mins in to Hampshire and are visiting Hayling Island and walking on the beach in this wonderful weather. Walk with me.

Saturday, 20th March, 2021

Mild, grey morning. Went out early for some fresh, sea air around Littlehampton. Fishing boats were gutting and preparing their catch, tossing the waste into the sea for the gulls.

Returning to our Greek project which had begun in 1984 by a chance browse through a travel brochure for me. A now defunct company called Freedom Travel specialised in isolated, Greek islands. A picture of a gorgeous, bare chested girl emerging from the sea on the island of Sifnos in the Cyclades caught my eye and I told my wife that was where I wanted to go. We booked for the summer and were absolutely hooked. We returned every year, usually twice a year until we decided to build a property for ourselves. 

Our Greek friend who found the land for us assured me that we could build a small house for around £50,000.00/€59,000.00 on top of the cost of the land. I wanted to believe him and, although sceptical, tried hard to convince myself that it was something I would regret if we didn’t at least try. About 5 years later and at least £200,000.00/€236,000.00 poorer, we were able to move in. It was never going to be easy but we hadn’t realised how demanding it would be. The processes of officialdom the Greek state puts in place are really daunting. We would not have managed without the support of a Greek friend holding our hand all the way.

We had to rely on our Greek friend to manage the project while we worked hard in UK to earn the money to pay for it. We had massive mortgages and were constantly sending additional tranches of £20,000.00 at a time without really knowing what it was funding. We were flying out at Easter for 2 weeks and driving there for 6 weeks and the rest just carried on without us.

I would get calls on my mobile in school from our architect in Athens speaking Greek rapidly which completely stretched my ability but, by 2005, the shipping container we had been urgently filling with beds and tables, chairs and benches, a full IKEA flatpack kitchen, a log burning stove, television, etc., was driven from the port up to our house, installed and we started to live quietly above the port.

We were incredibly pleased to have been the first on the island to have installed underfloor heating and we were able to transport the quality of our English life to a small, Greek island.

We were not there to downgrade our life but to graft the simplicity of Greek island life onto comforts of our UK existence.

We had to have satellite tv, internet access, residential affluence allied to Greek island charm and I think we achieved it.

In late 2014, things started to crash around us and we were so relieved to sell up and get out unhurt. We look back now with such relief. How could we have managed this under a pandemic let alone the iniquitous Brexit! We are about to be 70 but are already thinking of buying abroad again. We can’t just sit around waiting to die.

Sunday, 7th March, 2021

The morning opened beautifully all round. Strong sunshine encouraged us out early. We went down to the beach. We’ve been here almost 5 years now but have never seen the Oyster Pond being cleaned out. The displaced swans were flapping around on the beach.

All around Europe, coastlines have been experiencing extremely low tides. Kamares port on Sifnos has seen its beach stretch well out into the sea over the past week. Littlehampton Beach is usually shingle but consists currently of vast swathes of sand.

The deserted breakwater reaches out as if for a hand to hold but in vain. Sometime soon, the tide will come back in and envelop it in the soothing waters that are its destiny and purpose.

I had a horrible ‘senior moment’ yesterday. When she was 96, Pauline’s lovely Mum was in and out of hospital quite frequently. When she was at home in her apartment, she had a rigorous skincare routine. All the stuff that women plaster their bodies with was applied. In one of her final hospital visits, Pauline was at her bedside and helped her walk to the toilet. As she passed a mirror and not having her creams and lotions with her, the 96 year old exclaimed, Oh no, my wrinkles are coming back. It was one of those seminal, never-give-in moments. Yesterday, I found a wrinkle on my arm!!!

Pauline has asked my help to find some friends from her college in London 1970 – 73. It doesn’t exist anymore having been absorbed by London University. If you don’t know, Pauline is the blonde on the back, left. I always went for the small, intelligent ones but rarely for blondes. I’m proud to say that I never asked a girl out in my life. I always got selected by them. Actually, I don’t think I was capable of such a nerve-wracking move. I didn’t and still don’t understand girls.

Monday, 8th March, 2021

Cold over night and we opened the morning with yet another lovely, sunny day but only around 10C/50F. Feeling a bit of an emptiness this morning. Something is missing. Just going through the humdrum of everyday life. Putting the bins out, unstacking the dishwasher and so on. Had to do my Official INR and email it off to Worthing Hospital. Spent some time in the gym not exercising but servicing the equipment. I’m not practical at all so I had to have an Assistant who is.

