cost of democracy?

I was listening to the BBC World Service the other night, as you do…
They were talking about Mitt Romney’s victory in the Florida primary. The pundit in the studio was asked what was required to win elections and she responded that you needed a) to spend enough on advertising and b) to have an effective negative campaign against key opponents. She went on to explain that Romney’s advertising in Florida had amounted to something like $18million dollars.
I just couldn’t believe my ears!
Just a few moments later, I was well and truly shaken from my “slumbers” when one of the other studio guests pointed out that he understood that the Democrats were likely to be able raise $1BILLION for Barack Obama’s “Re-election Fighting Fund”!!
Surely, I’d misheard?
Well, I decided to try to check this out.
According to a report from Reuters (last August), this year’s US elections will be the most expensive ever, with a total price tag of $6billion or even more, “fuelled by millions of dollars in unrestricted donations as Republicans and Democrats vie for control of the White House, Congress and state governments”.
I’ll type out the figure again: Yes, $6BILLION. Just staggering!
In the UK, overall general election expenditure is far, far less than in the USA - yes, I accept that we’re a tiny nation by comparison. Apparently, in 2009, the figure was just over £30million (it was just over £40million in 2005). Even these levels seem pretty ridiculous to me!
Somewhat pathetically, perhaps, I’m one of those naive people who feel that elections should be about “level playing fields” and that people’s votes shouldn’t be dependent on advertising and/or private funding. Having said that, I absolutely accept that, in this country for example, it would be awful if the BNP were “given” the same election funding as the main parties!
No doubt people will tell me that all these vast sums actually go to pay party workers, advertising companies and the like. But, it seems to me that at a time when individuals are suffering in terms of unemployment and financial cut-backs and when money is being taken away from education, health, welfare, environment etc etc, don’t the amounts spent on elections seem embarrassing, excessive and unjustifiable?
PS: It’s JUST possible that the USA/UK figures I’ve quoted are not strictly comparable… but, even if that’s right, I’m sure the numbers will be VERY large!

villa sign new defender before transfer deadline…

With their 2-3 defeat by Arsenal in the FA Cup, Villa’s season is now well and truly over (apart from the battle to avoid relegation!).
The Villa’s defence seems incapable of keeping clean sheets these days.
But worry not, help is at hand.
In an astute move, with only hours to go before the transfer deadline, Villa have signed Dan Buckley (see photo), a promising young defender – who has already been tipped to play for England!
If only, (although they should keep an eye on him for the future!)…
When Alice+Dave got married, I gave them a junior Villa shirt for one of their future offspring (in the knowledge that Dave would insist on them becoming ManU supporters!). Alice has just sent me these photographs of Dan wearing the aforementioned shirt… the rest, as they say, will be history!!
Photo: Dan Buckley, ace defender.
PS: When A+D got married, David Beckham had just left ManU and so I speculated that, at some stage in the future, the Villa would snap him up (hence the number 23 shirt and the “Becks” name!).

january books

A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan): I finished this book on the first day of the new year. It seemed like the perfect book for this time of year – a time for reflection and looking forward (and especially, for me, following retirement and also after catching up with some old friends fairly recently – either “in the flesh”, as it were, or via FB). It’s a book about memory and friendship, life stories, opportunities lost and gained and about interconnection. It took me a little time to get into the book, but I was gradually won over. I ended up loving it – it’s an absolutely charming book (literally).
Free Radical: A Memoir (Vince Cable): I generally admire Cable; he seems to be an “honest” politician and a decent bloke. In the book, as well as politics, he talks touchingly about his family – especially the death of his first wife from cancer in 1998. Over perhaps the past four years, he has become the “holy grail of economic comment” (as the Guardian once described him). The book provides frank accounts of his life (including his time working in India and with Shell) – but I was struck by the number of poor decisions he consistently seems to have made throughout his life (especially when it came to trying to get himself elected as an MP!). He is pretty scathing about Gordon Brown’s performance as PM and also about George Osborne (“I have never rated George’s understanding of financial and economic matters”) – although he does acknowledge the latter to be a “political operator of some substance”. Inevitably, there is a hint of “I told you so” in the concluding chapter (essentially referring to the “stormy waters” of the global economic crisis) – although I haven’t been desperately impressed by his performance as Business Secretary in the current coalition!
Freedom (Jonathan Franzen): I thought this was a brilliant novel. It’s a (very long book) about a marriage (and contemporary American life?) - about its joys, frustrations and disappointments. But it’s far more than that. It’s about pride, jealousy, resentment, politics, big business, greed, ecology, sex, honesty, inadequacy, relationships, society, education, risk, delight, truth, compromise, falsehood, lifestyle… I could go on! It’s funny, it’s scathing, it’s poignant and, in my view, it’s a book you NEED to read (it’s VERY readable)! I now definitely want to read Franzen’s highly-acclaimed “The Corrections”.
The Tyrannicide Brief (Geoffrey Robertson): Due to the peculiarities of the fast-tracked “Remove” stream at my grammar school, I was sadly forced to give up History at the end of my first year of secondary education(!). As a result, my knowledge of 17th century British history is sadly lacking. This book, by eminent human-rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, tells the story of the little-known John Cooke - the lawyer who essentially “sent Charles I to the scaffold”. It’s an absolutely fascinating and impassioned story of a landmark prosecution based on the King’s “tyranny” (depriving his subjects of their civil rights and mass murder on a vast scale). Robertson argues that Cooke has been widely misrepresented by history. When Charles's son was restored to the throne, soon after the death of Cromwell, his father's trial was seen as an act of treason and his legal execution as murder. Cooke's prosecution for these crimes was duly rigged and Charles II attended the disembowelling of Cooke, still alive after he had been part-hanged and castrated. A brilliant book.
A Moveable Feast (Ernest Hemingway): “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast”. I really enjoyed this short set of memoirs written by Hemingway (completed in 1960) about his time as a young writer living in Paris in the 1920s. It’s an evocative, often funny, sometimes rather cruel, account of his daily routines, his lack of funds and the people he met (including F Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Hilaire Belloc and Gertrude Stein) in the bars and cafes of the city. His descriptions are quite brilliant and the pieces about FSF, in particular, very amusing.

anyone can teach… can’t they?

I blogged about this last September…
I have absolutely no doubt that some former members of the armed forces have much to offer the world of education, but I was saddened this morning to see reports of a proposed school for 11-18 year-olds in Oldham where ALL the teaching staff will be composed of ex-servicemen and women. The school is now actively recruiting prospective pupils with a view to opening next year. Worryingly (and I can’t quite believe that this can be true?), according to Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, many ex-servicemen and women at the Phoenix Free School will have had no formal teacher training: “Turning soldiers into teachers with no training is like trying to turn teachers into soldiers with no training… They seem to believe routine drills and discipline is what these children need. Well, some of them may need it, but not all of them will”.
When I turned 50, I was briefly tempted by the idea of becoming a (primary school) teacher. Having worked closely with teachers in secondary education, I am now relieved that I didn’t. Not EVERYONE can be an effective teacher – and there are key skills that all teachers DO have to LEARN. Very many of my school colleagues were quite BRILLIANT teachers – knowledgeable, intelligent, inspirational, gifted, enthusiastic, intuitive and able to communicate a love for their subject to pupils. The Phoenix project is applying for state funding as a free school which would be run outside of local authority control (of course!) and has the backing of Michael Gove (of course!). To my mind, a school which bases its education philosophy on the core values of the armed forces sounds worrying, to say the least!
I suggest you check out this report on today’s BBC website.
Photo: I couldn’t resist this photograph (and I’m only joking)!

harbourside market: last january sale day

Would you buy art from this bloke?
Received this image from good friends Nigel+Janice earlier this week. It was taken at our market stall just before Christmas. Nigel’s e-mail included some words of wisdom, describing me as “a more refined Guardian reading version of Ray Winstone?”!
Yesterday was the second, and last, of my “January Sale Days” of photographs and drawings that were “past their sell-by date” or had just be lying around in boxes in the basement. Although I’d reduced the prices pretty drastically it was very gratifying that, over the two Saturdays, I sold more than half of my 114 “old pieces” (pretty amazing!).
I’ve really enjoyed being a market stallholder but, with various other weekend activities coming up plus my forthcoming two month trip to Iona (and a desire to avoid sitting out in the cold for six hours every Saturday), I’ve decided to opt out of the Harbourside Market until July and reclaim my Saturdays for a while!
Photo: the Ray Winstone of Bristol Harbourside Market?

painting again...

