struggling schools within a struggling society: present and future problems…

You’ve probably read/heard stuff about how schools are struggling…
You’ve probably seen/read about the thousands of head teachers from around the country demonstrating in London recently…
You might be a parent who is seeing for yourself some of the scary issues schools are facing through lack of adequate funding.
You might well have shrugged your shoulders and thought: “well, we’re all struggling, what makes schools so special?”.
Well, I’d urge you to read this (please):

After retiring from my architectural practice, I spent six years working in a secondary school in a mentoring capacity. This morning, I received this from a friend/former work colleague (she’s still working in education, but not at the same school):

“I'm so glad you are out of education Steve it's heartbreaking where I work now, so many kids with problems... they just can't get the mental health support need counselling. Teachers are dealing with disruptive kids every lesson no TAs. One class has 2/3 kids with SEN no TA. When kids tell me they are cutting themselves I'm told the waiting list for in school counsellor is over 6 months. They have no money to buy in counselling support, they try to get trainee counsellors but there aren't any just now. Schools are dealing with lack of special school provision for those who need it. One boy in year9 genuinely doesn't think he's a human. Other day was lying on the floor in class teacher couldn't get him up. We are failing him as he is more anxious by an environment he shouldn't be in and the rest of the class are learning lot less. That's one example of many. I'm seeing kids where parents don't engage at all with them, complete neglect - and social services are not on any of it as short staffed. I'm not even in a pastoral role and 4 kids have confided in me this month with big problems who need and were getting no support. The sad thing is I often can't get them that support. It's breaking my heart you'd hate it. You can't run a society not looking after your mental health, disabled, your kids and the poor as well as screwing over social workers schools and hospitals. Why the hell are we letting this happen?”

Things were bad enough when I left education in 2011 (thank you Mr Gove and welcome to the depressing world of Academy Schools!). Mental health issues were rising at an alarming rate and waiting lists for counselling support for pupils were in order of six weeks (they’re now six months and the numbers of children needing support is increasing).

Disruptive pupils, lack of parental support (frankly, an alarming number of parents who seem to think they have little or no responsibility for raising their children once they’ve started school)(you might be shocked by this, but I can assure you I came across many such situations).
This is the next generation of adults we’re talking about, for goodness sake… and they’re going to be the parents of the generation after that. It MATTERS and this isn’t anything that the short-term, egotistical whims of education ministers will solve.

In my view, we’ve completely lost our way when it comes to education (some of my teacher friends might disagree with certain aspects, but…?). Everything seems to be focused on ‘league tables’ and ‘results’. Teachers are all under ridiculous pressure to ensure that ‘attainment standards’ are met and for the 'curriculum' to be rigidly adhered to. It also seems to me that it’s currently about ensuring most children receive a university education (I personally think we need to focus far more on apprenticeships and the like - a degree doesn’t need to be for everyone), instead of educating future citizens of the adult world in the broadest possible way - where the environment, the arts and humanities are given far higher priority and where issues such as relationships, respect and kindness play a fundamental part in teaching children about life and the world.

But I’m clearly living in cloud cuckoo land and I’m old and I just don’t understand.

new foyer at st george’s…

I love St George’s – it’s definitely my favourite concert venue in Bristol and, last night, was the first time I’d been able to experience its new Foyer (a £6.3million extension by the Midas Group), which opened last month. I’d endeavoured to see the new building a couple of weeks ago when I called in for mid-morning coffee, but everything was locked up… which I found somewhat surprising.
It’s obviously early days and things still look a little unfinished (a scaffold tower remains at the Great George Street entrance) and I freely accept that I haven’t been able to explore the new facility in its entirety but, I have to say, I was left feeling rather underwhelmed.
Yes, there are lots of aspects of the new extension that are very good (it’s very light and airy in character, the external areas will work well during the summer months, the entrance into the auditorium is a huge improvement etc) and it will clearly provide a great new resource for the city but, especially when compared with the recently-opened extension to the Old Vic Theatre down the road (which, admittedly, was more than twice the cost), I think it falls well short of my personal expectations.