I have been trying to find a photo of the College building Pauline spent three years in at the start of the 1970s. I get accused of living in the past but we all need to touch our history at some stage. My need is just much greater than some others. The college was absorbed in to London University by 1978 and the building demolished. We think this is a photo of its last years.

In 1972, a friend and I were looking for teaching jobs. Ironically, one of the first places we looked was in London. I had a job interview in Ealing. I was offered a post teaching English but my friend, who I think was looking in Haringey, wasn’t so we moved on. However, I’ve been sent this unwritten and pristine postcard which features a private residential Club in Lansdowne Road, Tottenham. I knew immediately what it was but not my historical connection to it. I can actually remember walking down Lansdowne Road but did I stay there? I have no memory. Answers on a postcard, please.

Done an hour’s walk in lovely sunshine and I’m now going to finish off with another hour in the gym. Give me strength!

Tuesday, 9th March, 2021

Woke at 5.30 am and felt real optimism and hope. Who knows why. We were having a Sainsbury’s delivery at 7.00 am but that certainly wasn’t it. Quite cold – just 2C/36F – but blue sky and sunshine as far as the eye could see. Pauline’s iPad had given her notification over night that the order would not arrive until 8.00 am and would not contain skimmed milk. No skimmed milk? Who can live without that?

So it was for that we were out to our nearest supermarket, Asda Ferring, at 7.00 am. I was walking round the enormous carpark in the sunshine while Pauline indulged herself and went shopping for skimmed milk. It doesn’t get much better than this!

As soon as we got back, I made a digital card for one of my little sisters – Catherine who prefers to call herself Cathy nowadays. She is 66 which shocks me because it makes me feel old. People tell me not to worry but approaching landmark ages such as 70 does make one question one’s own mortality. In the end, of course, we can run away and hide or seize the day. It is our choice. My day is going to be seized by going for a long walk in the sunshine. Actually, it might be a bit painful because I’ve twisted my knee. This is what you get for carpe diem at (nearly) 70!

My cloud storage system throws up photographs of the past which I haven’t see for years. This morning it is really poking fun at me by putting up a picture taken almost exactly 40 years ago. I was 30 years old and spending 3 weeks on the island of Zakynthos/Zante. The worrying thing is that I remember the island. I remember the villa. I just don’t remember a body like that at all. Unfortunately, not many people do. Oh, my knee hurts!

We should have our second vaccination in early April – 2 days after I’m 70 – and be largely safe by the end of that month. How we will feel and what we will do, I have absolutely no idea. Today in the gym I will be watching a Swedish wartime love story with subtitles which is how I twisted my knee because I find it hard to read and run at the same time. Trouble is, I don’t learn.

Wednesday, 10th March, 2021

First grey day for a while. Not cold but only 8C/46F overnight. As a sun-worshipper, I find greyness depressing. Looking for lightness elsewhere in life instead so I’m continuing to mine the treasure trove of memorabilia I’ve been exploiting recently.

I went to a Grammar School which rather fashioned itself on the Public School ethic of Academic and Sporting excellence. I didn’t excel academically. I did in sport. My school was renowned for its Rugby Union and I was a big, strong, fast-running lad who was up for a fight. I absolutely loved it. I got my First Team colours a year early and played on the Left Wing. I played for Staffordshire. I was a sprinter and was made captain of the school Athletics team. I was constantly training but not revising for exams.

At College in 1969, the dominant sports were Football and Cricket. I was an embarrassment at both of them but there were just not enough ‘men’ to fill the teams so I was drafted in. As more men arrived in subsequent years, I was very understandably dropped. If Kevin is reading this, he will be nodding in agreement. Even so, my hairstyle was more of a joke than my sporting prowess as the photo above illustrates.

A lot of pandemic exercise has involved walking by the sea. My precious smartphone is clutched tightly in my hand and used to photograph anything of interest. It also collects location which is recorded and mapped. Never commit a murder or have an affair! What does it say about my life that my movement map is so restricted?

Thursday, 11th March, 2021

Didn’t sleep well. The night was dominated by the disturbance of strong, blustery wind which is so unsettling. I know I’ve quoted these lines before but they are so apposite.

