handsworth songs…

I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see ‘Handsworth Songs’ - part of their ‘Cinema Rediscovered’ series. Described, according to the Watershed’s blurb, as a “groundbreaking experimental film essay on race and disorder in Britain”, by John Akomfrah from the Black Audio Film Collective in Birmingham and London during the riots of 1985. I grew up in Handsworth and effectively left home when I started at Oxford School of Architecture in 1967… and so I didn’t experience the inner-city riots of 1985 (which included Handsworth) first hand, but I was certainly aware of the deep-rooted colour prejudice views that many long-standing residents (including many members of my own family) held. Such views appalled me then and still appal me today.
Today, I was part of quite a large, ‘learned’ audience (film students and academics?) at the Watershed and am pretty confident that I was the only person there who’d grown up in Handsworth(!). Needless to say, no one asked for my ‘take’ on the subject!
I don’t intend to provide any ground-breaking insight into the documentary(!), but it was fascinating to view the inner-city riots 40 years on from the event. The film is a rich and layered ‘essay’ which explores the complex factors of race, class and identity in the context of Britain’s colonial history, alongside media bias.
Among the things that particularly struck me were: a) the comments of one of the members of the Sikh community – who essentially said “don’t think that this is something that has just bubbled up recently (ie. 1985) – it’s been building over a number of years” (I would agree), and b) there was an overriding sense that the ‘heavy-handed’ policing played a huge part in what led to the riots (over several years and, in particular, following what was the recent appointment of a new Chief Constable of West Midlands Police). Thank goodness no one’s suggesting an Inquiry today(!)… there’s so much water under the bridge (unlike, the recently-announced Orgreave Inquiry after the events in 1984 - when 6000 police officers, confronted a protest of striking miners who had responded to a call by the NUM for a mass picket of the pit. Absolutely ridiculous in my view, given the time that has elapsed).
A fascinating, illuminating and somewhat depressing documentary – which only underlines how little has changed.
Note: just in case you were thinking that the woman in the photograph was holding a knife - no, she wasn’t – it’s a factory lever handle!