One of my retirement resolutions was to get down to doing some painting again. Yes, I’ve done lots of drawings that have included watercolour paints, inks and the like, but the last REAL painting I did was completed some 42 years ago! The main stimulus for wanting to paint again was the memory/influence of one of my former tutors at Oxford School of Architecture – the truly inspirational Tom Porter (who sadly died in 2010, aged 72). He just adored “colour” and encouraged us to use it boldly whenever we undertook our painting projects (which, for me, proved to be important in the first two years of the architecture course). One of my paintings was used for an exhibition poster for the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Sadly, I no longer have any of my college paintings (one of them, painted on chipboard, ended up as the roof hatch to the loft space in our Percy Street house, Oxford – and will, no doubt, have made a fortune for one of its subsequent owners!). In homage to Tom, my first painting (entitled: “Deckchairs for Tom 1”) duly makes use of “bold colour” – and is the first time I’ve ever painted on canvas (60x60cm) OR used acrylic paint. My painting technique is incredibly rusty after all these years (it was never wonderful!) and the result is hardly a “work of art” in terms of quality or composition – but I really enjoyed doing it (playing my music and generally making a mess of my basement workspace) and, hopefully, will continue to paint over the coming years. As a demonstration of this commitment to undertaking more paintings, I went out this morning and bought three more canvases (they were on offer!)!
Photo: one down… three to go (well, actually, I’ve only got plans for painting no.2 thus far)?

retirement review

Amazingly, it’s coming up for six months since I retired. Last January, I posted three blogs entitled “Looking Forward to Retirement” in which I outlined my hopes (and fears) as I approached the end of my “working life”. I’ve been vaguely reviewing things over the past few days. The following represents a very quick résumé of my thoughts (under the “sub-headings” of my earlier blogs on the subject):
FINANCE:
We seem to be keeping our heads above water - but it’s very early days.
BOREDOM:
Will I be bored by retirement? Well, no this hasn’t happened (apart from perhaps a couple of days that I just seemed to fritter away unsatisfactorily). I’ve continued to wake early at around 5am, got myself some coffee and breakfast and then, more often than not, read in bed for an hour or so.
HEALTH:
I’m still in good health, touch wood (and the hip pain I referred to last year has, thankfully, disappeared).
PEOPLE:
I did worry that I would miss the daily exchanges and banter with lots of other people – and, although I do miss this, it’s been fine (and I try to catch up with former school colleagues on a regular basis – at The Warwick Arms on a Friday afternoon, for example!).
GOLF:
I’ve only played three times since I retired, but each time has been with some of my “old golf buddies” (Pete, Steve, Ken and Bob) – which has been really lovely. Particularly enjoyed a two-day trip to Celtic Manor in October and the “Bob Head Classic” in November.
WORLD TRAVEL/TRAVEL:
Nothing exactly on the world travel front (and that’s fine – we don’t have any particular yearnings) – although Moira+I did have a wonderful time in France with great friends Chris+Lal (does that count?)… and Moira+I have been talking about another possible Venice trip to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary (next December).
VOLUNTARY WORK:
I decided to ensure that I didn’t commit myself to any voluntary work for at least the first six months of my retirement (and I’m glad I’d done that because it gave me time to adjust to a different “way of life”). Having said that, I have re-joined our local Arts Trail’s steering group – but that’s no problem. I did also apply for an 8-week stint with the Iona Community last July (knowing that a) I wouldn’t hear back from them until this month and b) that the chances of my being selected weren’t particularly high). Last week, I was absolutely delighted to have heard back from the Community – and will be joining them on the beautiful Isle of Iona for a couple of months, starting at the beginning of May.
MUSIC, THEATRE+CINEMA:
I’ve been enjoying these! Music: concerts by Chris Wood and June Tabor; theatre: Royal Shakespeare Company (and Felix will be performing with them this year too: “Twelfth Night”, “The Tempest” and “Comedy of Errors”) and also Tobacco Factory Theatre and the Bristol Old Vic; cinema: just getting back to attending more regularly (have really enjoyed “The Artist” and “We Need To Talk About Kevin”).
SPORT (apart from golf):
Well, I DID manage to get to Taunton (with Chris, Bron and Roger) to watch Somerset play Lancashire – which was very enjoyable. Will definitely be watching more cricket in 2012.
FREEDOM+FLEXIBILITY+SIMPLE PLEASURES/WALKING:
I’ve continued to take pleasure in getting up early and taking full advantage of what I’ve always felt was “the best of the day” – highlights to date have been brilliant sunrises at Glastonbury and Berrow Beach. I’ve tried to keep to my plan of taking daily walks to help keep me fit (no cycling recently though!). I haven’t yet arranged to do any of the Dorset Coastal Walk thus far or finished the Thames Path.
GRANDCHILDREN:
I’ve continued to adore grandparenthood. Being with Mikey, Iris, Dan, Rosa+Jemima gives me SO much pleasure and the arrival of Hannah+Felix’s Ursula just before Christmas has been a brilliant bonus!! I definitely want to see much more of Mikey, Dan+Jemima (and Alice+Dave!) and will hopefully do so over coming year.
PHOTOGRAPHY:
This has also continued to be a source of great pleasure for me – and I try to carry my camera with me everywhere.
DRAWING+PAINTING:
Well, I HAVE actually done some painting (for the first time “properly” since 1970!!)… and on canvas! I’ve also got some plans for a drawing project (essentially, building-related?).
GARDENING:
No real progress on this to date!
PROJECTS:
Still pending, I’m afraid (apart from painting and drawing).
SPIRITUALITY/RHYTHM OF LIFE:
I’m really looking forward to going to the Isle of Iona again this year – that will hopefully give me some time for reflection and to explore aspects of my own spiritual life. Book study has been somewhat limited: further use of Ian Adams’s excellent “Cave Refectory Road: monastic rhythms for contemporary living” plus The Accidental Pilgrim (Maggi Dawn, Salvation on the Small Screen? (Nadia Bolz-Weber), Thinking Out Loud (John L Bell) and Words and Wonderings (Joy Mead). Our weekly “Ithaca” group continues to provide stimulus and food for thought.
FRIENDS:
Some progress made, but lots still to do! Great to meet up again with Tony (and prospects of impending lunch with Charles and Steve) and plans to meet up with John+Laura after simply ages. Very good (as always) to keep up with Ian, Gail, Ken, Debby, Jez and Mags – plus, obviously, local friends. A possible re-union of old college friends is on the cards for 2012.
OTHER STUFF:
The Saturday Harbourside Market: has been a real bonus – I’ve really enjoyed it (haven’t made a fortune sales-wise, but the “craic” has been very enjoyable).

No.1 Harbourside Cafe/Bar has become my regular coffee stop and they make me feel very welcome.
Reading: has proved to be a continuing pleasure (I read over 50 books in 2011!).