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet …

Ted Hughes – Wind – The Hawk in the Rain, 1957

In Hughes case, the atmospheric situation mirrored the turmoil in his mind, crashing around in the darkness towards a decision. It is possible to view that as a romantic, dramatic conceit or the attempt to describe an internal struggle.

The morning broke with beautiful sunshine but blustery, cool winds. We went down to the sea where a high tide was boiling on to the beach driven on by the wind. Actually, there were windsurfers out in the huge waves but few takers for coffee in the sunshine.

The afternoon finished in a gym session which will mean I have achieved my effort target every day for the past 30 days and covered 170 miles. Looking forward to expanding horizons again soon and walking in Mediterranean sunshine. The news isn’t good across Europe in that infection rates are surging again while tourism centres of Greece, France, Italy and Spain are hoping to gear up for the Summer. Here, we are told that the vaccine has much weaker effectiveness in Cancer sufferers and those with a depleted immune system which must be worrying.

It has been a dramatic day – for me a dénouement and the evening sky confirmed it. Ever seen something like this? It felt barely real. Let’s hope it portends a better future!

Friday, 12th March, 2021

Up early on an uncertain new day. Sainsbury’s delivery at 7.00 am. Lovely, sunny morning that was quickly interrupted by heavy, driving rain. That seems rather how life is at the moment. Hope for the best but expect the worst ….

“I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

‘Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ – W. B. Yeats

The rain stopped and, just needing to get out of the house, we drove out to the nearby historical town of Steyning which dates back to Anglo Saxon times. It has a 12th Century church and many Tudor and earlier buildings. Parts reminded me of Chester, parts of Montreux in Northern France. I can’t stop living in the past.

I must admit, it made me feel rather old just going out for the sake of it – filling the time sight seeing but this is what we seem to have come to.

It is 27 weeks since Pauline had her hair cut. This morning we both remarked that it was looking better than ever. When I first met her in 1973, her long, blonde hair flowed down to her bottom. In recent years and particularly when she went to Sassoons, it has got progressively shorter with age. She hasn’t got even a hint of grey and Lockdown may prove a turning point for style.

Saturday, 13th March, 2021

Torrential rain storm battered the house in the middle of the night … so I’m told. I slept through it. The morning has opened with lovely sunshine but still breezy.

An item on R4 Today programme caught my attention this morning. It was about F.O.R.E or Fear of Re-Entry. For people who have been shielding – at least in part – over the past year, going back in to society raises some anxieties. People teetering around the age of 70 like us will have concerns about the effectiveness of the vaccine, the dangers of becoming infected if we return to ‘normal’ life suddenly. I haven’t been in a shop for so long that I’ve forgotten what they look like on the inside.

The first test will be when Pauline goes for a haircut. I will sit in a coffee shop for an hour or so. Mind you, if it’s as socially distanced as last time I took this photo, it shouldn’t raise concern.

What we really want to be doing is travelling, driving to the North of England and then right across Europe. We normally make two trips to Yorkshire/Lancashire each year to visit old friends and I can’t wait to do it again. We set retirement plans to travel across Europe and have done plenty of it but this year has been so hard – trapped and aging.

We have been so used to just deciding at the drop of a hat that we need some cultural change and booking Gatwick flights and a hotel over the ‘net’ and going. It is one of the joys of a comfortable retirement. Three years ago, on a whim, we spent some time in the city of Valencia. It was an absolute revelation. The weather was wonderful and the people delightful.

If I were to choose one place to move to now, it would be Valencia. Just a little apartment would do which we could run to for a few weeks when we felt like it. Even the flight is only a couple of hours which makes it all so easy. The time is running out. It would need at least £100,000/€117,000 to get something really comfortable which is what we would want. How many years would we use it for?

Sunday, 28th February, 2021

The end of February has been marked by the most wonderful day. From first thing the sun is blazing down. It is only 14C/57F but many in the neighbourhood are in t-shirt and shorts. The Sunday Times featured two items this morning over breakfast. The front page had a stunning photo of our local beach at Rustington.

It also featured a survey of the healthiest and happiest areas of the country to live. West Sussex featured prominently. I have to say, we aren’t surprised.

Even so, after watching the early political programmes, we went down to the sea just because we could. We drove through the old part of the village which is so dilapidated but looks typically of faded fishing community.

Even so, there are small boats going out every day. Down here on Littlehampton Marina, squalls of seagulls were marauding some boats as they moved their catch on to the docks. It is nice, just occasionally to stop and stare. It is quite calming. Let’s hope it presages a good week ahead for all of our readers.

