Happy

Detail of Shirley's Women's Institute tree in the cathedral

Please do not worry about me but for the second time in a week, I visited Sheffield Cathedral yesterday afternoon. There is absolutely no chance that I will be converted to Christianity as my belief in atheism is rock solid. All that stuff about the baby Jesus, wise men and  shepherds is a lovely legend that is part of our western culture but in the final analysis it is pure hogwash. Sorry to disappoint you if you had been taken in by the mythology.

I have always loved to sing Christmas carols and that is why I was at the cathedral. I had a front row seat and a song sheet. Shirley was volunteering at the "Age Concern" shop. I was set fair and from my unholy mouth burst forth the following very familiar carols:"O Come All Ye Faithful", "Away In A Manger", "The Twelve Days of Christmas",  "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night", "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".

Sheffield Town Hall clock tower and a massive Christmas tree

My singing voice was in fine fettle and perfectly in tune though I say so myselff. I probably overwhelmed the excellent choir of The Sheffield Chorale who were making a guest appearance and slightly frustratingly sang three extra carols  that did not require audience participation. Grudgingly, I must admit that their delivery was damned near perfect.

It was a joyous programme, interspersed with some of the boring stuff - like slices of white bread around pieces  of grilled sausage. You know what I mean - "The Lord's Prayer "  and biblical readings from Micah, Luke and Matthew: "On entering the  house, they saw  the child  with Mary the mother and they knelt down and paid their homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold,  frankincense  and myrrh."

Sorry folks - but there is no evidence that that happened.

After the service, I had a bowl of delicious carrot soup and a small wholemeal roll in the cathedral cafe before making my way home in the fading light. Past  the town hall, down The Moor then across the inner ring road to London Road and along Abbeydale Road before making a detour down Broadfield Road to take photos of the lion with electric eyes that I have passed several times in the last two months.

For whatever reason, I felt  really happy yesterday - at peace with the world - as I made my way home in the darkness via Carter Knowle Road, Struan Road, Jowitt Road  and  Bannerdale Road. It's a long slog up that hill. Colourful Christmas lights were twinkling in dozens of windows and I helped an anonymous old man with his shopping bags before  getting home to cook rump steaks. In short, I was fully alive, entirely alert and very comfortable in my own skin. Mama done  told me there'd be days like this.

Burger restaurant on London Road

Thing

 

Yesterday, I toddled up our garden to empty the caddy bin in which we collect vegetable peelings, used teabags and other compostable stuff. On the way back, something caught my eye sitting on the bark chipping mulch that covers a little border in front of a laurel bush.

At first, I thought it was either a stone or some kind of mushroom. Crouching down, I studied it for a few moments. When I finally decided to gently lift it, I expected that it would be secured to the earth with a stalk but there was no resistance and it was surprisingly light.

I brought it into the house and asked Shirley to come and have a look at it. She was as puzzled as I was. It weighed very little and had no aroma. How had it got into our garden if it was not growing there? Perhaps a fox had deposited it or a neighbourhood cat or a bird. It remained a mystery.

Next I took a sharp knife to it and with some difficulty managed to saw it in half.  The inside was dense and almost pure white. Shirley decided that it must be a sponge but I was not entirely convinced. I mean, I have never seen a sponge like that before and the shape of it was not entirely regular.

Natural and artificial sponges invariably have a more bubbly textured interior but this thing is uniformly dense.

I have tried googling its identity, searching for likely sponge culprits but to no avail. Maybe Frances or Stewart will know what it is when they come for their Sunday dinner tomorrow afternoon. Also, I guess there's the possibility that you, dear reader, will be able to lead me to a definitive solution.

Zeppelin

Stealthily and slowly the zeppelin moved across that summer sky, sometimes appearing briefly and largely unnoticed in the gaps between evening clouds. In those days, military airship navigation was a rather crude process and the given targets were therefore quite general. It was August 9th 1915 and The Great War had, like my father, just passed its first birthday. The huge L9 aircraft, manufactured in Friedrichshafen, Germany was commanded by Kapitänleutnant Odo Loewe.   

Ahead was the little Yorkshire port town of Goole.  With its first few bombs, the enemy attempted to blow up Goole Railway Bridge where it crosses The River Ouse. They failed miserably before drifting on to the town itself.

Goole Railway Bridge on Wednesday

In the little terraced streets north east of the docks, citizens were getting ready for bed. No doubt some were mending shoes, ironing clothes, playing dominoes, reading books, eating supper, stoking fires or settling children. Goole had never been bombed before and the people were blissfully unprepared for what was about to happen.