Moira also reckons she's enjoying her retirement much more since I retired - which is lovely.
Photo: sunrise at Glastonbury, October 2011.

bristol harbourside market

I had another enjoyable day at the harbourside market yesterday (beautiful weather, despite starting off at minus 2C!)… and I'm very grateful for lots of friends dropping by to say hello, including: Tracey, Richard, Maria, Liz, Lou, Paul, Hroth, Emily, Loz and Nick (but sorry I missed you!)… and probably a few other wonderful, lovely people who I’ve forgotten!
After some four months of Saturday markets, running up to Christmas, I’d decided to have a break until the summer (with perhaps one or two exceptions). However, before doing so, I made a commitment to myself to have a couple of “January Sales” sessions. I’d become aware of just how many old mounted photographs/drawings I’d accumulated (and not sold!) over recent years – and that it was probably time I got rid of them!
It transpired that I actually had 114 pieces of work (I counted them!) and so yesterday was the first of my two “studio clearance days” (complete with banner explaining this to the punters!). I decided to put a £5 pricetag on all of the photographs and £15 on the drawings/paintings. In the end, I sold a total of 35 pieces of work - 34 photos and one drawing (the latter, one of my favourites, reduced from £50 – actually, I’ve just realised that it’s the one at the bottom right hand side of my photograph)).
It’s given me much food for thought:
• It’s NOT worth trying to sell one-off original drawings/paintings for £15 (despite them not selling anyway!) – I feel it devalues their true worth (doesn’t that sound pretentious!!).
• However, it has made me think again about the pricing of my photographs. Although I always note that each of them are one of a series of 10, I only occasionally ever print more than two or three copies. Maybe I SHOULD consciously be prepared to produce a number of mounted prints and sell them “cheap” (on the basis that I would therefore sell more?)?
• I probably couldn’t sustain a cost as low as £5, but maybe £10 (ie. less than “normal” price of £15)?
• Was yesterday just a one-off? It’ll be interesting to see how next Saturday’s market goes (the last of my “January Sales”).
• Were people only buying on the basis that they felt they were getting a good deal?
• Were people only buying on the basis that it was a “Sale” and that they mustn’t miss a “bargain”?
Photo: our hall at home in preparation for the “Sale”.
PS: No less than SEVEN of my photographs ended up in the hands of ONE family! First of all I had a 15 year-old(?) coming up to me and saying how much she loved the photos… then her mother appears and tells me that her daughter is desperate to pursue photography as a career and wanted me to advise her what she should do to achieve this (clearly, I had to explain that I hadn’t a clue!)(but I WAS very encouraging). The daughter ended up buying four photographs and then, about 10 minutes later, her aunt returned with the girl’s mother and bought three more images!! Very sweet… and slightly embarrassing. In 20 years time, the girl will probably be giving interviews to respected journalists explaining her successful career in photography can all be put down to a conversation with an old bloke at a Bristol market stall…

the artist

Forget “The Iron Lady” – THIS is the film you need to see!
Moira+I went the Watershed this afternoon to see this wonderful, uplifting, funny, clever film - set in Hollywood of the 1920s. Directed by Michel Hazanavicius and filmed in black+white, it’s an ode to silent movies and has no script; the two excellent stars are Jean Dujardin (George) and Berenice Bejo (Peppy). It was absolutely lovely and deserves to take a whole host of awards over the coming months.
My best film of 2012 – well, ok, it’s the ONLY film I’ve seen at the cinema this year but, rest assured, it WILL remain one of my top films of the year.
It’s also one of those films you will NEED to own on DVD to cheer you up on wet Sunday afternoons over the coming years!

happy new year!

Moira+I have been very blessed again this year.
My highlights/simple pleasures have included:
• Recent birth of Ursula to Hannah+Felix.
• Thankful for our wonderful family and all the fun+laughter that comes with grandparenthood.
• Regular contact and get-togethers with special friends (and meeting up with some old friends after many years).
• “Proper” retirement in July (and the amazingly generous gift/farewells from his lovely work friends) and seeing Moira now fully enjoying her retirement (despite having me around much more!).
• Trip to France with great friends Lal and Chris on their Dutch barge on the Burgundy Canal/River Yonne, followed by an excellent weekend in Paris.
• Dawn trips to Glastonbury Tor and Berrow beach on gloriously sunny mornings.
• Sleep-overs and playdays with Iris+Rosa.
• Two-day golf trip to Celtic Manor with “old” (literally!) golfing buddies.
• Saturday morning stall at the harbourside market.
• Lots of reading (including regular morning coffee trips to no.1 Harbourside Café/Bar armed with my latest book).
• Live performance (theatre and concerts) – especially being able to see Felix perform three times at the RSC in Stratford.
• Continuing to meet up with former school colleagues (especially at the Warwick Arms “library”!).
• Watching the sunset over Sand Bay.
• Handling some of Turner’s watercolours at the Ashmolian.
• Watching some “live” cricket again.
• Regular walks by the harbourside.
• “Wow, Gorilla!” public art event in Bristol over the summer months (and the Harbourside Festival).
PS: I just KNOW that I will have missed noting SEVERAL other things from the above list (let’s just put it down to old age!).

december books

These are my latest books to round off 2011:
The Floating Island (Anna Ralph): I bought this book on the strength of author Helen Dunmore’s enthusiastic endorsement on the sleeve (including: “it has a touch of DH Lawrence about it”). Well, I have to say, I was VERY disappointed. Yes, it was a very readable but absolutely nothing out of the ordinary and, to my mind, of no particular literary merit. I was left wondering why the author had bothered (sorry!).
To the Castle and Back (Vaclav Havel): Vaclav Havel – playright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician - became a leading figure in the “Velvet Revolution” of 1989 (and, ultimately, president), the bloodless end to communism in Czechoslovakia. Strangely, I’d just finished reading this book before his death (on 18 December). It’s an illuminating memoir – part reflection, part interview by journalist Karel Hviz’ala, part diary extracts – of a fascinating period in European politics. Various extracts reminded me of the time I was on holiday in Yugoslavia in August 1968 when Russia (and other eastern bloc countries) invaded Czechoslovakia in order to halt Alexander Dubcek’s political liberalization reforms (although Tito’s Yugoslavia didn’t participate in the invasion, I was aware of what appeared to be an awful lot of “troop movement” within the country at the time). Perhaps not all that surprising given his background, the book is full of references to his speech-writing (he clearly wrote all his own stuff – and just relied on observations from his colleagues – a far cry from West Wing!). He had a powerful motto: "Truth and love must prevail over lies and hate". Amen to that. A charismatic and enjoyable book (albeit a little rambling at times) – he’s funny, frank, wise, lacking in confidence and yet inwardly tough.
The Naming of Eliza Quinn (Carol Birch): This is our book group’s next book. Set in south-west Ireland (it was useful to have been there in Autumn 2010 to help invoke a sense of the area… and the rain!), it recounts a family saga spanning from 1840s (the days of potato famine and fever) to the late 1960s. Beautifully written and a really impressive, powerful book which, for me, certainly captured a desperate sense of rural Ireland in the nineteenth century and the inter-dependence of people, families, land, weather, crops, primitive housing and the hardness of life.
Blood on the Snow (Jan Bondeson): It’s about the assassination of Olof Palme in 1986, when he was the Swedish Prime Minister. He was fatally shot walking home from the cinema with his wife, close to midnight. The murderer still hasn’t been traced. The author castigates what he sees as the police’s pathetic, chaotic bundling and unprofessional approach in trying to solve the crime; he lambasts a number of key politicians and members of the police force. Bondeson is just one of several people who has studied the various conspiracy theories and reassessed the police investigation. It makes for fascinating reading and his arguments are convincingly made (albeit rather tediously so at times!) – but I ended up feeling that it had become an obsession for him and that he needed to take up watching cricket (or something) instead!