june-july 2025 books…

Hostages To Fortune (Elizabeth Cambridge): I simply loved this book (another from Persephone, published in 2003, but first published by Jonathan Cape in 1933)… so BIG thanks to Moira for choosing it when we shopped in Bath last month! This autobiographical novel follows the life of a young woman, Catherine, from 1915 until the early 1930s. Her husband, invalided out of the army in 1917, buys a doctor's practice in an Oxfordshire village where they bring up their three children and become involved in village life. I found the novel both unusual and compelling… there is no plot as such, but I nevertheless found myself absorbed in family’s life – which one reviewer described thus: “a surprisingly hard life, full of difficulties and disillusions, but a satisfying one nevertheless”. It’s a book about the realities of parenthood and its attendant joys and frustrations – which, even as a grandfather (observing my own children and their children), I can recognise. Although the book describes life from a century or more ago, it didn’t feel all that different from the lives we live today. Having said that, it deals with the time during and immediately following WW1 and, at the end of the book (set in the early 1930s), it felt strange/sad reading about lives that, unknown to the author, were soon to be affected by a second World War.
A Place Called Winter (Patrick Gale): This is our next Blokes’ bookgroup book (which I first read 10 years ago). I think my views on the book from 10 years ago still stand: ‘This novel, set in the early years of the 20th century, tells the story of a gay Englishman who was ostracised by his family after an illicit affair and forced to make a new life for himself on the harsh Canadian prairies. It’s actually loosely based on the life of Gale’s own great-grandfather and compiled after he’d read a huge hoard of letters+papers inherited from his maternal grandmother. In the notes that accompanied my copy of his book, Gale readily accepts that, while he respected the “known facts, keeping real names, and houses and dates”, his story “inevitably… moved further and further away from reality”. I found the mix of fact and storytelling a little difficult to take at times. Nevertheless, it’s a tender, compelling and beautifully-written book and one that I enjoyed reading’.
Sentenced To Life (Clive James): I’ve been re-reading this book (published in 2015) for my daily, early morning reflections. It’s an honest, unflinching collection of poems looking back on his extraordinarily rich life as he approached his death (he died in 2019). I again found his words/reflections/regrets/joys/guilt/memories really quite poignant and insightful – albeit sometimes overly self-pitying perhaps.
Goodnight Tokyo (Atsuhiro Yoshida): This is our next Storysmith bookgroup choice (theme: books in translation)(translated by Haydn Trowell). Taxi driver Matsui is one of the book’s key characters (although there’s a whole host of characters!). Every night between 1am and 4.30am he drives around Tokyo’s streets collecting his passengers and their stories. The book’s story is told over a number of nights: confessions of intimacy, loneliness and the surreal… and punctuated by Matsui’s dawn arrival at his favourite canteen for a plate of their famous ham and eggs. Initially, I felt somewhat confused by the relationships of the several characters and so, after perhaps 30 pages, ended up scribbling out something of a ‘flow chart’ to remind myself who was who and how their lives were connected (which, I have to say, helped enormously)! In the novel’s ‘Afterword’, the author describes the book as “the intersection of… ten fantastic tales” and that these “only exist in his mind, at least for time being” (“intimately and compellingly connected” – as described on the book’s cover). I’ve read quite a few novels by Japanese authors over the years and many of them seem have a similar quirkiness or style to them. I have to admit that it took me a little time to ‘get into’ the novel and appreciate fully the fact that the characters’ interwoven stories… but once I did so, I really enjoyed it.
Little Boy Lost (Marghanita Laski): This novel (originally published in 1949 (but this Persephone edition 2001) tells the journey of an English poet/writer, Hilary, who returns after the war (WW2) to a blasted and impoverished France in order to trace a child lost 5 years before. Hilary’s wife had died at the end of the war, but had vowed to get their son to a place of safety. A French friend had contacted Hilary believing that he may have tracked down the lost little boy to an orphanage… and Hilary sets out to find answers. Is the child really his? And does he want him? It’s a hugely compelling story about love, generosity, goodness and uncertainty. I found Laski’s writing incredibly impressive – always assured and understated – and with the tension and suspense maintained until the very last line. Quite brilliant.

the ballad of wallis island…

I went along to the Watershed again yesterday afternoon (note: I’m now one of their ‘Club Shed’ members!) to see director James Griffiths’ ‘The Ballad of Wallis Island’… about a lottery-winning eccentric widower, Charles (Tim Key), living on the island off the coast of Wales (his wife Marie had died 5 years ago). He also happens to be a ‘superfan’ of a renown folk pairing McGwyer Mortimer (Herb and Nell - played by Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan) from around 2009 (they’d played Glastonbury; graced some NME covers etc)… and has all their records, memorabilia, scrapbooks etc.
Being a lottery-winner (twice, in fact), he invited them to play a gig on the island (for £500,000 fee, in cash, for each of them)… McGwyer and Mortimer had been lovers back in the day, but had broken up somewhat bitterly (as far as McGwyer was concerned). Herb had pursued a somewhat unsuccessful solo career (he had no idea that Nell had also been invited along) and Nell had married and was selling chutney for a living.
McGwyer was clearly under the impression that he was one of a group of musicians/bands playing at the gig… and was shocked to discover that a) there was no auditorium, just a beach, b) that Nell had also been invited along to perform and c) the only two scheduled performers were him and Nell.
The film is a romantically-tinged comedy of regrets, memories, music and beautiful scenery… it’s all rather silly, and yet, it’s all rather lovely too.
I think we’d all love to invite our favourite musician(s) to play a concert for us in a beautiful island location (provided that the sun shone etc!).
When there’s so much disaster and rubbish happening in the world, it was good to be conveyed to better place… of laughter, music, beauty and silliness.
I really enjoyed it.
PS: So who would you invite to your island gig? Joni Mitchell in her prime? Leonard Cohen? Nick Drake? Simon+Garfunkel? Perhaps, of current musicians (for me): Karine Polwart? Ricky Ross? Pete Judge?
PPS: In the film, there’s a sequence when Charles, Herb and Nell light lanterns and launch them from the beach into the evening sky… which reminded me of our own family version of this from 2009 in St Ives (although we now acknowledge the problems that they can injure or kill wildlife and livestock through ingestion or entanglement, cause fires, contribute to litter etc!!). It was a joint 60^th birthday celebration for Moira and me (I was already 60, she would be 60 in a few months’ time) and we were staying at the wonderful Upper Saltings on Porthmeor Beach. We’d had evening drinks on the beach (on a stunningly beautiful evening) and Ru, Hannah and Alice etc gave us two paper sky lanterns… which we ‘launched’ and watched as they slowly disappeared out to sea. Very special memories. 

