Triumph

The National Theatre's Olivier Award-winning smash hit, "Dear England" has arrived at Sheffield's  Lyceum Theatre in a highly  praised national tour. And last night, Shirley and I went along to see it.

The promotional blurb said this: "It’s time to change the game. The country that gave the world football has since delivered a painful pattern of loss. The England men’s team has the worst track record for penalties in the world, and manager Gareth Southgate knows he needs to open his mind and face up to the years of hurt to take team and country back to the promised land.

Football and non-football fans alike will be brought to their feet in this joyous, five-star ‘new stage epic’ (Telegraph). From multi award-winning writer James Graham (Sherwood, BBC) and director Rupert Goold (Patriots, Cold War), Dear England tells the uplifting, at times heart-breaking, and ultimately inspiring story of Gareth Southgate’s revolutionary tenure as England manager.

David Sturzaker (Doctors, BBC) plays Gareth Southgate in this gripping examination of nation and game. He is joined by stage and screen actress Samantha Womack (EastEnders, BBC; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) as team psychologist Pippa Grange."

⦿

At the end, following a rapturous standing ovation, Shirley and I dashed out of the theatre  onto Arundel Gate and managed to clamber on board a Number 88 bus that took us homeward straight away. We chuckled with delight about our good luck.

I had laughed and cried during the performance. It was brilliantly staged and though not what you might call "high drama", "Dear England" was certainly very entertaining - especially for somebody like me who loves English football and cares a lot about it. 

Somewhere in our recent past, England football supporters began to sing Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" at international matches and at the end of last night's  show, the entire cast and audience sang along and danced to that familiar song. Tears ran down my cheeks.

Foxes

Visitors who have been popping into "Yorkshire Pudding" for a long time may remember that since I retired I have derived a great deal of pleasure from the Geograph photo-mapping project to which, at the last count, I have submitted 18,638 photographs.

Geograph has increased my motivation to get outside walking and it has also taught me a great deal about the geography and history of these fabulous and fascinating islands - The British Isles.

I do not know exactly how many active contributors are still sending their images to Geograph but it will be somewhere around ten thousand people who live all over this country and in Ireland too. 

In recent months, I have been impressed by fox pictures taken by a contributor called Peter Trimming. He has gathered them in West Brompton Cemetery, London. It is bang next to Stamford Bridge - the home ground of Chelsea F.C. and about a mile from where my son lives - along Lillie Road past North End Road to Fulham.

In the past, Shirley and I have explored West Brompton Cemetery. It is where the women's suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst is buried. Go here. During our visit, we saw squirrels and pigeons but we did not spot any foxes. They may have smelled us coming.

However, Peter Trimming has had much better luck and below I have picked just six of his magical fox pictures to share with you...

And finally, using my Google detective skills, I was able to track down a picture of  the old fox himself - the man responsible for these images. Let us applaud Peter Trimming. Such patience, such technical skill and such affection for urban foxes...

Latitude

West from our garden and out beyond the suburb of Greystones, following an invisible route that hugs Latitude 53°North like a ley line. Over the Porter Brook to the reservoirs at Redmires – thence to The Derwent Valley and out across the wild high moors that cleave northern England. There’s Manchester Airport ahead from which planes ascend like dragonflies, then onward to the low-lying Wirral Peninsula before striking out across The Irish Sea to Dublin. The way is arrow straight over those emerald fields to Galway. In front, The Atlantic Ocean heaves, its waves white-tipped.

Two thousand miles to Canada and below there’s the raw coast of Newfoundland. We travel inland to Labrador City ever westward and on to the southern end of Hudson Bay crossing uninhabited Akimiski Island before striking out over the emptiness of Northern Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Soon the invisible line cuts across the sprawling city of Edmonton in Alberta before advancing to the mountainous coast of British Columbia and out across Hecate Strait to the Queen Charlotte Islands

And now the immensity of The Pacific Ocean confronts us till the latitude 53°N eventually brings us to Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula and The Sea of Okhotsk. From Russia to Inner Mongolia and back into Russia again where mighty Lake Baikal imagines that it is an ocean. On and on to the steppes of Kazakhstan thence to Belarus and northern Poland and into the states of Brandenburg and Lower Saxony in Germany. Still like a knife we slice across the northernmost part of The Netherlands and head over The North Sea to the Lincolnshire coast of England.

Soon the line advances to the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire and the word “West” painted on a garden wall. As T.S. Eliot wrote in “Little Gidding”:-

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an 

end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

WEST>>>

Our semi-detached house was built on a hill. Consequently, as you step down the street the houses also step down. The neighbours above look down on our garden and we look down on the other side's garden.

Above us there's Tony and Jill - a lovely couple who are now well into their eighties. They have lived on this street for fifty years. Between our two houses, near the back doors, there's a brick wall with a concrete panel on top of  it.