For me, the new building seems to lack design coherence. My initial impression was that it had been designed by a group of individuals - each responsible for particular elements – but who hadn’t really managed to get together to coordinate things in terms of the overall building design.

Here, for example, are just a FEW matters that I found unsatisfactory (and, yes, I know this is all very subjective)(photos numbered clockwise, starting top right):
1.    The new exposed concrete staircase immediately adjacent the entrance is fine, but sits uncomfortably with the adjacent white staircase (with its curved half-landings and solid balustrade walls)(photos 1+5). 
2.    I think the metal balustrading, with its vertical spindles, looks rather dated to my eyes (or perhaps the designers are TRYING to give it a retro ‘feel’?)(photos 7+9). There’s also a very strange detail at the bottom of the concrete staircase (photo 6) where the balustrade is continued back just beyond the half-landing (looking almost like an after-thought to try to prevent children from playing under the stairs!). It all looks rather awkward and incongruous. 
3.    In use (ie. before the performance/during the interval), there was clearly insufficient space for people to sit (there were a total of only eight small tables, I counted) or to stand against or find somewhere to put their drinks glasses while chatting. No one, it seems, had thought this through. There was a distinct lack of shelves or ledges for putting down glasses (comparison with the Old Vic is embarrassing in this respect – where they try to utilise as much space as possible for such purposes).
4.    I wasn’t able to get into to the large seminar room on the first(?) floor, but noted that it had a fully-glazed wall running alongside a balcony walkway link to the ‘white staircase’ described above. The trouble was that someone had decided to install the small server counter with all its rubbish, wires and general paraphernalia exposed and visible from the walkway link. Ridiculous! (photo 2)
5.    Everything looked a little bare (including the bar)(photo 8). I quite like a ‘minimalist feel’ but I don’t think they’ve got things right, here. I’ve no idea if they provide food in the bar/foyer. Hopefully, they do - but there certainly weren’t any notices or information. In fact, what little signage there was, all felt rather like an afterthought – notices/directions on music stands being placed in inconvenient locations so that people were constantly walking into them, for example (photo 1).
6.    I had assumed that the old bar area would be incorporated into the new bar/reception area but it seems that most of it has been devoted to small seminar rooms(?), offices and a rather disappointing ‘history of St George’s’ display that wastefully (to my mind) utilises quite a large area.
7.    I think it’s all crying out for someone to ‘take control’ of St George’s new facility… in terms of the whole experience, what it looks like, what message it conveys to its punters… and getting the small details ‘right’. At the moment, it looks a little as if no one cares (or is bothered) about such issues.
8.    I could go on…

I might be being a little unfair in this initial assessment and absolutely appreciate that I need to visit on a number of occasions and at different times of the day to fully appreciate how the new building is being used and what additional resources it provides. Sadly, in addition to its design deficiencies, it left me with a sense that it was only AFTER the building had been ‘handed over’ that anyone had been allocated the task of actually managing its use (I may be wrong!)… so, instead of utilising the construction time for this purpose, it felt as if there were more important things to think about.

Yes, a wonderful new resource for the city, but perhaps an opportunity not fully realised?
PS: I know that this will seem incredibly trivial in the whole scheme of things, but I also thought that whoever chose the wine glasses ‘got it wrong’! It seems that all the glasses have 4” stems – just perfect for ‘ease-of-knocking-over’ (not that I did, you understand!). They just seem incredibly impractical or is that just me?
Photos (numbered clockwise starting, top right): 1: main stair plus signage; 2: seminar room from balcony walkway (showing back of server+ paraphernalia); 3: general view from white staircase; 4: front sitting area from white staircase; 5: white staircase; 6: balustrade rail to main staircase; 7: main staircase and walkway from front balcony walkway; 8: foyer and bar area; 9: front balcony walkway; 10: external view, with scaffold tower.
All taken very rapidly, before I wrote my blog post.