In total, sixty bombs were dropped on the town that night. It was like winning a reverse lottery. Roofs and walls came down. Fires erupted. Screams were heard and in the neighbourhood of Aire Street and Bridge Street, it was as if hell had broken out. The zeppelin drifted serenely on to the docks where minimal damage was caused before turning back to The North Sea and Germany beyond. The last few bombs were dropped in fields near the village of Hotham in The East Riding.

Behind lay the innocent dead, dying and injured - victims of a war that they neither created nor understood. Isn't that characteristic of all wars? 

Those who died that night were: Sarah Acaster, 65; Sarah Ann Acaster, 34; Kezia Acaster, 32; Violet Stainton, 18; Hannah Goodall, 74; Alice Harrison, six; Florence Harrison, four; Margaret Selina Pratt, nine months; Agnes Pratt, 36; Alice Elizabeth Woodhall, three; Grace Woodhall, 31; Mary Carroll, 32; James Carroll, 26; Alice Carroll, four; Gladys Mary Carroll, three, and Alice Smith, 17.

As I was walking in and around Goole on Wednesday, I looped round the cemetery and saw this, though at that precise moment I had no idea what it was:-

It is a memorial to the unfortunates listed above. Here's a close-up:-

The second photo is from the Historic England website.

My morning research into this tragedy conjured up an evocative  letter dated August 12th 1915 and written by Mr West, a resident of Goole, to his daughter who was a student in Leeds at the time - training to be a teacher:-

Mr Gunnee carried girl out, all flesh of one leg torn away - next he fetched a young baby, but the sight finished him; he was done ... sick ... he went away ... to vomit. Had it been a man, he says he would not care. Next fell in Ouse Street (back) near T.K. Wilson's baker. Hole in wall, drive horse and car thro' - floors are all down in the cellar, furniture just a pile of ruin, pictures hang akimbo.

Let us pray especially for the children whose lives had only just begun - Violet, Florence, Grace, Gladys, the four Alices and last but not least Baby Margaret. It goes without saying that they did not deserve to die that night.

As for Kapitänleutnant Odo Loewe, six months later in January 1916, he was commanding another zeppelin - the L19. It had to be ditched in the middle of The North Sea but all of the crew survived in a life raft.  Their signal flares were spotted by a passing  Grimsby fishing trawler but when the skipper of that boat, William Martin, realised that all of those seeking rescue were German airmen, he refused to pick them up, fearing they might take over his vessel. Subsequently, all sixteen, including  Loewe,  drowned. Perhaps it was predestined that that number precisely matched the tally of death in Goole.

Goole

Terraced houses on Pasture Road, Goole

Yesterday, I boarded a train bound for the town of Goole. It's forty three miles from here. I first blogged about Goole back in April 2022. By the way, it's where my brother Robin was born back in 1951 when my family lived in the nearby village of Barmby-on-the-Marsh.

Unlike Sheffield which is a very hilly city, Goole is as flat as a pancake. Round there you could walk for miles at exactly the same small height above sea level - just over three feet. In fact, I went to Goole for a long walk that took me to the village of Hook and then along the bend of the mighty Yorkshire Ouse.

By The River Ouse, heading back into Goole

Goole has a population of around 20,000 people  and it is Britain's biggest inland port. The town is situated some fifty miles from the mouth of The River Humber and though really big ships or container vessels cannot use the port, it is perfect for medium sized coasters and barges. That is really the reason why the modern town exists at all.

Round the back of St Mary the Virgin parish church in Hook (below), I came across a lone woman with a backpack and walking boots sitting in the open porch enjoying some rays of sunshine in what she called a "moment of reverie" We conversed politely for a little while.

Back in Goole itself, I visited the little town museum above the library before catching the 15.48 train home. The daylight was already fading in these northerly latitudes and by the time I disembarked at Sheffield Midland Station, the veil of inky darkness had already descended. It's only ten days to the winter solstice.

The clock tower in Goole's fading afternoon light

Before catching the 81 bus back to our neighbourhood, I made a special detour to The Moor - one of the city's main shopping streets - just to see the Christmas lights. It had been another grand day out with welcome exercise in the sunshine.

Sadiq

 

Sadiq Khan shares my birthday though he came into this world seventeen years after me. Born in the London borough of Tooting, he became the Member of Parliament for that constituency back in 2005 having spent the previous ten years as a practising solicitor specialising in human rights. He became a  member of Britain's Labour Party when he was fifteen years old.

Sadiq grew up in a Sunni Muslim working class family that had its roots back in Pakistan. His father was a bus driver and his mother was a seamstress. With his seven siblings, he was raised in a three bedroom council flat. You could never say that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He attended council run schools before undertaking a law degree at The University of North London.