I’ve just checked through my 2011 “book blogs” (sad man that I am) and have been somewhat taken aback to discover that I’ve actually read a total of 56 books this year in total (ie. more than a book a week!). As someone whose reading habits used to be limited largely to holidays - perhaps 4 or 5 books a year - I find this new reading diversion a bit scary! Actually, it’s not altogether a new thing – according to the blog(!), I read 34 books in 2010. Think I’d better spend more time in the cinema, or whatever, over the coming months…
Because I very rarely read books when they are first published, my best five “books of the year” won’t be like anyone else’s list – most people (if they’ve read them at all) will probably have read them some time ago! Anyway, for what they’re worth, this is my shortlist:
1. Team of Rivals (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
2. The Harold Nicholson Diaries 1907-1963 (edited by Nigel Nicholson)
3. Italian Shoes (Henning Mankell)*
4. The Wild Places (Robert Macfarlane)
5. AA Gill Is Away (AA Gill)
PS: you’ll note that only ONE of the above is fiction*!
PPS: I’ve been given some lovely new books for Christmas and am really looking forward to reading them over the coming months.

papa’s got a brand new bag

My old leather shoulder bag has been one of my fondest possessions. Ruth+Stu brought it back from India for me as a gift in 1999. It’s served me really well over the years but, latterly, has been well and truly feeling its age. It was given a brief reprieve/new lease of life about 18 months ago when some of the unraveling stitching was made good but, sadly, I’d come to realise that its days were numbered (in terms of regular usage).
Well, I’m now the proud owner of a shiny, new, blue shoulder bag (thanks to Moira, Ruth, Hannah, Alice et al) which will now become the “accessory of choice” on my daily jaunts… it’s even got my initials on it! Fancy or what?
Photo: old and new.

coram boy

Moira+I continued our “live theatre fest” this afternoon by going to see the Bristol Old Vic’s “Coram Boy” at Colston Hall. It was a pretty ambitious venture – featuring a large cast (with lots of children) plus a full choir and large orchestra pumping out Handel’s “Messiah” (and Colston Hall is a massive venue)! Actually, this formula is a brilliant way of ensuring virtually full houses throughout the Christmas period – with relatives and friends of all the cast members apparently filling a lot of the seats! Moira had read the book, but I wasn’t familiar with the story. The background relates to Thomas Coram’s 18th century Foundling Hospital in London called the "Coram Hospital for Deserted Children"; unscrupulous men, known as "Coram men", frequently took advantage of the situation by promising desperate mothers to take their unwanted children to the hospital for a fee…
The audience duly acclaimed the performance (I did say that it largely comprised the cast’s aunties, uncles and school friends!). Actually, I was disappointed:
• I thought the acting was pretty basic in quality overall (from the professionals – I’ll excuse the younger members)
• The music was very good – but, to my mind, often got in the way of the dialogue (in fact, frequently playing OVER the dialogue) or simply over-dramatising events.
• To my mind, the design/concept seemed rather dated and also fairly basic in quality or originality (eg. plastic sheeting flapped to denote the wild sea) – although the lighting was pretty good.
But, hey, it’s Christmas so everything is forgiven (well, most things) and it was fantastic experience for all the young actors/singers!
PS: amazingly (and sadly), there was no “loop” system for those with hearing difficulties (I know this because Moira told me and the chap in front was VERY annoyed too!)… this seems ridiculous, especially when you’ve got a number of young actors with “thin” voices and the size of the auditorium).

cinderella at the tobacco factory theatre

We used to have a family tradition of going to the cinema most Christmases. It probably didn’t happen every year but that’s how it now feels looking back. Since moving to Bristol, going to the Tobacco Factory Theatre at this time of year has DEFINITELY become the “new tradition” for Moira and me. We went along tonight to watch “Cinderella” – featuring the amazing “Travelling Light” theatre company (the same creative team behind “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” from a couple of Christmases ago and the Bristol Old Vic’s “Treasure Island” performed this summer).
It proved to be another wonderful evening. I’m conscious that I frequently end up describing our theatre trips as “magical” experiences and praising “live theatre” to the hilt – but, frankly for me, that’s exactly what it is. The all-age audience was simply charmed and totally engaged by the production – wonderful performances by each of the five actors, great music and lighting and beautifully designed in every detail. Stunning use of imagination, space and general creativity plus lots of laughter, fun, colour and pure enjoyment.
A superb start to the Christmas holidays!
PS: This was also a pretty “dark” version of the tale – birds in lieu of a fairy godmother and toes being hacked off with a cleaver!
PPS: Ruth+Stu took Iris to see the performance last week (Iris was completely captivated by it) and Hannah+Felix went to see it last Saturday (just a few hours before Ursula was born!). They, like Moira+I, ALL had a brilliant time.

ursula olive hayes

Moira+I have just spent a magical afternoon with Hannah+Felix and their brand new daughter, Ursula Olive (born at 5.30pm on Sunday 18 December). It was lovely just to sit in front of the wood-burner, catch up on the events of the weekend and, of course, enjoy long, contented cuddles with our granddaughter (Hannah+Felix were in good form too!).
Photo: Miss Ursula Olive Hayes.

99 words...

I quite often find myself listening to the excellent Radio4 programme “Something Understood”. Last Sunday and this morning, it has consisted of a pair of programmes which deal with the question: “if you had breath for no more than 99 words, what would they be?”. It’s presented by Liz Gray, who had found herself limited, forced into a strange period of enforced retreat by a whiplash injury and this was the question that had come to her mind. She began asking friends, colleagues, artists and political figures she admired, and gathered together a collection of 99 responses which has recently been published. I think I need to get myself a copy.

They also make fascinating and beautiful radio programmes.
PS: today is the last day you can listen to last week’s episode.

this interim time...

Our lovely friends Gail+Ian run a fascinating and inspiring project they call “see:change”.
On its facebook page this morning, at this time of “waiting” in the Christian tradition, they posted these beautiful words by John O’Donohue: “In the waiting time 'we are in a time where everything seems withheld. The path we took to get us here has washed out; the way forward is still concealed from us. The old is not old enough to have died away; the new is still too young to be born'. For the interim time…”
Like a lot of people, I’ve often used this period of Advent and the turn of the year as a time for reflection – both thinking back and looking forward.
About this time last year, when I was working in a secondary school, I was suddenly asked if I could take a House Assembly. It was a case of filling in for someone at the eleventh hour; I had virtually no time to prepare anything.
I ended up telling pupils something about my blog (yes, I was that desperate!) – and explained that it was a mixture of diary of things I’d done and observations of political, social issues of the time. Only a couple of days earlier, I’d been looking up my comments on a film I’d seen at the very start of the previous year and ended up skim-reading through the blog over the subsequent twelve month period… and been really struck at the wealth of (sometimes quite surprising) things in which I’d been involved. As a result, it had made me ask myself the rhetorical question: “I wonder what new experiences/events lie in front of me for the coming year?”. So that became the theme of my assembly – looking forward with a sense of anticipation (and even genuine excitement) at what lies ahead for each of us.
I’m well aware that for some people, the coming months will involve financial/employment uncertainty or broken relationships or, in some case, utter despair… and I’m certainly not underestimating how debilitating and painful these can be.
However, I DO find it exciting knowing that, even if/when there are periods of gloom, there WILL be things that fill me with joy that, at present, I know NOTHING about.
For instance:
• A wonderful book
• A great film
• A brilliant piece of live performance (theatre/concert)
• A stunning sporting moment
• Unexpected meetings with old and new friends
• New hobbies or pastimes
• Simple pleasures
• Something yet to be created
• Experiencing new places
• Spiritual discoveries
• Reconciliation
• Taking pleasure in seeing others grow and develop
• Learning something new
For me, O’Donohue’s words “the path we took to get us here has washed out; the way forward is still concealed from us” capture this interim time perfectly.
Photo: sunrise over Glastonbury.

mary portas: saviour of the high street?

I’ve just finished reading Mary Portas’s 50-page independent review into the future of our high streets. She’s obviously a very astute businesswoman and the government would do well to adopt many of her ideas and recommendations.