stacey kent at st george’s…

I went to see/hear a concert by Stacey Kent at St George’s last night. As you probably already know, she’s a Grammy-nominated, American jazz singer. She travelled to England after graduating to study music at Guildhall School of Music, sang regularly at Café Boheme in London’s Soho in the early 1990s and, within, three years began opening for established acts at Ronnie Scott’s.
Somewhat embarrassingly, I wasn’t really aware of her myself until my great friends Gail and Ian Adams recommended her music to me a couple of months ago. Since then, I’ve been listening to her (a lot!) via Spotify… and it was Gail+Ian who also flagged up that she was booked to play at St George’s as part of a brief UK tour.
So, I duly bought my ticket and chose, as I often do, to sit in the side gallery - with an excellent bird’s eye view - as part of a large audience of devoted and appreciative Kent fans.
Well, it proved to be a wonderful evening.

She performed alongside her 4-piece band of truly excellent musicians (her husband Jim Tomlinson on saxes and flute; Graham Harvey on piano; Jeremy Brown double bass; and Josh Morrison drums). When I grow up, I’d like to play the piano like Graham Harvey please.

The entire evening was superb. Relaxed, utterly professional and very, very enjoyable… you know that feeling when, within the first few bars of the first song, you just KNOW ‘everything’s going to be alright’! Well, that would be a massive understatement.
The five of them were simply sublime.
If you get a chance to see her perform, please take it – I can guarantee you won’t regret it.
PS: In fact, Kent opened the performance with an apology… she’d been struggling with her voice by the end of her Swedish tour, but was determined not to cancel. She explained that she’d therefore selected songs for the evening that she hoped would minimise the strain on her voice… and assured the audience that she would definitely return to St George’s. Well, if this was Kent on a ‘bad night’, I can’t imagine how she could be even better!
Photo: this was the view from my seat.

