Gentlenesse

This evening I finished reading "No Way But Gentlenesse" by Richard Hines.

Raised in Hoyland, South Yorkshire, Richard was born into a coal mining family. He had an older brother called Barry who became famous for writing "Kes" in the late nineteen sixties. That novel was later made into an iconic film.

It was all about a boy called Billy Casper who had little going for him but he managed to capture a young kestrel and train it. He called the bird Kes.

As an English teacher, I taught "Kes" to several classes over the years and it became a standard GCSE English Literature text. One of the things that I always loved about that novel is that it portrayed a coal mining community with understanding and compassion. Barry Hines's lived experience was his principal source.

But how had Barry Hines found out about kestrels and falconry?  Simple really: in the mid-sixties his brother Richard had become something of a self-trained expert and had reared and trained two kestrels of his own. He called them both "Kes" and Barry Hines had observed his younger brother's hobby at close quarters. It is what sparked the creation of the famous novel.

David Bradley, Richard Hines, Tony Garnett and Barry Hines

during the filming of "Kes" in 1968

"No Way But  Gentlenesse" is a personal memoir in which Richard Hines recalls his early encounters with kestrels and how later he was employed as the falconer during the filming of "Kes".  The book also maps Richard's personal development from being an educational failure to becoming a university lecturer here in Sheffield where he lived with his childhood sweetheart Jackie and their two children - John and Kate.

I believe that Richard and Jackie have now moved down to Sussex to be close to their daughter and her family but until fairly recently they lived just fifty yards from us near the junction  at the bottom of our stretch of road. 

I saw the couple many times - leaving their house or getting into their car but I didn't know who they were then and now they are gone. I would have liked to shake Richard's hand and ask him a few questions. His memoir was a lovely read and I felt that our lives had various parallels even though I of course never trained a kestrel or even a flea!

Richard Hines as I remember him

-  just a few doors away from us.

"Hamnet"

 

Two cinema visits in one week!

This morning I braved our snowy streets and caught a number 218 to the bus stop on Paternoster Row, right outside The Showroom. I was there to see the first screening of "Hamnet" directed by Chloé Zhao.

The first character we encounter in the film is Anne Hathaway. She is in a forest near to Stratford-upon-Avon and she has her hawk with her. That summer she meets a young William Shakespeare and as the sap rises, they fall in love and make a baby together.

They are married at short notice and soon after their first child is born - Susanna. By the way, in history rather than fiction, Shakespeare was eighteen at the time and Anne Hathaway was twenty six.

Two years later, in 1585, Anne gave birth to twins - another daughter called Judith and a son who was named Hamnet. Seven years later we find Shakespeare in London working in the theatre and becoming a playwright.

He goes back to Stratford occasionally to be with his family but London is really the only place where his literary genius can flourish.

In the 1590s, a pestilence that is usually referred to as The Plague sweeps across England and many die untimely deaths. One of those is young Hamnet who dies at the age of eleven.

The film suggests that the tragedy of "Hamlet" was somehow inspired by the death of Hamnet as in the sixteenth century the two  names were interchangeable. The film further proposes that Shakespeare was heartbroken by the death of his only son and sought a way of creating a lasting literary memorial to him. If that connection did indeed exist it was both elliptical and indirect.

Produced by Stephen Spielberg and Sam Mendes, "Hamnet" stars Jessie Buckley as Anne Hathaway and Paul Mescal as Shakespeare. The historical "feel" of the film is convincing with quietness, mud, timber-framed buildings, greenery, homemade clothes and dirty hands. Any accompanying music has been thoughtfully chosen or freshly written to enhance the atmosphere of the drama.

I thought that Jessie Buckley was exceptional and if she does not get an Academy Awards nomination for her role then something is seriously wrong. As a mother she is fierce and protective and the births of her children are portrayed in a loud, physical manner.

When Hamnet dies she lets out a cry that can only be described as a primal scream. It filled the auditorium with pain and loss and made me shed tears.

The film is based on a 2020 novel of the same name by Maggie O'Farrell. With her writer's imagination she had sought to fill in the gaps, fictionalising the relationship between Anne and William and how the death of Hamnet might well have affected them.

The reviewer in "The Guardian" gave "Hamnet" five stars and said this of the lead actress: "It is an unselfconsciously beguiling performance from Jessie Buckley, who gives every look and smile a piercing significance."

Good

 

Shockingly, they assassinated Renee Good In Minneapolis yesterday. She was unarmed and probably in a panic when she tried to drive away from ICE agents approaching her vehicle. They carried guns but did not display identification numbers or names. They hid their faces behind black masks.