As you might guess (if you've ever read any of my previous posts on the subject), I was particularly interested in what she had to say about supermarkets!
She DID make a number of pertinent observations on the subject, for example:
• The fact is that the major supermarkets and malls have delivered highly convenient, needs-based retailing, which serves today’s consumers well. Sadly the high streets didn’t adapt as quickly or as well.
• She recommended that the restrictive aspects of the ‘Use Class’ system should be addressed to make it easier to change the uses of key properties on the high street.
• Large retailers should support and mentor local businesses and independent retailers.
• What really worries me is that the big supermarkets don’t just sell food anymore, but all manner of things that people used to buy on the high street. They’ve been expanding their reach into homewares, stationery, books, flowers – you name it. Supermarkets now allocate more than one third of their floor space to non-food sales.
• These critical high street and town centre services must not be simply gobbled up by the major supermarkets.
• Change on our high streets will come from people not just policies. Charismatic, local people with a vested interest in protecting their town centres and revitalising their communities will, if empowered to do so, inevitably lead the charge for change.
• We are burying our heads in the sand about the social and economic impact. A pound spent in a retailer with a localised supply chain that employs local people has far greater domestic economic impact than a pound spent in a supermarket or national chain. What’s more, out-of-town developments are often presented as major new sources of employment but we need to recognise that this ‘job creation’ is often just job displacement.
• We need to put the heart back into our high streets and inspire that connection between local people and their ‘home town’. Localism must truly mean local people having a voice and influence.
• The planning system is too susceptible to those who can afford an army of lawyers and the costs can put off those with legitimate appeals, as a recent study found out. There seems to be an imbalance in the planning system which we need to address.
• We should be getting local people engaged early in the planning process and able to influence the future of their areas. I’ve heard too many examples of communities being against a big development but it going ahead anyway. People need a powerful, legitimate voice and planning needs to be a much more collaborative process than it has been to date. The Government, working alongside the big developers, should explore how the local community can be given sufficient support and a stronger voice in the planning system.
Disappointingly, her review also contained some sweeping statements that seemed to miss the point, such as:
• There should be an explicit presumption in favour of town centre development in the wording of the National Planning Policy Framework (that’s obviously not going to discourage supermarkets in any way!).
• Developers should make a financial contribution to ensure that the local community has a strong voice in the planning system (this smacks of blackmail money being paid out by supermarkets to secure planning permissions – oh, don’t they do this already?).
In the main, I felt that Portas merely acknowledged the “supermarket problem” and actually failed to address the key issues:
• Unless planning policies are changed, supermarkets will happily continue to take over our high streets.
• It’s all very well saying that “charismatic, local people with a vested interest in protecting their town centres and revitalising their communities will, if empowered to do so, inevitably lead the charge for change” but, sadly, we know from our own local experience that council planning committees are influenced by big business and NOT by town planning guidelines, local needs or community action.
Portas’s report included the following telling comment from “The Right to Retail: Can localism save Britain’s small retailers?” by A Schoenborn:
“The majority of shopkeepers polled felt that they had an unfair disadvantage in comparison with major supermarkets in the planning system. In this, they echo a view held by many communities and activist groups that have struggled to exert control of their local high streets. Concerns include that the resources available to major retailers make it significantly harder for local authorities to challenge submissions by supermarkets for planning permission, compared with smaller retailers. Particularly, local authorities’ decisions may be influenced by a cost-benefit assessment on the basis that supermarkets are able to fund costly appeals against refusals and claim costs if they win, or resubmit modified versions of refused applications. Better resourcing also allows major developers to exploit legal loopholes in land usage, offer local authorities “sweeteners” in exchange for planning permission or bypass planning objections by funding major developments.”
I think the government should be commended for commissioning this report – and Mary Portas, with her “tell-it-like-it-is” attitude, was an excellent choice as its author. Unfortunately, however, I don’t think it contains enough “clout” against the power of the “big retailers” (and big business in general)… and, we all know, that the government is therefore hardly likely to take it upon itself to crack down on such organisations.
Who knows, I might be proved wrong!

is there life after west wing?

As for most things it seems, I was late in “discover” West Wing and didn’t actually start watching it until January 2008. Since that time, I’ve become completely hooked. Last night, I watched the last episode of the very last season of West Wing and, in doing so, realised that I was about to enter a state of “mourning” (rather like getting to the end of a very good book). I’ve SO enjoyed the programme – brilliantly executed and with a wonderful script and cast. Although it was all fictitious (obviously!), it seemed to place an emphasis on the positives in the world of politics – it made you want your own politicians to behave like the main characters in the series (well, most of the time anyway!). It was utterly convincing and believable – both the individuals and the situations – and (somewhat pathetically, I know) I did find myself close to tears from time to time! I can’t actually recall anything about the programme that I disliked.
My favourite “bits” invariably involved the conversations between White House staff as they strode along the “corridors of power” exchanging questions, ideas, insights, observations and answers at rat-a-tat-tat speed – giving the impression of needle-sharp minds, spontaneous wit and wonderful wisdom – EXACTLY as I aspire to be at all times, you understand! In particular, I loved the “CJ” character (CJ Cregg played by the wonderful Allison Janney)… and have frequently pledged that “I want to be CJ when I grow up” (in ability, character, intellect etc etc!).
After this, all other television is going feel very ordinary!
PS: In anticipation of my after-West Wing “numbness”, I have been watching “The Killing” (Series 2) – on the advice of a number of friends. In my opinion, although it’s not at all in the same league as WW, it is a very impressive programme (I think there are still four episodes to go?)… and I’ve now also borrowed the Series 1 boxset too from Hannah+Felix.

european union (think the clue’s in the title)

Where does one start?
The right wing press have hailed Cameron’s veto to block a new EU-wide treaty as a Triumph (oh what a surprise). Similarly, he will receive a hero’s welcome in parliament on Monday from right wing Tories.
In truth, Cameron’s actions at the EU summit hardly came as a shock – as far as I was concerned, he’d been making all the wrong kind of noises long before he departed for Brussels. It’s just that I’d hoped for a minor miracle – which never came. Reassuringly(!), I note that Chancellor George Osborne says that the PM’s actions were "very refreshing" and has insisted that Britain will still play a central role in Europe. He must live in cloud cuckoo land.
A few thoughts:
1. At a time that called for international statesmanship, Cameron’s actions, in the early hours of Friday morning, were almost exclusively focused on domestic politics – with pressure from perhaps 80 Tory MPs helping to dictate the UK’s current predicament.
2. I suspect that the PM felt that his veto would avoid a future referendum (which, reasonably, he judged he would lose). Actually, Euro-sceptics - such as Bill Cash - appear to think that the situation demands a fundamental renegotiation of the treaty and that “that, in due course, will also require a referendum”.
3. The PM no doubt believes that his actions will help to protect the City of London’s best interests (oh, and his rich pals - including a few high-flying bankers). If I was leader of one of the other 26 EU nations, I think I’d be so cheesed off with Britain that I’d insist on avoiding financial business with the City as far as possible. The UK could miss out altogether on future bank talks. I somehow think that what Cameron regards as “defending the interests of the City” might prove only temporary.
4. Britain SHOULD be a leading player in Europe, but it isn’t. The Guardian aptly describes it thus: “The two-speed Europe is here, with the UK alone in the slow lane”.
5. It all feels as if the government still thinks we have an Empire. In many ways, the UK government will be hoping that it “all goes wrong” for the EU – so it can say “we told you so”. I suspect that the next year or so will indeed be very difficult (both economically and politically) for the EU. Whilst I don’t want UK citizens to suffer in the current financial turmoil, it would be gratifying if the EU had started to emerge from the economic gloom before the next General Election (perhaps ahead of the UK)… it would be enormously gratifying!
6. And what about the LibDems? You remember the LibDems – those pledges about student fees and their pro-Europe stance (and all that bull about the need for us “to be there at the table”)? It seems that if the LibDems pledge anything, you might as well just assume the opposite.
7. No one is saying that the situation within the EU isn’t incredibly complicated and dire – but the fact was that we (ie. the UK) were members of the EU team, but refused to act like team players (we seemed to have walked off the pitch in a sulk?). You might have felt that the slogan SHOULD have been: “we’re all in this together” (where have I heard this before?)… but it wasn’t. Britain is now isolated and friendless as far as the EU is concerned… and, from now on (whatever Osborne says) it won’t be able to influence the debate.
That must surely be bad for Europe and, most definitely, bad for Britain?
Photo: “It wasn’t me guv”.