october 2018 books…

Lucky To Be An Artist (Unity Spencer): This memoir (published in 2015) by Unity Spencer (1930-20170, daughter of painter Stanley Spencer, is a wonderful, poignant, candid account of her memories of her father (and the often chaotic world that surrounded him) and of her own artistic life. It describes a number of struggles with depression and mental illness (her own, her mother’s and, indeed, those of three male friends who all ended up committing suicide at various stages of her life) and, right up to when she was in her forties, tensions with various members of her immediate family. I bought the beautifully-illustrated, hardback book for £2-50 in The Last Bookshop(!). Although Stanley Spencer is one of my favourite artists, somewhat embarrassingly, I knew very little of Unity’s work. In fact, she was a very talented artist in her own right (I love the self-portrait, painted in 1954, which adorns the book’s cover). She and her sister Sherin clearly adored both their father and mother and the books ends with a beautiful, joyful, yet heart-breaking, letter Unity wrote to her father in March 2009 (he died 50 years earlier) giving him “some idea of the things that have happened” in her life.  
Negroland: A Memoir (Margo Jefferson): Jefferson is a black American theatre+book critic, writer and a professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts. She was born in 1947 (so we are of similar age) and this rather profound book is a memoir of her life at a time, in the 1950s and 60s in particular, when being black came with a whole host of society’s prejudices and discrimination (and segregation). But, for Jefferson, life was rather different from images we might have of black society in America. The ‘Negroland’ she refers to is not so much a geographic location as a state of mind; an exclusive club without discernible borders, to which few have ever belonged. Over the years, its members have been characterised by descriptions ranging from “the coloured 400” (families) to “the blue vein society”. Jefferson’s fashionable, socialite mother (married to a Chicago paediatrician) described their family as “upper-class Negroes and upper-middle-class Americans”. It’s an absolutely fascinating (and sometimes quite shocking) book, beautifully crafted (she writes wonderfully) and mixing historical background of with that of her own family and her own memories and experiences… and frequently with reference to fashion, music, magazines and ‘accepted manners’. A remark by Jefferson’s mother, perhaps tired of the constant requirement to frame their lives through race, was telling: “Sometimes I almost forget I’m a Negro”.
The Fourth Sacrifice (Peter May): As you may have realised, I rather like Peter May as an author (I loved the ‘Lewis Trilogy’). Thanks to the Last Bookshop, I bought a couple of May’s books from his ‘China Thrillers’ series of books (£5 for the pair). This is book two out of seven (I know, I know). The Chinese police have been forced to enlist the services of an American pathologist (she was apparently in book 1) to work alongside a Chinese detective (he was also in the first book… and it seems that the two of them were ‘quite intimate’!) to investigate a series of four horrific ritual executions. Yes, it IS a thriller and May is an excellent writer… but it’s 500 pages long when, frankly, it should have been cut down to perhaps 300 (so much unnecessary, and rather tedious, ‘romantic padding’… something May isn’t particularly good at writing about in my opinion)(was he on a bonus from the publishers if he reached 500 pages?). Nevertheless, I did enjoy it and will certainly read other books in the series.
Iconic Nature+Travel Designs 1931-85 (Clifford+Rosemary Ellis): I bought this short book after seeing the exhibition at Victoria Art Gallery, Bath. Essentially, Clifford and Rosemary Ellis were pioneering art educators. Clifford (1907-1985) studied Illustration at Regent Street Polytechnic, before taking an Art Teacher’s Diploma. Rosemary (1910-1998) was a student of sculpture and art history at the Polytechnic. They married in 1931 and worked in partnership for the next 50 years designing posters and book jackets… signing their work simply “C&RE”. After moving to Bath in 1936, Rosemary taught art at the Royal High School (when Rosemary started work there, it was called the “Royal School for Daughters of Officers of the Army in Lansdown”… oh, how times have changed!). Clifford ultimately became Head of the Bath School of Art and, after the war, he became Principal of Bath Academy of Art from 1946-72 (and duly supported there by Rosemary). A very good, well-illustrated catalogue to support an excellent exhibition. 
Nothing Is Black (Deirdre Madden): A beautifully told story of three women who find themselves in a remote part of Donegal, Ireland at defining moments in their respective lives. A wealthy and ‘successful’ woman desperately seeking peace of mind; a painter leading a solitary life; and a neighbour longing for reconciliation with her estranged daughter. Lyrical, sparse and hauntingly beautiful.

fahrenheit 11/9…

I went along to the Watershed this morning (yes, this morning... again) to see Michael Moore’s film “Fahrenheit 11/9”. The thing about Michael Moore is that you know what you’re going to get, so the film was a predictably impressive, satirical, anti-establishment analysis of Trump (he compares Hitler to Trump), the Republican Party… AND the Democratic Party (they ALL get condemned in their various ways). It seems that Bernie Saunders is one of the very few politicians who comes out of the film in a positive light. In July 2016, Michael Moore (no fan of Trump!) wrote an essay entitled “5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win” and was duly labelled as a ‘doomsayer’.
The rest, as they say, is history… and, according to Moore, we’re all complicit.
Sadly, it’s all very well us in the UK shaking our heads in despair of decency and democracy in the US but, frighteningly, the same thing is happening on our own doorstep. There’s a very real sense that corporations and big business (not to mention the odd foreign power) are influencing elections and how we think.
It’s quite a long film (just over 2 hours long), but I found it completely compelling and tremendously persuasive… albeit depressing. Perhaps it dwelt a little too long on the water fiasco at Flint, Michigan (where Moore lives), which he for which he lays at the feet of the state’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder (Moore uses the piece to illustrate what he sees as power, corruption and deception). It’s frequently funny, but it also makes you squirm uncomfortably. One of the key matters from Trump’s election that is highlighted in the film is this: Trump voters 63million; Clinton voters 66million; non-voters 100million. Moore acknowledges that Trump has learnt from other big business leaders that you can get away with negligence and cronyism. The film is certainly a warning (to us all!).