Recently, I repainted our side of this rough-textured panel with white masonry paint. In idle moments I have often thought about adorning it with a mural - perhaps sunflowers or a giant robin but a month ago, a much  simpler idea came into my simple mind.

The garden is west facing so I thought of painting the word "WEST" upon it followed by an arrow. I know the idea is slightly bizarre but as I said to Tony and Jill when explaining it, "I am a bit mad". The design I had in mind would be reminiscent of the painted directional graphics that may still be spotted in old football stadiums.

In any case, the word "west" crops up quite a lot in our culture. "The west" is where most visitors to this blog reside and Percy Shelley wrote "Ode to The West Wind" in another October - two hundred and six years ago...

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing...

And once young men were advised to "go west" to seek their fortunes. In contrast, the expression "gone west" means to have met with death or disaster. So "west" isn't just a cardinal point, it has plenty of other connotations.

Anyway, anyway beyond the dark midnight I have hatched many wild plans. Mostly they are not followed through but this time, this time I did it as the two pictures prove - taken I might add on a rather cloudy afternoon.

Apples

A mast year is a year in which a tree bears an unusually bounteous crop of nuts or seeds and this term can also be used for fruit trees.

2025 has certainly been a remarkable year for apples here in Great Britain - a genuine mast year. Several newspapers have reported as much and people with apple trees in their gardens agree that this year has been quite special.

We have five old apple trees in our garden which we have looked out upon for thirty six years. Throughout that time, the four big trees have given us lots of green cooking apples each autumn. But this year something very odd has happened because the apples that hang from those selfsame trees have turned red for the very first time. (see picture above)

Scientists might explain that perfect growing conditions with plenty of summer sunshine will often trigger much greater production of a red pigment called anthocyanin and that seems to be what has happened to our apples.

In all previous years, our apples have been so tart they would make you wince. They have only been good for pies, crumbles and apple sauce - all requiring the addition of sugar. In spite of that history, today I thought I would try one of this year's red apples and sure enough I could eat it without squirming. 

Though not quite as sweet as many modern eating varieties, the level of sweetness was more than acceptable and I carried on to eat the whole thing. 

When it comes to apples, I might have to wait another thirty six years for a similar mast year. I will be 108 years old when that crop arrives.

Two

 

Our grandson, Zachary will be two years old next Friday. On Saturday morning, we took him to the urban farm at Hounslow. It is very close to Heathrow Airport and all the time we were there we had to experience aeroplanes rising into the sky - so low that you could easily make out the names of the carriers - from "United" to "Lufthansa". You can imagine the noise they made.

Personally, I loved Hounslow Farm because of its higgledy-piggledy amateurishness. It has clearly been there a good number of years, relying upon the goodwill of volunteers to proceed. The animals Zach saw included sheep, goats, llamas, pigs, horses, donkeys, rabbits, chickens, turkeys and ducks. In the guinea pig shed I saw a rat which was not supposed to be there. Maybe he had been invited over for lunch by the guinea pigs.

At ten thirty in the polytunnel,  two teenage girls introduced us to some small animals, including stick insects, hissing cockroaches, a diadem snake from Sudan and a soft-shelled tortoise from southern Russia. One teenage girl advised me to hold it like a hamburger. And here I am showing it to Zach...

The photos don't really reveal what a happy little chap Zach is. He loved meeting up with his grandma again but took time to warm up to his silly old grandpa. I don't blame him. This morning, we took him to Battersea Park, south of the river. It is exceedingly popular with local Londoners. They run there, ride bicycles, feed ducks, amble along, play sports like tennis or visit the popular cafes. There were hordes of them.

And here's Zach looking at you from the crotch of a tree. He can see exactly what you are doing so stop it right now!

On the way down to London by train, a famous woman sat opposite us, texting and phoning and berating a guy called Simon who was her underling assistant. It was Sharon Graham, the powerful leader of Great Britain's Unite trade union. It has over 1.2 million members. I have often seen her on television. Strangely, she did not ask for my autograph...

Absentia

 

Like yesterday's "Fossils" blogpost, this one has been "scheduled" to post via the magic of Blogger.

We are currently down in this country's sprawling metropolis. See the video at the top in which a much younger Ralph McTell sang about "The Streets of London", focusing humanely on those who are overlooked or neglected in big cities - people like shadows who nonetheless have stories to tell. Did anyone ever aim to become homeless - living out on the streets? I doubt it.

Ralph McTell is now eighty years old. I guess we are all getting older. Years flicking by, one after the other.

Yes. We are in London, visiting our grandson Zachary and his parents too. I doubt that we will see a West End Show, visit an art gallery or grip the railings outside Buckingham Palace, hoping for a glimpse of King Charles III and the true love his life - Queen Camilla. Zach will be two years old next weekend.

Hopefully, the three o'clock train from St Pancras will bring us back to Sheffield as daylight begins to wane on Sunday.