all together now…

Despite my retired state (see my previous blog post!), I’ve just been on a demonstration in support of public sector workers over the government’s proposed changes to their pensions. Some 10,000 people (my rough guess – but it did seem enormous and was probably more than half a mile in length! ) marched through the streets of Bristol.
I HAD thought that the decision to strike on the day following George Osborne’s Autumn Statement was completely wrong – that it would greatly curtail scrutiny of his plans. I have now changed my opinion. His statement seemed only to underline his (and the government’s) ideological commitment to cutting the public sector. At a stroke (where have I heard that before?), he demonstrated the government’s ability to do as it pleased as far as its public servants were concerned.
Osborne’s “growth strategy” is actually dividing society (as well as not working!); polarisation is gathering speed - at an alarming rate. How can he can he justify a 0.1% increase for the poorest 10% of earners against a 49% increase last year FTSE 100 chief executives?
Yes, these are very difficult times, but it’s precisely at such times that political leadership becomes crucial. The government’s policies are seen as divisive (and often presented in an almost confrontational manner) – setting private and public sector workers against each other. Sadly, things haven’t been helped by the rather lame performance attitude of the Labour Party opposition over recent months. People ARE ready to make collective sacrifices but, as things stand, the government’s actions make an absolute mockery of the Chancellor’s “we’re all in this together” statement (from October 2009).
If only we were…
Background:
1. In his 2010 Budget, he “declared war on the public sector” and announced a two-year pay freeze (note: Local Authority workers’ pay had already been frozen for a year prior to that – meaning no pay increase for three years)(Teachers’ pay would be frozen from September 2011 as part of a previous 3-year pay deal).
2. Yesterday, in his Autumn Budget Statement, he announced that public sector workers’ pay (once the current pay freeze ended in 2013) would be capped at 1% increase for each of the following two years.
3. Inflation May 2010: 3.34%; inflation October 2011: 5.03%.
4. The OBR’s (Office for Budget Responsibility) earlier prediction that a squeeze on the public sector would mean 400,000 job losses over five years has now been nearly doubled, to 710,000 - as a result of extra spending cuts pencilled in for 2015-16 and 2016-17.
Photo: the back end of the march on Park Street – getting ready for the “off”.

november books

I know this is boring, but it’s been quite useful to keep a record of the stuff I’ve read. These are my latest books:
Middles Classes (Simon Gunn+Rachel Bell): An absolutely fascinating book that I bought on impulse at “The Last Bookshop”, Bristol (partly because it was only £2 new!). Written by two of the team who’d made the BBC documentary series “Aristocracy” (which I didn’t see), this book traces the roots of middle-class values in Victorian England through to the great education reforms and changes in the workplace of the 20th century.
Sunset Park (Paul Auster): I’ve become a great admirer of Auster’s books over the past couple of years. This book is set in 2008 in the USA - against the financial crisis that had recently hit the country. The story is divided between a number of characters but with the central player, in his late 20s, reflecting on why, despite his middle-class background, he has ended up in a New York squat. The book is typically Auster in “feel” – minimal dialogue, measured, third-person, past-tense narration – and with a typical lack of “closure”. One of those impressive books that you keep reflecting on long after you’ve finished reading.
And When Did You Last See Your Father? (Blake Morrison): It’s taken me a long time to get around to reading this. A poignant reflection of the author’s larger-than-life GP father (infuriating memories of him jumping traffic queues; “I may not be right, but I’m never wrong” motto etc) as he approached death. Although my own father wasn’t a “larger-than-life” character (or a GP!), Morrison’s reflections on the his father’s final days instantly brought back memories of my Dad’s death (lots of similarities: I think Morrison’s father died the same year as mine – 1992; Morrison and I are similar ages – he’s a year younger; we were both at our fathers’ bedsides when they died). A beautifully observed, honest book and one that has helped to trigger many memories of my own.
Words and Wonderings (Joy Mead): This is a book of conversations between the author and a range of people from different backgrounds, including poets, bakers, environmentalists, artists and musicians. The conversations essentially explore the true meaning of community (beyond the jargon of the “Big Society”!). Some interesting insights and observations. However, I did find the style/format of the book somewhat predictable and a little awkward (and, apart from one or two instances, not convincingly “conversational”). I enjoyed the diversity of the participants and found it useful as a daily source of reflection. This is another of the books our Ithaca group will be “studying” in due course.
The American Future (Simon Schama): This is a book of the television series (again a £2 purchase!) and is typically “Schama” in style – full of rich prose, stylistic “charm” and HIM (I find his ego rather irritating!) - it probably works better as a television programme than a book (although I’ve actually only seen a couple of the programmes). The book, which was written in Barack Obama’s presidential election year, understandably “looks backward in order to see forward” but, to my mind, hardly seems to look forward at all, so I found the title misleading/inaccurate. I felt he was at his most convincing when he provided first-hand encounters with people he’d met and somewhat strangely, given his eminence, found many of his historical accounts rather tedious/overcomplicated in nature (eg. compared with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals”. Nevertheless, a fascinating book.

within striking distance

I’ve been mulling posting something on this subject for the last few days. In principle, I’m supportive of public sector workers’ strike action (especially secondary school teachers!) on 30 November and, despite my retired status, intend to join the College Green demonstration in Bristol on the day.
My thoughts on the subject are somewhat muddled, but here goes (I’ve tried to give a balanced view)…
1. Personally, I can’t really afford to retire but, after making sacrifices and working VERY hard all my life, I am determined to explore and enjoy new things whilst I’m still fit and healthy enough to do so (my parents died when they were 70 and 71).
2. I was an architect in my “former life” and, for nearly 30 years, ran my own practice. Being self-employed and largely responsible for the financial well-being of my staff, this was extremely tough at times. Not only was the idea of me making pension contributions laughably impractical, but I was also frequently having to subsidise the practice in order to avoid having to make staff redundant during difficult times. There were good times too and I endeavoured to try to make up the short-fall, but it remained very difficult. As a result, my pension contributions have been inconsistent and my annuity choices frequently unwise (sometimes disastrously so!). Like many individuals, my annuities have been badly affected by the global financial crisis of recent years.
3. So, against this background, I’m perhaps understandably envious of the guaranteed pension provisions available to public sector workers – providing they are prepared to put in the necessary years of service (and pay extra contributions, work longer etc)… incidentally, it’ll be virtually impossible for teachers still to be teaching at the age of 68 - they will be burnt out LONG before then (and if you don’t believe me, YOU try dealing with some very poorly behaved, confrontational teenagers for six lessons a day)!
4. I know of many low-paid or self-employed people for whom the prospect of private pension provision is impossible. They too will be envious of public sector pensions. Many people in the private sector have no proper pension provision; surely, the government should be acting on this, rather than attacking public sector pensions (85% of public sector employees are in a pension scheme, compared with 40% in the private sector)?
5. On the other hand, many people working in the private sector have very generous pension packages, share options etc. The average director of a FTSE 100 company now has a pension pot worth £3.9million.
6. Large pension deficits in companies’ final-salary pension plans have driven most to close their schemes, removing the benefit from those working in the private sector. I think most public sector workers accept that pension arrangements do have to be adjusted to take account of longer life-expectancies.
7. The government keeps going on about the strikes being wrong because “negotiations are ongoing” (in reality, progress in negotiations has been painfully slow – and it’s in the government’s interests not to “rush” things!). In PR terms, the government actually wants the maximum disruption to the public - it suits its narrative of private sector versus public sector.