If you’d expected Moore to be rousing and encouraging, you’d be disappointed (but he is powerful and convincing). He suggests that the principal hope might be the next generation (he trumpets the work of the teen survivors of the Parkland school shooting, and the aggressive anti-gun protests they’ve led) or, just possibly, if more people are prepared to stand up and fight against what’s happening in America (he reminds us of the general strike that teachers in West Virginia engaged in over the appalling meanness of their pay, and how that action spread to other states). It's a very impressive film and one that's well worth seeing.

There IS dissent happening across America (and across the UK in the ugly shadow of Brexit) and people ARE calling for change. Resistance is not futile, but is it enough? Is it too late already?
PS: The film's title relies on US date notation to refer to November 9, when Trump's 2016 presidential win was announced (the election took place the day prior). The title simultaneously serves as a callback to Moore's 2004 political documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which refers to the date of the September 11 attacks in the United States. Both of Moore's documentary titles are an allusion to the 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (taken from Wikipedia).
PPS: The excellent photograph montage is from The Irish Times.

benefit concert for keith tippett…

Last night I went along to a benefit concert at Saint Stephen’s for the hugely-talented, highly-acclaimed jazz pianist and composer, Keith Tippett, born in Southmead, Bristol (he suffered a heart attack, followed by complications from pneumonia, earlier this year). Sadly, there were a disappointing number of people in attendance but the concert, given in two parts by Blazing Flame Six (featuring trumpet, double bass, saxophone, drums and five-string electric violin and vocals) and pianist Stephen Grew, was quite extraordinary.
Grew played for 35 minutes… completely improvised… a truly mesmerising, energetic, compelling performance. I can honestly say that I’ve never heard so many notes played on a piano in such a comparatively short time! Very difficult to convey Grew’s music style, but this YouTube link will give an idea.
For me, the evening had a number of other, rather odd (in a lovely sense!), connections. Firstly, Keith Tippett is the brother of a very good friend of mine, Tom (another fine musician and general good egg!). Secondly, Keith is married to Julie Driscoll – whose “Wheels on Fire” record with Brian Auger and the Trinity is one of those iconic songs from my second year at university in 1968 (just 50 years ago!)(You definitely need to check on this link to see them in action!). I think it was my housemates and me who started a rumour that she was coming to an impromptu gig in Oxford at the time… and lots of people believed us!
Photos: I’m afraid my pics are a bit rubbish, especially those of Stephen Grew (I’m useless at taking photographs in dim light!)… but they give a ‘feel’ of the evening.

dogman…

I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to Matteo Garrone’s film, “Dogman” (I think there were a dozen of us there watching).
On the face of it, this was definitely a film that should never have been on my agenda… I certainly wouldn’t call myself an out-and-out dog-lover and I don’t have a gruesome fascination for films involving theft, hard drugs and extortion. However, very unusually for me, I HAD read Peter Bradshaw’s 5-star review in The Guardian in advance and that’s what convinced me to see it.
The main character, Marcello (very impressively played by Marcello Fonte), is an expert dog groomer living in a depressing, run-down seaside village near Rome. He reminded me, in looks, of a cross between Buster Keaton and footballer Meust Ozil. Life is hard and he ekes out a living (of sorts) by running errands for local thieves and dealing in coke on the quiet… and just about earns enough to pay for the occasional diving trip with his young daughter, the absolute love of his life. Marcello is popular with the locals – albeit that (or maybe because?) he’s no angel!
It’s difficult enough to try to make a living but this is made much, much worse (both for Marcello and other local business owners) by the presence of Marcello’s ‘friend’ Simone (played by Edoardo Pesce) – a hulking brute of man who terrorises local businesses in order to serve his own serious coke ‘needs’. He’s also Marcello’s best customer.