In spite of his native intelligence, Sadiq had to fight for everything he got,  often experiencing racist treatment along the way. He was first democratically elected to be The Mayor of London back in 2016 and has since then succeeded in two further elections. White or black or brown, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist - the people of London wanted him and that is why the majority put their crosses in his box.

Being the chief executive of a vast modern city like London - often with funding challenges - is no mean occupation. It takes a special, gifted human being to take on such a role. His areas of responsibility include policing, waste disposal, street lighting, air quality, education, transport, tourism and a whole bunch of other things not listed here.

Sadiq has had to keep a clear head and maintain focus on action plans in spite of critics such as the  generally right wing London media and wealthy landowners. He has also had to cope with attacks from both Jewish and Muslim organisations as well as extreme leftists and the ominous right wing Reform Party. The ocean he steers across is often stormy.

Sadiq married another lawyer - Saadiya Ahmed in 1994. They have two daughters - Anisah and Ammarah who are both in their twenties.  He once said, "I am proud that London is a city where, the vast majority of the time, Jewish people, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, those who are not members of an organized faith, black, white, rich, young, gay, lesbian - don't simply tolerate each other but respect, embrace, and celebrate each other."

He also said, "London is the greatest city in the world" which is of course wrong because everybody knows that the greatest city in the world is my adopted Yorkshire  city - Sheffield! He must have been joking.

Personally, I admire Sadiq Khan greatly for his steadfastness, his brilliance, his tolerance, his humility and his focus.  I am of course leaving showman Boris Johnson out of the equation when I say that being The Mayor of London is not  a job for ninnies.

Keep up the good work Sadiq!

Sadiq Khan with his wife Saadiya at a festival in Hyde Park

Sorrow

This picture was taken a good few years ago. On the right is one of my all time favourite singer songwriters - Jackson Browne. And on the left - that's his oldest son - Ethan Browne. Ethan's mother was Phyllis Major who took her own life in 1976 when Ethan was just three years old.

Now it seems that Ethan has done the same - not through an overdose of barbiturates this time but through a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He died in his own home in Los Angeles which is where local police officers discovered his lifeless body. It was November 25th, two weeks ago.

Parents are meant to die before their children and  you may agree with me that there's something extra tragic about the death of a child - even when that son or daughter is fully grown up. And it doesn't matter if the only remaining parent happens to be  a millionaire singer songwriter.

I was privileged to see Jackson Browne in concert at Sheffield City Hall back in March 2009. I was there with my late brother Simon and we enjoyed the occasion enormously. For me it was almost a dream come true. I knew so many of the songs by heart and one of them was "Fountain of Sorrow" from the "Late for the Sky" album (1974).

I leave that song for you to listen to and in memory of an American man I never knew - Ethan Browne who finally gave in to his demons...

Soup

An English lady of mature years resides by the coast in southern Spain. She has often visited this blog and left comments that reveal her genuine and thoughtful engagement. She is known widely as Coppa's Girl though her real name is Carol. 

Anyway, just last week, she planted the seed of an idea in my mind when she justly derided my consumption of packeted instant "soup in a cup". Carol said she regularly makes a big pan of nutritious homemade soup which she stores in her fridge and consumes over several days. As you can tell, she is not just thoughtful but sensible too.

The seed was planted and like most seeds it grew. Yesterday, I roasted a chicken for our family Sunday dinner and instead of throwing the used carcass out on the back  lawn for the foxes, I retained most of it for soup making. I didn't want to utilise the rather grim inner body cavity of the unfortunate bird so at least the foxes got that.

The rest of the body - legs, wings, skin and breast leftovers went into a big pan of seasoned boiling water.  Then, after a few minutes, I added yesterday's leftover gravy, one large chopped carrot, a chopped onion, a handful of dried red lentils, chopped garlic, a bay leaf and a tablespoon of chicken seasoning.

I allowed it all to simmer for an hour before carefully removing bones, gristle and shreds of floating skin with the help of a sieve.. Then I added an "Oxo" cube and little pieces of broccoli as well as a handful of grated strong  cheddar cheese.

Naturally, along the way, I kept tasting the soup  before more salt and pepper was added. 

At first, my concoction was watery so I mixed a little "Bisto" powder in cold water with some cornflour and poured that into the saucepan just to thicken the liquid slightly. I would have liked to use double cream but Shirley told me that that was fattening. Who knew?

And then the soup was done. I had a bowl for my lunch and it was most wholesome and delicious. There's half a gallon left in the saucepan. In Carol's honour I shall call my soup - Coppa's Soup which sounds, somewhat ironically, like Cup-a-Soup! Ah, well.