the horace batchelor memorial pilgrimage…

My lovely brother, Alan, and I decided to walk from Keynsham to Bath for no particular reason other than a) we thought it would make a very nice river walk along the Avon and b) we could chat and put the world to right along the way(!).
And very lovely it proved to be.
Alan (who knows these things) reckons we walked just over 9 miles in total (plus, for me, my one mile walk to Temple Meads station from home!)… or more than 25,000 steps(!?). Thankfully, after the heatwave of the previous few days, the weather was kind to us (19-21degC) – although it absolutely poured down with rain while we were consuming two pints of beer each during our lunchtime stop at The Bird pub in Saltford! We’d spent the morning walking alongside the winding River Avon and then, after lunch, joined the tree-lined ‘Bristol and Bath Railway Path’ (which provided welcome shade) before re-joining the Avon for the final 3 or so miles into Bath. A very enjoyable and beautiful walk… and arriving at our Travelodge hotel (next to the station) at about 4pm.
We wandering into Bath for a couple more celebratory beers (in the garden of ‘The Crystal Palace’ pub – where, once again, we were incredibly lucky to be able to shelter under their enormous garden umbrellas from another absolute downpour!! We went on to have supper at ‘Browns’ – decent food and excellent, friendly service – before slowly making our way back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep.
A brilliant, happy day which will last long in both our memories.
Photo: A collection of images along the way.
PS: For those not old enough to understand, the ‘Horace Batchelor’ reference relates to the Radio Luxemburg advert from the early 1960s that included the famous words: “…Keynsham, that's spelt K E Y N S H A M”! 

june 2025 books…

There Are Rivers In The Sky (Elif Shafak): This is our latest Storysmith book choice (theme: water). Our bookgroup meets on the first Wednesday of each month and so, at 480 pages long, it represented a challenge to read it in such limited time (but, of course, some of us don’t have jobs to go to!). The novel connects a lost poem, two rivers (Thames and Tigris) and three people linked across space and time - whose lives intertwine from Victorian London to modern-day Turkey. It’s an ambitious, absorbing, fable of a book which, surprisingly, I read it quite quickly. Typical of Shafak, the tale is clearly the result of much detailed research, but I frequently found her rather overly-descriptive style somewhat pretentious or even show-offy. I often struggled with its magical-realist/fable narrative (which reminded me of her book “The Island of Missing Trees”, which I’d read last year). I also found the links between the three characters’ stories a little too contrived. I liked the fact that each of the chapters was devoted to one of the three characters but, overall, found the characters and plot (and often the dialogue) somewhat unconvincing. Enjoyable, but did I love it? Well, not quite…
Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes (Billy Collins): Collins is one of my favourite poets – funny, profound and observing incidental details of life. I’ve been using these poems (first published in 1988) as part of early morning routine and have found much pleasure in re-reading them (I first came across them more than 10 years ago).
William – An Englishman (Cicely Hamilton): First published in 1919. It’s a novel about a couple honeymooning in the remote hills of the Belgium Ardennes when the First World War is declared. William and Griselda, both passionate activists in the Suffragette movement (‘cocksure, contemptuous, intolerant, self-sacrificing after the manner of their kind’) are completely unaware that this major conflict had erupted, literally on their doorstep. The both held a naïve belief that the likelihood of any future world war breaking out on mainland Europe was remote in the extreme. Clearly, they were in for a severe shock! The situation made me reflect on what’s happening in our world today (more than 110 years on). How many UK citizens would realistically believe that we might soon find ourselves fighting another major conflict that would utterly disrupt (or worse!) our lives here in Western Europe? Given Trump’s unpredictable tendencies, you wouldn’t rule ANYTHING out. I’ll resist saying much more as far as the story is concerned (*no spoilers!*)… except that I found it a very impressive, powerful and harrowing novel (which owes much to the author’s experiences volunteering in northern France… in the words of the book’s preface: “organising concerts to entertain the troops, the sound of gunfire a nightly accompaniment to her scribbling”).
Inside The Wave (Helen Dunmore): I keep coming back to this book and, once again (like the Billy Collins’ book), I’ve been reading it (out loud to myself) as part of my early morning routine. Helen Dunmore died in 2017, aged 65 and this book of poems is her final collection. They address the borderline between the living and the dead… and relate to her interest in landscape and the sea but, crucially, about her personal experience of dying (she knew she was dying of cancer). Once again, I found the book both eloquent and moving. As I noted in a previous blog post, Dunmore and I shared two connections: living in Bristol and loving St Ives.
One Day I Shall Astonish The World (Nina Stibbe): I like Stibbe’s writing style and humour, but really didn’t get on with the last book of hers I read (‘Reasons To Be Cheerful’). So I approached this one with a little apprehension. It’s about two women, Susan+Norma, who’ve been ‘best friends’ ever since they worked in a haberdashery shop in 1990s Leicestershire. The story deals with their loves, work and friendship over the next 30 years. I found the main character, Susan Faye Warren, opinionated and annoying at times (as well as frequently funny). Actually, it was fine. Amusing and silly – which was what I need at the present time, given all that’s currently go on in the world!