Well, I’m not going to give too much away except to say that there are lots of funny, endearing scenes but also lots of scenes that provide a very tangible sense of brutality and fear.
Although it wasn’t my ideal type of film, I was deeply impressed. It’s brilliantly done (with really excellent cinematography) and brilliantly acted.
I’ll definitely bolt the front door tonight… just in case!
All I’ll say is “Scooby-Do it is not”!

first man…

Went to the Watershed this afternoon to see Damien Chazelle’s “First Man” film, so I could re-live the story of the first manned mission to the moon.
I was a mere 20 year-old in July 1969, but I can distinctly remember just how captivated everyone was by the Apollo 11 moon flight… watching ‘live’ television pictures (admittedly in black+white!) just seemed unreal in the extreme.
You’ll be pleased to know that they made it to the moon and back again (oh, you knew that didn’t you).
Ryan Gosling (of La La Land fame) played Neil Armstrong… quite brilliantly (in a monosyllabic way that apparently echoed Armstrong’s character in real life) and Claire Foy played his wife Janet (another very powerful, sensitive performance).
The film was excellent in the way that it conveyed the almost outrageous, win-at-all-costs mentality of the time… after the Russians had proudly boasted the first man in space and the first space walk. It also gave a very real sense of just how basic the equipment was… they might have had incredible, sophisticated computer technology (for that time) but riding in the metal spacecraft must have felt a lot like Wallace+Grommit’s contraption (from “A Grand Day Out”… and bloomin’ noisy at that!) than the sophisticated craft that we ‘experienced’ in, say, “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
As you might have anticipated, the film also emphasised the high intellect and bravery of all those involved in the mission (and its stark, life-threatening dangers)… but, for the first time, I got a very tangible sense of the programme’s affects on the families (lots of sacrifices – including lives – lots of pride, of course, and but also lots of damaged relationships). It seems that Armstrong was also hugely affected by the death of his daughter Karen (of a brain tumour) in 1962, aged three.
Mirroring our own austere times, the film also touches on the moral justification of spending huge amounts of money on the ‘space race’ when there are so many people suffering poverty in the USA and the rest of the world.
I think the film is brilliantly done (something of an epic). I was very much looking forward to seeing it and wasn’t disappointed. You need to see it (especially if you’re not as old as me).
PS: Some thirty-plus college students had been given ‘reserved’ seats in the cinema for the screening. Admittedly the film was quite long (2hrs 21 mins), but I have NEVER seen so many audience members shuffle out/climb over seats to go to the loo during the screening… and the VAST majority of these were the students. It felt like having a class of primary school children in the audience (or perhaps worse)! In addition, I noticed that most (true!) of them were checking their phones right up until the film started. Me? Old and grumpy? Surely not.