You have probably seen the video footage which proves that she did not run over or even clip any ICE agents before they shot her like an enemy soldier in a war. It is outrageous and typical that the US Secretary of Homeland Security, the odious Kristi Noem justified the murder of Renee Good by saying that she had been the perpetrator of 'an act of domestic terrorism'. Utter rubbish.

Far from being a domestic terrorist, Renee Good was a mother, a daughter, a sister and a friend. She was also very much into the written word. In 2020, while studying creative writing at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia , Renee was awarded the school’s undergraduate poetry prize for her poem, "On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs". Here it is:-

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On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs
by Renée Nicole Macklin (Good)

i want back my rocking chairs,

solipsist sunsets,

& coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of

cockroaches.

i’ve donated bibles to thrift stores

(mashed them in plastic trash bags with an acidic himalayan salt lamp—

the post-baptism bibles, the ones plucked from street corners from the meaty hands of zealots, the

dumbed-down, easy-to-read, parasitic kind):

remember more the slick rubber smell of high gloss biology textbook pictures; they burned the hairs

inside my nostrils,

& salt & ink that rubbed off on my palms.

under clippings of the moon at two forty five AM I study&repeat

    ribosome

    endoplasmic—

    lactic acid

    stamen

at the IHOP on the corner of powers and stetson hills—

i repeated & scribbled until it picked its way & stagnated somewhere i can’t point to anymore, maybe

my gut—

maybe there in-between my pancreas & large intestine is the piddly brook of my soul.

it’s the ruler by which i reduce all things now; hard-edged & splintering from knowledge that

used to sit, a cloth against fevered forehead.

can i let them both be? this fickle faith and this college science that heckles from the back of the

classroom

now i can’t believe—

that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom

used to & exhaling from their mouths “make room for wonder”—

all my understanding dribbles down the chin onto the chest & is summarized as:

life is merely

    to ovum and sperm

    and where those two meet

    and how often and how well

    and what dies there.

The IHOP (International House of Pancakes)

@ Powers & Stetson Hills junction, Colorado Springs

This what the poetry contest judges said of Renee Good's poem:-

"In “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs” the eye of the poet moves in and out of memory through association that compounds layer after layer, or more appropriately strand after strand. Braiding THE existential question through a zuihitsu form, rumination on object, human body, and wonder all biologize that which defies simple science. What is the origin story of “want;” the urgency of belief and nonbelief? the first line the poet asks. Through specificity of image and associative leaps from piece to piece emerges a text that in itself becomes a sacred text, a meditation that leads the reader into the unknown."

To tell you the truth, that poem would not be my personal cup of tea but that does not matter. Renee Good was a creator, a poet. I wonder how many poems Kristi Noem has ever put out into the world and what about the currently hitherto unnamed ICE agent who, sanctioned by the US president, murdered Renee Good in her own neighbourhood. Why didn't he shoot at the SUV's tyres instead of his unarmed victim's head? Why did he shoot at all and how much is he being paid to create terror on the streets?

There were cuddly toys in Renee Good's glove compartment.

Wheeee!

 

Not just WHEEEE! But SPLAT! too!

We have a colourful expression in Yorkshire that is reserved for those times when adults fall down without meaning to and that is "arse over tit".  Clowns do it all the time and that is what happened to me this morning. I fell down - arse over tit on the pavement in front of our house.

Unbeknownst to me, there was black ice on the pavement even though the outside temperature was 3°C. I was about to drive out to Stanage Edge for another walk in winter sunshine. I had my orange "Mammot" anorak on and I was holding a green "Waitrose" bag in one hand and my camera bag in the other.

The pavement just looked damp and there was certainly no sign of white frostiness. When I stepped off the block paving  in front of our house onto the tarmacked pavement, I had no choice in the matter. My feet went from under me and I slammed to the ground, landing mostly on my left side and back.

For a moment or two, I just lay there hoping that I had not injured myself and wondering how I was going to get up from the black ice without hurting either of my knees. It is my habit to be very protective of my knees and kneeling down usually involves the use of a thick foam pad or a cushion.

Fortunately, Shirley had been up in the little bedroom. She had seen me going out to the car and then when she looked again I was not there. I was supine on the pavement like a clown who has just tossed some custard pies.

She rushed out of the house but stayed on the block paving, not wishing to venture on to the treacherous pavement. She scooted back into the house to grab a cushion but before she got back I was up again, slightly worried about my shoulder. 

In situations like that the adrenaline rush can often mask pain and injury and it's only later that you realise what you have done to yourself. We will see how my shoulder is later today but at the moment I appear to have got away with it.

For twenty years, Shirley was a nurse in the Accident & Emergency Department  of  The Royal Hallamshire Hospital. Of course she saw many things there - some hideously tragic and some pretty funny but she always remembers icy winter mornings when the waiting room would be filled with people who had fallen down on slippery pavements. Often they had instinctively thrust out their hands to save themselves - only to end up breaking their wrists.