Monday, 1st March, 2021

New month and new resolve to make the best of life. Have had a bit of a rocky week but have come through the other side feeling more reassured and stronger. Maybe I will write about it sometime. Now is not the time.

What a wonderful day it is Today. The weather is fantastic with bright sun from Dawn to Dusk and 15C/59F. Pauline has had a project. She is a chef. She loves cooking. She is making Beetroot Chutney. It is wonderful with cheese and salad. It will store for a year or more. Chutney making can stink the whole kitchen/house out because of the vinegar. We had a lovely, warm day and an outdoor kitchen for the cooking so no problem at all. 

We did a 5 mile walk at mid day to drink in the sunshine and get our hearts pacing. We didn’t have lunch. I am making a concerted attempt to control my appetite. I do so envy skinny people! I’m never going to be one. We griddled Swordfish Steaks out in the sunshine of the garden and ate it with Greek Salad and a bottle of Rioja. I have a feeling I might sleep well for the first time in a week.

Tomorrow, Dear Readers, Irish Partition politics – a subject which is dominating my thoughts this week. I will be looking forward to editorial suggestions as we go.

Tuesday, 2nd March, 2021

Another gorgeous morning. Up at 6.00 am. Sainsbury’s delivery at 7.30 am. And so the day starts. There follows quite a long Blog Post but it could be interesting if you stick with it. What else have you got to do? Certainly nothing more important.

I have recently been accused of living in the past. Very unkind, of course, because I’m a Historian. That’s what we do. Some try to suppress the past for fear of what it may reveal. Others try to embrace it as a guide to the future. During this pandemic and with restriction of movement really stopping us travelling, I have been enjoying filling in the background of my knowledge. My antecedents on my Mother’s side were Irish. My Grandfather was James, Joseph, Jeremiah Coghlan. He was born in Brighton (ironically, just down the road from where I now live) but his parents were from southern Ireland. Unfortunately, the connection is not close enough to claim Irish/EU citizenship.

Grandad’s name was Coghlan (an anglicisation of the Irish surname Ó Coghláin) and my Grandma’s maiden name was Curley which is a Gaelic Irish name. Actually, her Mother was Fanny Curley which conjures up a wholly different image altogether. Born in to poverty and second class citizenship, both made good careers for themselves.

Grandma was a highly respected seamstress and tailor. Grandad started as a Cabinet Maker/French Polisher but with huge effort and enthusiasm taught himself the antique business and he became really adept in his own business of buying up old antiques, restoring and selling them at a big profit. There’s a bit of the Irish Tinker in there somewhere but, when he retired from London to our Midlands village, he would march round in his bowler hat, city coat and silk scarf as if he was still in the city. Like me, living in the past.

People of my age were brought up with a news backdrop of ‘The Troubles’. Effectively the war being waged by the IRA was on what they saw were the occupying forces of oppression – the English. Not many bother to understand the origins of all this. I wasn’t completely clear myself until I started reading and I have enjoyed watching some dramatisations set in it as well.

The 18th Century was known, notably by Thomas Paine, as the Age of Reason and it came to an end rather abruptly with the onset of revolution. The French Revolution (1789-99) put the skids under the established order all round the world. The 1798 Rebellion in Ireland can be traced to the setting up of the Society of United Irishmen in Belfast, preparing to throw off the yoke of their foreign occupiers. Its aim was to remove English control from Irish affairs. Their bloody rebellion of 1798, however, resulted in the 1801 Act of Union, which brought Ireland tighter still under British control.

The treatment of the Irish was unjustifiable and brutal. As the two dramas featured above make clear, the Irish had little choice and were totally justified in their fight back during the post WW1 Irish War of Independence. They won an uneasy partition which still holds but can never hold until the whole of the island of Ireland is one. It has always seemed so obvious to me although I hadn’t bothered to research the background.

I cry at the drop of a hat and I’ve never been too proud to admit it. It is usually for other’s pain rather than my own. I have spent three or so hours exercising in the gym while watching these dramas play out and weeping copiously. It is not a pretty sight watching an old man on a jogging machine running with tears filling his eyes.. It is so hard to believe that human beings can do such unspeakable things to their fellow man. If you watch no other film in life, Ken Loach’s award winning film: The Wind that shakes the Barley is a must. If you have a strong stomach for fortitude and tragedy, the mini-series Rebellion on Netflix since 2016 honours the 100th anniversary of the start of the Easter Uprising in 1916.