the wife…

I went along to the Watershed this morning (yes, morning!) to watch Bjorn Runge’s film “The Wife” (in an adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s novel). The small Cinema 2 was absolutely ‘packed’ (all 40-odd seats taken). The married couple, after nearly 40 years together, are Joe and Joan Castleman (quite brilliantly played by Jonathan Pryce and Glenn Close – Close is absolutely outstanding). Joe’s stellar literary career is about to be rewarded by the Nobel Prize for literature. Joan had her own literary ambitions as a young woman, but effectively sacrificed her own talents for the role of being the ‘great American novelist's wife’.
Any long-term marriage or partnership inevitably involves a degree of compromise and balance and also those delicate, mixed, often quirky, characteristics which somehow seem to work. In this relationship, Joe is casual, whereas Joan is elegant; he is vain, whereas she is self-effacing…
Joan, much loved and admired, has ignored her husband’s various infidelities, his excuses, and his bad behaviour with grace and humour… but with Joe’s Nobel Prize award, she is forced to confront the uneven compromises and sacrifices of her life (particularly when, at cocktail parties, Joe blandly tells people that his wife “doesn’t write”).
Of course, in many ways, the film mirrors some of the sexist, even patriarchal, attitudes of that time (two scenes in the film are telling: one in which Joan is working as a reader in a publishing house, whose smug and cynical editors make it very clear what they think of women writers; and another where a female author strongly advises her to “give it all up” as far as any literary ambitions she may have, because of the difficulties of being a successful writer in a ‘man’s world’).
Anyway, I think I’ll leave it at that as far as the plot is concerned.
All I would say is that this is a brilliant, dark-humoured, timely, poignant, powerful and very enjoyable film… and watching Glenn Close’s performance is very definitely one not to be missed.
PS: Inevitably I suppose, with Moira and I having been married for ‘well over 40 years’, it made me think of our own decision-making, at the start of our marriage, when it came to our respective careers. I think we’d both agree that, in the end, we came to shared, sensible, logical decisions (but who can tell?). With Moira studying languages at university and me architecture, my prospective working life was probably more defined and, perhaps in most people eyes, seen as the more ‘serious career’ (I haven’t expressed that very well but, hopefully, you’ll understand what I mean?). Her course finished earlier than mine (architecture courses then used to go on ‘forever’ and involved 3 years at college, a ‘year out’, then 2 years back at college, before a final ‘year out’ working in preparation for professional practice exams) and she was keen to live and work in Paris. I had suggested(?) that it made sense for us to remain in the UK until after I’d fully qualified (ie. after my professional practice exam)… and that’s what we ended up doing. Had I REALLY been prepared to work in Paris (me, the utterly useless linguist that I am!)? I THINK I did… even though it might have been a somewhat foolhardy pipedream. Of course, by the time I’d passed my exams, Moira had settled into a job with the Open University (NOT using her language skills). We never went to live in Paris. Instead, we bought a house in Oxford; children followed; I was soon offered an architectural partnership with a High Wycombe practice; Moira ended up becoming the parent-at-home in our daughters’ early years.
Yes, I ended up having a ‘successful’ architectural career and ran my practice for nearly 30 years (I was never quite in the same league as a Nobel Prize-winning author as Joe Castleman!). I was pretty good at what I did, but I was never going to set the architectural world on fire… but that’s about it.
Moira is FAR more intelligent than me. Incredibly literate, knowledgeable and well-read (and mathematical, and artistic!). I could see her working in the upper echelons of the Foreign Office or even the EU (for goodness sake!!).
Do I feel guilty about effectively having limited Moira’s career opportunities (although it didn't feel like that at the time)? Yes, of course I do… but that’s the course that we BOTH chose to take, rightly or wrongly. I suspect, nearly 50 years on and with ‘partner roles’ having changed enormously over the years, we just might have done things differently. Who knows? x