8. On average (apparently, according to Channel4 News FatCheckBlog in June this year), private sector employees are now “worse off” in their retirement – and on average their salaries are no longer any higher. Faced with those figures, David Cameron knows that most voters who don’t work for the state will back him on pension reform.

9. The fact is that public sector workers accept, from the time they first start their jobs, the terms and conditions of their employment. They appreciate that they won’t be richly rewarded financially. However, the long-standing pension arrangements are one of the few positive things related to their jobs (apart from job satisfaction for some?). Unlike in the private sector, many public sector workers (eg. most teachers, nurses, those working in the emergency services etc) do not have the same kind of flexibility to swap their careers for equivalents in the corporate world.
10. To my mind, the proposed 3% increase in contributions from public sector workers that the government is seeking to force through, is nothing to do with long-term affordability or sustainability – they’re simply being used to contribute to the short-term deficit-reduction targets over the next three or four years.
In my view, the situation has many similarities with the “occupy” protests of recent weeks – ordinary people have become sick and tired of being asked to pay (literally) for the actions of others - whilst, at the same time, they see the very rich continue virtually untouched.
The banks have not paid for the crisis they have caused. Instead the government is making ordinary people pay through its austerity programme… and, of course, public sector workers (and their pensions) are an easy target! I really think that the government is quite happy for the strike to proceed – in its eyes, it’ll be able to blame EVERY piece of “bad economy news” on the strikers.
I very much hope, even at this very late hour, that an acceptable compromise is reached and that the strike will be avoided… but I’m not holding my breath.
Photo: sign of the times? shop sign in disrepair on Park Street, Bristol.

turning the clock back

I met my good friend and former architectural client, Tony, for lunch in Reading yesterday. The last time we’d met was at my retirement party in February 2005. We’d known each other since the early 1980s. Although we hadn’t done an amazing amount of work together, we’d made a point of meeting up for lunch on a fairly regular basis. Amongst other things, these proved to be ideal opportunities for brainstorming, exchanging ideas, expressing our frustrations and generally encouraging (and laughing at) each other.
We both may look a little older, our hair may have become a little greyer, but yesterday’s lunchtime “reunion” was just lovely… in absolutely no time at all, it was as though we’d never been away. In the past six-and-a-half years, Tony had got married and he+Sue divide their time between their houses in the south of France and Berkhampsted and on their dutch barge… plus skiing, cycling, reading, walking etc etc (it’s a tough life!). He still dabbles in development and investment opportunities but, as ever, was focused on enjoying life and being happy (a sentiment/objective I think we both share).
It was just brilliant to meet up.
We talked (and ate and drank, as you do!) for three hours non-stop and have vowed to continue our “session” with a couple of other old work colleagues (Steve and Charles) in due course.
Photo: I didn’t take any photographs of our reunion(!) and no longer have any drawings/pictures of projects we’d done together… but I just found these architectural images in an “arch work” folder on my computer (which will have to suffice in terms of suggesting my former life!).

family likenesses

I spent ages last week hunting through old biscuit tins and shoe boxes full of old family photographs. I was searching for one particular photograph – of my grandparents’ wedding (Fred and Rose Broadway). Well, frustratingly, I didn’t find it and stopped searching. As it happens, earlier today I applied for my Senior RailCard and needed to look up my passport details… and, in the envelope containing my passport, birth certificate etc (you’re way ahead of me, aren’t you!), I found the aforementioned wedding photograph!
If you’ve been reading my blog recently, you will recall me “remembering my father”. I WAS going to use the photograph to demonstrate how physically alike my father and grandfather were… but, having recently come across one of my old school photographs, it seems that I also look a little like my grandfather too!
Scary or what!

Photo: left: Fred (circled) on his wedding day 3 August 1912, aged 25; right: me (circled) in May 1963, aged 14.

secret millionaire

I COULD have been a millionaire, you know.
The above photograph is clear proof (note: I’m on such good terms with my bank that I’m sure they would have accepted the cheque despite the “Stephano” name!). I was given it “in gratitude” by our lovely friend Liza at the end of the wonderful holiday spent with our mayBe friends at Upper Saltings, St Ives in 2002. Depending what you choose to believe, cheques are valid for either 6 months or 6 years… either way, I realise I’ve now blown my chances!
I’ve recently been clearing out “my” basement cupboard. Not before time. Although it was pretty organised in its early days, some six years or so ago, it’s gradually become one of those “stuff-it-in-and-close-the-doors-quickly” cupboards. Whilst I knew I still had the cheque (plus some of other lovely souvenirs from that holiday) “somewhere” in the house, I came across it by accident when I was going through my old biscuit tins/shoe boxes of old photographs.
A lovely reminder of a very special holiday (and worth its weight in gold!).

finding familiar faces...

I was searching through biscuit tins, old shoe boxes and on book shelves the other day in an effort to track down a particular ancient family photograph. It was an image, taken in a small back garden, of my grandparents’ wedding day (Fred and Rose Broadway)… I wasn’t there myself! It was evocative for a number of reasons but, in particular, because of distinct similarities between my father, Ron, and his own father, Fred. Needless to say, I didn’t find it – it’ll no doubt re-appear when I stop searching for it!
However, what I DID find was drawing I’d done of Moira in Easter 1972 (some 9 months before we were married), together with one of my all-time favourite postcard pictures – “Hat Trick with Freesia” by David Remfrey – which has always reminded me of Moira.
Aaaah!