It was tantamount to treason to express support for the IRA during the early part of my life. The establishment would brook no idea of it as the border violence continued and the UK mainland was bombed. The history was immaterial. It took Tony Blair and Mo Mowlam to change this view and just last week, Roy Greenslade, former editor of the Daily Mirror, has revealed that he was an active supporter of the cause but couldn’t reveal it because he would lose his job. This week and because of his revelation, he lost his job. Plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose.

Wednesday, 3rd March, 2021

A pleasant, mild if slightly greyer morning. Even so, the world seems to be announcing a move forward. All around us here, the trees, bushes, woodland banks are budding, shooting, displaying Spring flowers and resounding to the gorgeous sound of birdsong.

I  have written about this before so regular readers will know that I love post landing on the mat. I am rather like an overenthusiastic puppy who hears the stimulus sound and bounds to be first to get it. Actually, over the years, my wife has learnt not to interfere. She leaves me to collect and open all post. I even love ‘junk’ mail but, recently, it has become far too targeted for comfort.

I will be 70 in just under 5 weeks time. Age has never really worried me in the past. I haven’t had a wish to go back and be younger. I don’t fear death. Pauline refuses to even acknowledge it. She asserts that she will never die. Both our fathers died at 49 and the genetics did concern me but reaching 50 allayed that concern. However, we both realise that the impending landmark of 70 is significant. For me, although I am reasonably fit and healthy, it is suddenly starting to feel a little bit like time is running out. There are so many things I want to do but time is running out and Covid & Brexit are, in part, stopping me doing them.

I am Type 2 diabetic although in complete remission and have atrial fibrillation which makes me a bit more susceptible to Covid. For that reason, we have been extremely careful over the past year. We were both very shocked when a lovely neighbour in her 40s pushed a note through the door recently saying she hadn’t seen us for a few days and were we alright; did we need any shopping done?

That lovely gesture from our neighbour absolutely shocked us both. She clearly saw us as old and vulnerable. All my life I have seen the vulnerable as in need of my help. Suddenly, the boot was on the other foot. It made me almost feel vulnerable myself.

That vulnerability seems to be being exploited by the commercial world. I put my life out for all to see and my demographic is available to be exploited. I know I can expect this sort of targeting but it doesn’t fit with who I see in myself. A well know sportsman died this week at the age of 82. My first reaction was, That seems very young. He was involved in sport and fitness. Since my youth, I have not been although the past 12 years of retirement have seen me try to readdress this.

I hope I live to 101 and get to resolve so many of my desires. I have made mistakes across my life that I have been trying to address in retirement. Some have been done and some are still pending. However, I am not yet ready to address my funeral. Actually, I have already told my wife that, when necessary, she can put me out in a bin bag and leave me out for the waste collectors. I will try to die on a Sunday night because Black Bag is collected on Mondays.

Thursday, 4th March, 2021

Grey, mild and overcast day. I’m watching Test cricket from India where the weather is quite different. I usually run this on the TV in the Office while doing other work. And so it is today. My Masters Research Degree is in political history. I like politics, history and research. I have been doing it for years.

The web is so valuable. To find people and explore connections I use Ancestry.com, 192 People Finder and UK Census Online. Actually, the Census is coming round again very soon.

While one side of my family originated in Ireland, the Sanders (son of Alexander) side are rooted in the English Midlands. I was born in Repton, the capital of Murcia. In Anglo Saxon times, Paeda was the first Christian King of Mercia and his son was called Piddock. The surname Piddock was first found in Somerset where they held a family seat from early times and their first records appeared on the early census rolls taken by the early Kings of Britain to determine the rate of taxation of their subjects.

The Piddock Family motto was:

Seigneur, je te prie, garde ma vie / Lord, I beseech thee, save my life.

Putting aside the ‘Lord’ bit, I’m beginning to feel that way myself. It is the age old wish. The difference is that we are more likely to be granted this wish than our ancestors.

I am determined to stay alive and, in the past 8 weeks, I’ve walked/cycled/jogged 310 miles or 499 kms. No wonder I’m tired! Looking forward to my meal of homemade salmon fishcakes and homemade baked beans. And so to dream ….