september 2018 books…

Spinner’s Yarn (Ian Peebles): Yet another old cricket book (published in 1977). Peebles (1908-1980) was a leg-spin/googly bowler for Oxford University, Middlesex and England of the late 1920s/1930s (he was chosen Wisden’s Cricketer of the Year in 1931). He played at a time when players would find themselves being invited to ‘make up the numbers’ as an amateur for the annual Gentlemen versus Players match and was frequently invited to join cricket tours to far-flung places. A nagging shoulder injury, together with the loss of an eye in WW2(!), ‘curtailed his playing career’ (although, bizarrely, he did continue to play the odd game for Middlesex after the war) and he later worked as a writer and journalist. Very much a member of the ‘establishment’. He was an excellent, gifted writer and a natural story-teller. A relaxed, enjoyable book.
Exile (Padraic O’Conaire): Irish writer O’Conaire (1882-1928) is relatively unknown – probably because he wrote all his stories and poems in his native Gailic. This short novel (wonderfully translated by Gearailt MacEoin), first published in 1910, is a sad and compelling story of a young man who lost an arm and a leg in a road accident. He was awarded £250 in compensation, but soon frittered it away and ended up making a living disguised as a wild man and paraded as a circus freak. It’s a wonderful, lyrical evocation of life on the bottom rungs of society in Ireland and England – focussing on Galway and London. It’s a desperate, but frequently very funny, tale of utmost poverty told in the first person by a resourceful, determined, simple man whose judgement is frequently poor and whose emotions fluctuate wildly with circumstances (I would describe him as a well-read pipe-dreamer). Sadly, O’Conaire’s own life, in some ways, reflected that of the book’s central character… he died in the pauper’s ward of a Dublin hospital in 1928, aged 46; his sole possessions, apart from his clothing, consisted of a pipe, a piece of plug tobacco, an apple and a pocket life.
Mother Country (Jeremy Harding): When Harding was five, he learned that he’d been adopted. His mother, Maureen, told him. As he got older, wondered about the identity of his biological parents and, eventually, embarked on a quest to find them. Harding and I are roughly the same age (he’s three years younger) and so I could relate to much of the book’s background. Inevitably, his search is made more difficult by the lack of key details relating to his birth but, eventually (after a couple of false starts and the odd piece of good fortune), he DOES manage to track down his mother (who was originally from Limerick, but who travelled to London after the war looking for work). Surprisingly for Harding, one of the outcomes of looking into his family’s past was the amount of information he was able to discover about his adoptive parents – the scary bigotry of his ‘father’, Colin, and the Liza Doolittle-like story of his ‘mother’, Maureen (who herself was adopted). It’s a complicated, sympathetic and intriguing story – going off at too many tangents for my liking. The class consciousness of the 1950s and 60s has now thankfully given way to a rather different way of looking at the world.
Patrick Heron (edited by Andrew Wilson and Sara Matson): I’ve previously posted about the exhibition at Tate St Ives here. I always like, if at all possible, to buy a catalogue/record of exhibitions I’ve particularly enjoyed and this one is really excellent. Beautifully and fully-illustrated (of course) - although, somewhat predictably, also containing (as far as I’m concerned) some rather over-the-top descriptions and assessments of Heron’s work (eg. Andrew Wilson’s introduction to the catalogue). Fortunately, the book also contains a number of essays from various Heron admirers, art critics and other writers which helpfully unpick various aspects of his work (I particularly liked the final essay by Matthew Collings, who had visited Heron twice at home in Cornwall a year or so before his death, in 1999 – once with a film crew for a documentary and the second occasion for an extended magazine interview). All in all, a very impressive book and a wonderful pictorial record of Heron’s work.
WG Grace: His Life and Times (Eric Midwinter): Reading this at the end of September seemed like a desperate attempt to prolong my own personal cricket season! This biography (published in 1981) is not first of the ‘Grace’ biographies I’ve read (there have certainly been at least two others), but I thought it would be interesting reading it as a ‘resident of Bristol’ (Grace was born just 6 miles away and played most of his cricketing career for Gloucestershire… indeed, he apparently played rugby on the ‘field behind the Hen+Chickens in Bedminster’ (which is just down the road from our house) on at least one occasion! Predictably, Midwinter’s book contained lots of references to particular cricket games and individual innings. In addition, there was much reference made to Grace’s ‘sham-amateurism’ over expenses and match fees; his egotistical nature (and ‘prejudices’); his ‘gusty temper’; the fact that (despite being a medical doctor) he was ‘singularly inarticulate’ and ‘non-intellectual’ (and was once described as ‘just a great big schoolboy in everything he did’) and much more. Nevertheless, Dr Grace (1848-1915) WAS ‘Mr Cricket’ at a time when game of cricket was emerging as the sport we might recognise today. He made his cricketing debut, aged 9(!), for West Gloucestershire against Bedminster. In first class cricket, he scored 54,904 runs, took 2,879 (in fact, in all cricket he scored just 160 runs short of 100,000!) and, quite remarkably, played first-class cricket for 44 consecutive seasons! It still puzzles me why he was never awarded a knighthood? But, sadly, I found the book rather disappointing. I didn’t think it uncovered material that hadn’t been written about in previous years and, increasingly annoyingly as the book went on, Midwinter KEPT on making lengthy references to one of his own ancestors (WE Midwinter – the only player to represent both England and Australia against each other). Clearly, THAT was the book he really wanted to have written!