hauser+wirth, somerset…

Thanks to our lovely friends, Dave+Sarah, we visited the wonderful Hauser+Wirth Gallery and Gardens at Bruton, Somerset on Sunday.
It first opened in 2014. The former derelict farmhouse and outbuildings have been refurbished and converted into a variety of gallery spaces, restaurants and retail space. The whole art centre complex has become a venue for art exhibitions, events and learning activities, connecting with the local community and landscape.
Internationally-renowned garden designer Piet Oudolf created the landscaping scheme for the entire site, including Oudolf Field - a large perennial meadow situated behind the gallery buildings.
At present, the gallery spaces have largely been given over to the work of artists Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely (exhibition runs until 1 Feb 2026).
Although I did take a few (not many!) photographs of the exhibits, I found myself concentrating much more on the gallery and ancillary spaces… but I now regret not having taken photographs of the spaces themselves.
Check out their excellent website for a much better ‘feel’ of the complex.
Photo: a few images.

the salt path...

Moira and I went along to the Watershed yesterday (for me, the third visit in 8 days!) to see Marianne Elliott’s film of Raynor Winn’s bestselling memoir ‘The Salt Path’. I’d read the book in 2019.
You’re probably already aware of the story… in 2013, in the space of a week, Raynor Winn (played by Gillian Anderson in the film) and her husband Moth (Jason Isaacs) - aged 50 and 53 respectively and married for 32 years - lost their farmhouse home and their livelihood… and Moth was diagnosed with a rare and incurable degenerative brain disease. They were utterly broke and broken… and homeless. As they hid under the stairs from bailiffs, Winn spotted an old book she’d read 30 years before, about a man who walked the South West Coastal Path with his dog… and, then and there, she resolved that THAT was what they were going to do! The resulting book is their story of their experiences of walking the 630 miles (which they split over two summers) from Minehead to Poole… the film covers perhaps just a quarter of the journey.
Before seeing the film, I had significant reservations about actors ‘playing the roles’ of the couple – which had been so effectively portrayed in the book. Anderson and Isaacs were actually very good, but I think my misgivings were generally justified. Inevitably, there were events missing from the film (and also some that I felt were overplayed) and I think the film also failed to underline that, despite the consultant’s recommendation for Moth to rest, the exercise/activity had a beneficial effect.
All that said, I did actually enjoy the film… it tells a truly inspirational, humbling story about a husband+wife’s determination to drag themselves from the depths of despair to live ‘wild and free’ on a pittance and, in doing so, came to discover a new liberating part of themselves… and, of course, the film was able to capitalise on something that the book couldn’t fully encompass – the beauty and character of the South West Coastal Path!