Friday, 5th March, 2021

Had a text conversation with my skinny, little sister, Liz late last night. I hardly ever use text messaging. I much prefer email where I can write in paragraphs and integrate pictures into the text. It is much more conducive to expressing developed thoughts. However, I’ve been using it a bit more recently and quite enjoyed it. It was certainly lovely of Liz to take the trouble out of her busy schedule running London’s Health Service.

I phoned my very old sister, Ruth, this morning. Of course, she is never in when I phone but I spoke at some length to her lovely husband, Kevan. We don’t speak often but, for someone so much older than me, he is extremely understanding and easy to talk to. My motive was to discuss the fact that I had just received an invite to their wedding – on July 1st, 1972. Even he was a bit surprised.

I’ve had a wonderful, difficult, lovely, painful contact from an old friend in the past couple of weeks. It has evoked so many memories of when we were so much younger. I have always been obsessed with the passage of time and the inevitability of events. In the past few days, these obsessions have melded together. I knew this moment would come.

My friend has very kindly sent me a stash of memorabilia which is almost uncomfortable to look at. The passage of time really is a terrible thing. All those hopes and dreams dashed, unfulfilled. In those days, I was going to be a world-renowned poet, a widely published novelist, a genius of letters revered by all. I became a teacher in Oldham. Obscurity incarnate!

I must admit, I’d forgotten how gorgeous and precocious I was back in the early 1970s. How dreams can be dashed and yet we make new lives for ourselves and move forward. 

My wife and I have done challenging and exciting things in life – things I could not have anticipated. We have done interesting jobs in Education. We have bought and sold lots of lovely properties including buying a field, designing and building a house on a Greek island. We have driven around Europe together until it is almost second nature and we have moved, gradually from North to South of the UK in the process. 

We have weathered some incredibly hard times together. In the early 1980s, we had a near fatal car crash which saw us hospitalised and me as close to dead as a living man can be. We had to fight enormous professional pressures from threats to Pauline’s career to attacks on our health and welfare. We have survived all that and, in spite of scarring, carried on.

However, I have always lived with a weight deep inside me. (I’ve carried a weight round my middle but that’s another matter.) It is the weight of responsibility that I can never and do not want to shirk. I will never resile from it. There are significant people in my life who are owed so much more than they will ever know. I have spent my retirement attempting to at least acknowledge that debt. If any of them are reading this now and I know some are, I acknowledge it again now. That debt will always honoured if never fully repaid. 

Saturday, 6th March, 2021

Wonderful sunny and warm day. Sounds like it has been the same across the country. Before our 5 mile walk, however, the highlight was a haircut for me. When I was the age illustrated in yesterday’s Blog, I swore I would never get my haircut. It may have been an instant response to my Mother’s insistence that I had a short back and sides every 6 weeks at home. The local barber was often berated by her for not cutting it short enough. From the age of 40, my father had a bald circle on the top of his head and I swore I would kill myself if it happened to me. I even borrowed a Drama Props Department ginger wig and wore it for my 6 weeks Teaching Practice to avoid cutting my hair.

I don’t want to get even more boring and I have mentioned this before but I haven’t paid for a haircut since September 1969. I have no idea what a haircut costs now. It was 5 shillings for my last one. If I have my haircut about every 6 weeks, it would have been done about 440 times since then. I’ll leave you to work out the savings I’ve made.

In September 1969, I was taken in hand by a new and less experienced hairdresser who did it for me with a razor-comb. That is not a euphemism. I thought the ‘slashed’-look was trendy and it was ‘free’. In my early years of teaching and after my hairdresser had moved on to promotion, I thought I would use the razor-comb myself. How hard could it be?

Sunday evening, bottle of wine, scruffy, dinghy flat, poor lighting, distant mirror, first confident scrape of the razor-comb. Total horror at completely bald patch at the side of my head. Bit of blood. School tomorrow. I had to finish the haircut without too many more disasters. As I walked to school in the morning in my pin-sharp suit, I looked like a total disaster above the ears even though I looked gorgeous below them.

I haven’t had to kill myself although I now enjoy short hair. I’m thinning and lightening but not balding or grey. My wife cuts it expertly every 6 weeks. Symbolically, I sit on my Father’s ‘Richard Chair’ under a hairdresser’s cape for about 40 mins. I’m not the most patient customer and I try to conspire to be watching some interesting discussion programme or sporting event while the operation is performed. At least I lose a bit of weight periodically.