remembering my father

I’ve just been reading Blake Morrison’s book “And When Did You Last See Your Father?”. It’s a poignant reflection of his larger-than-life GP father (infuriating memories of him jumping traffic queues; “I may not be right, but I’m never wrong” motto etc) as he approached death. Although my own father wasn’t a “larger-than-life” character (or a GP!), Morrison’s reflections on his father’s final days instantly brought back memories of my Dad’s death (lots of similarities: I think Morrison’s father died the same year as mine – 1992; they both died from cancer that had been diagnosed too late; Morrison and I are similar ages – he’s a year younger; we were both at our fathers’ bedsides when they died).
My father died within six months of diagnosis. I remember my mother telling me “it was serious”, but my father never really accepted this. He refused to talk about it. He seemed to be in complete denial. I recall numerous times when I tried to get him to talk about his life, his family, his childhood - but all to no avail. During his final months (when he was still fit enough to do so), I wanted to drive him to places he loved and for which we had particular memories – like the regular family picnic spot by the river at Aston Cantlow, near Henley-in-Arden, or the Flagpole (or “Tadpole” as younger family members called it!) on Cannock Chase or Llanrhaeadr, near Oswestry, or Bispham, near Blackpool, where we spent so many family holidays. But he just wasn’t interested. Looking back, I think I was trying to prepare myself for grieving him and now feel somewhat guilty that I had pressed him on such matters.
Amazingly, it’s coming up to 20 years since his death and, in many ways (like Blake Morrison), I wish I had written stuff down at the time – so many things have become very hazy, half-remembered recollections.
My Dad, Ron, was a printer for most his working life (compositor and reader). He was a proud and practical man, very organised, quite shy, conscientious and very reliable. He was born and brought up Handsworth, Birmingham (his father worked in the jewelry trade – starting out as a “jeweler errand boy”) and continued to live there for the rest of his life. He was quite an intelligent man who, I think, was very conscious of his working class background. As I grew older, I felt he was almost embarrassed by what he felt was a lack of education (although, of course, he would never have admitted this) - he used to challenge himself to learn new words/meanings on a daily basis via the “Reader’s Digest”. He was very fond of words (but hardly ever read any books, from what I remember?). Whenever he wrote a letter, they frequently “read” overly-formal/flowery and regularly contained words which weren’t quite used correctly – he regularly wrote letters of complaint to the Council or of appreciation to Hollywood stars.
He was a strict disciplinarian. He kept a riding whip hanging over one of the door architraves and used to use it quite frequently – never on me as it happens (was I really such a “good boy”?), but certainly on my brother Alan! He was pretty obstinate at times (surely not something I’ve inherited from him?) and his favourite family saying was: “If I say ‘black’s white’, black’s white”!
I still find it amazing that he used to come home to lunch every day – despite the fact that he worked in Birmingham (Dams+Lock). He had an hour for lunch and, with military precision, this was taken up by a 20-minute bus ride and walk home; 20 minutes to eat lunch; 20-minute walk and bus ride back to work (it’s a very good job the buses were so reliable!)… bearing in mind that it took him 5-10 minutes to walk to the bus stop from home.
He was embarrassingly colour-prejudiced (perhaps this was a result of what he saw as all the changes, for the worse, that had taken place in Handsworth during his lifetime?) and, as I grew older, my only coping-mechanism was to avoid the subject at all costs.
He was a great tinkerer – he could just sit and read a book. I well remember him “digging over” a flower bed at our house in Oxford just a/ few days after Moira had carefully sewn seeds! He and Mary came down to house-sit when we were away on holiday one year; unfortunately (when we lived in Thame), our cat died while we were away and he took it upon himself to get the vet to “get rid of it” – much to the dismay of our girls when we returned – they didn’t even have a body to bury and were completely distraught. I remember us returning home after a few days away and finding that he’d been down to the house and left me a list of things that I “needed to do” on the house!
He was a quite a deep- thinker and quite a creative person in some ways – he always claimed that he invented cellophane wrappings for food, for example (but, obviously, only in theory!)(he’d have a lot to answer for in these eco-conscious days).
Despite his relative shyness, he was quite gregarious in family situations (organising the games at Christmas, for example). Having said that, although he very much loved his family, he seemed to have an awkwardness when it came to dealing with his grandchildren (and his daughters-in-law!).
I think my most treasured memories are our occasional chats in the pub when they came down to Oxford/Thame on a Sunday. That was the time when I think we were closest. These were probably the only occasions that he “let his guard down” a little. He wasn’t a man to tell his sons that he loved them (well, certainly not in so many words!) and was frequently critical of both Alan and me – but, over our pints of beer, I came to appreciate that he was very proud of us both. This sounds awful but, whenever Mary accompanied us to the pub, it was never the same – he would clam up (and so would I!).
Apologies for rabbiting on, but I sense that if I don’t write down some of my recollections now, I may end up forgetting altogether!
He died from lung cancer when he was just 70. He was a thoroughly good man and he’d be incredibly proud of his sons, daughters-in-law, grandchildren and great-grandchildren if he were alive today.
Photo: My mother and father (late 1991? and 1947, Ilfracombe).

golfing and green fingers

In an ideal world, I’ve sometimes thought it would be rather nice to have “green fingers”. Clearly, in the real world, I don’t. That was until yesterday. As you might be able to see from the photograph (yes, it’s my ancient-looking hand), I now really do have green fingers!
I went back to my former golf club (Studley Wood near Oxford) yesterday to participate in the annual Bob Head Classic Golf Tournament – to celebrate Bob’s birthday. Last year, at about this time, the golf greens were apparently suffering from some fungal disease. So this year, as a precaution, they decided to spray all the greens with a green dye (which apparently contains fertilizer and some magic potion)(really?). It makes the course look as if it’s trying to impress passing helicopters, for some reason. It also means that your golf balls end up being covered in the stuff… and, of course, so do your hands (well, at least your non-golf glove hand).
It’s now getting on for 24 hours since I played and I must have washed my hands more than 20 times since I finished the round… and, as the photograph hopefully illustrates, my hand is STILL green! I have to say, I’m not very impressed.
Actually, it was a really good day. There were more than 20 of us playing and it was great meeting up with some old friends again (school terms have meant that I’ve missed the past six “tournaments”).
PS: Hardly playing these days means that my golf is somewhat unpredictable in terms of quality. This was well illustrated by my exploits at the first hole (par 4) yesterday: without having hit any practice balls, I played two superb shots to put myself some 10feet from the hole and ended up four-putting!

the awakening

Catherine, Gareth, Alan and I went to see Nick Murphy’s “The Awakening” at the Watershed yesterday afternoon (Moira was sorting out her vast collection of knitting needles – true!). I’m not really a horror-/ghost story-lover but I did “enjoy” this film. It’s set in England shortly after the end of the Great War and Rebecca Hall (acknowledged ghost-buster or, rather, ghost-debunker) is summoned to a remote boys’ school to investigate some creepy incidents. Beautifully filmed and containing some suitably scary moments (I may not be prepared to play with our granddaughters’ dolls house in future!). Not sure that I was at all convinced about the ending, but… I did fall for Rebecca Hall!

the dreaded eleven-plus and other stuff…

I’ve just finished reading a book about the “Middle Classes” (I know this seems a strange book choice, but I picked it up in a bookshop and became intrigued after reading a few pages). I think we’ve largely left the differentiations between the classes behind, thank goodness, but I did find one of the book’s conclusions worrying: “All the relevant indicators suggest that British society became more unequal and less open in the later 20th century. For example, the poorest 10% of Britons were 13% worse off in 1997 than in 1979; by the 1990s the gap between highest and lowest paid was the widest since records began; and there is clear evidence of declining social mobility among the poorest third of society”.
The book also highlighted the dreaded Eleven-Plus examination – introduced by Tory Minister Rab Butler through the 1944 Education Act. The system was based on the idea of different types of education for different children (ie. differentiation by academic ability rather than by class) - yet hopes that the “secondary modern” would, by virtue of its more practical education, gain a prestige equal to that of the grammar school were never to be fulfilled.
The awful thing was that this creamed off a small minority into the grammar schools while the vast majority were labelled as “failures” (many for the rest of their lives) – just on the strength of one, single, flawed examination.
It made me reflect on my own childhood in the 1950s/60s. My family was very much a loving and supportive one, but definitely “working class”. I did have a very good Grammar school education (although my parents were only informed that I’d passed the eleven-plus the day AFTER everybody else due to the letter having been delivered to the wrong address!), but my brother – who I feel was just as “bright” as me – failed the exam. This wasn’t at all surprising however. As a child, he suffered terribly with chronic asthma and he ended up spending time at an “open air school” in the years before sitting the exam (which clearly had a detrimental effect on his education)… I just LOVE the rather bizarre idea that Birmingham should be considered a suitable location for an “open air school”!
The awful thing is that, while my brother went through secondary school education and left school at 15, I ended up being fast-forwarded to take my O-Level exams a year in advance (despite my father insisting on seeing the headmaster to plead that I shouldn’t be allowed to do so… the headmaster fortunately persuaded him otherwise!). Happily, by the time brother was 20, at his own insistence, he began to study at night-school in order to obtain some qualifications and, amazingly despite all the odds, ended up going to university and obtaining a Surveying degree (but he did so only by continuing to work full time/study in his spare time – it took him something like 10 years). He really is an amazing bloke.
Not many people, in similar circumstances, would have had his guts, determination and sheer endurance (or opportunity?) to battle through such an educational background.
For a variety of reasons (including my brother’s experiences), we took the decision that our own children should be educated under the comprehensive system – deciding to remain in Oxfordshire, rather than Buckinghamshire (where my architectural practice had its offices).
We don’t regret it.
PS: The “Middle Classes” book was fascinating in all sorts of ways. This was just one of the ridiculous things I discovered: “Until the Test and Corporation Acts of 1828, holders of public office had to receive Anglican communion and to reject the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, thus preventing non-Anglicans of any kind from becoming members of parliament. Even then, the same barrier still prevented anyone who was not a member of the established church from taking a degree at Oxford or Cambridge until 1856 or teaching there before Gladstone abolished the University Religious Tests in 1871”. Genius!
Photo: extract from Handsworth Grammar School photograph dated May 1963 (I’m third row from the top, third from the right)(yes, this was just pre-Beatles and I’d just started experimenting with Brycreem!).