Jacqueline, a good neighbour of ours, also fell down this morning and badly bruised her thigh. I think there will have been many similar falls in Sheffield this morning thanks to the lethal combination of our hills and the black ice.

In fact, this is what was reported in our local paper this afternoon: 

A Sheffield hospital unit has closed after being overwhelmed with the number of people injured on black ice in the city today.

The Minor Injuries Unit at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital has seen “unprecedented numbers” due to falls on black ice that blanketed the city overnight.

Black ice outside our house this morning

Breathless

Breathless? Other possible one word titles for this particular blogpost might have been "Frenetic" or "Frantic" or "Frenzied".

I am referring to the film I went to see at The Showroom Cinema at lunchtime today. It was "Marty Supreme" starring Timothée Chalamet as table tennis champion Marty Mauser.

Set mostly in New York in the nineteen fifties, "Marty Supreme"  is a visual masterpiece as it rolls along at an energetic, breathless pace that mirrors the very character of Marty himself. He never stops and it is as if his brain is constantly in overdrive.

The last time I saw Timothée Chalamet in a leading role was when he played Bob Dylan in "A Complete Unknown". I reviewed that film a year ago right here. Whereas that film rolled like a benign sea, this one is more like a raging tempest.

The best filmstars like Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman and Cate Blanchett can genuinely act, taking on a range of different roles with true conviction. I think that Timothée Chalamet may be in the process of joining their illustrious ranks.

You do not have to be a table tennis fan to enjoy "Marty Supreme". In a sense, the table tennis is almost incidental. More interesting is the frantic and yes, frenetic way in which Marty uses other people to achieve his ambitions.

It is as if every other human he encounters is just there to be used - be it the fading filmstar Kay Stone played by Gwynneth Paltrow or his best buddy Wally the taxi driver played by Tyler Okonma. Marty seems to have no moral compass as he powers his life ever onward.

There's lots of humour in the film - some of it quite dark such as the plan that Marty's reluctant sponsor Milton Rockwell hatches that Marty should kiss a pig that is brought on stage when he loses a match with the Japanese champion - Koto Endo played by Koto Kawaguchi.

Directed by Josh Safdie, "Marty Supreme" is very loosely based on the life of American table tennis star Marty Reisman. Normally, I tend to go for calmer, more literary and more contemplative film dramas but it's nice to mix it up and not remain in one's familiar furrow. I am so glad that I went to see "Marty Supreme" this afternoon. "The Guardian" newspaper film reviewer gave it five stars and referred to it as a "spectacular screwball ping-pong nightmare". I get that.

Monday

We looked after Phoebe today. There was a teacher training day at her primary school. 

She asked me what happens at a teacher training day and I replied, "Well the teachers all gather in the school hall and pretend that they are trains as they sing, 'I'm a choo-choo train'. This is why they call it training".

For a moment, she seemed to believe me and then the realisation dawned, "You're just kidding Grandpa!"

She wanted to go swimming at Dronfield Leisure Centre where Shirley took her many times before she was obliged to climb aboard the conveyor belt of formal schooling.

We drove up to Totley and had lunch in "The Cross Scythes" before travelling on to Dronfield. It was a wintry day and there was a dusting of snow on the hills and roads - but nothing too problematic.

When Shirley and Phoebe went in the leisure centre, I ventured out for a stroll around Dronfield and I also popped into a couple of charity shops. In one of them, I found a ceramic plant holder in which I estimated I could place one of my young busy lizzie plants. I wanted to give it to Frances as a late Christmas present as she had shown interest when I told her about the strain of impatiens I have nurtured for forty five years - from cutting to cutting and from year to year.

My estimation ability  with regard to sizing things up is pretty well-tuned and sure enough, when I got home, the designated plant pot fitted into the silver-coloured plant holder perfectly.

In the churchyard of St John the Baptist, I spotted a very old cross. I often see old stone crosses in churchyards. Usually, they have been moved there in past times because of road developments. The crosses, originally in prominent locations, frequently got in the way.

The cross in Dronfield churchyard

The cross in this particular churchyard is probably Anglo-Saxon - making it around 1250 years old. In fact, it is older than the oldest parts of the parish church that date back to 1135.

Crosses were sometimes erected for pagan or early Christian reasons but in addition they might have been boundary markers or market crosses given legal permission by which ever king or queen happened to be on the throne at the time.

They are a feature of the historical landscape of England and more than two thousand of them remain. We live in a suburb of Sheffield called Banner Cross but our old stone cross disappeared many, many years ago. Few people seem to give these precious time travelling structures much thought as they walk on by but I wish that the crosses could speak. They would have such tales to tell.

The Hall - Early eighteenth century townhouse in Dronfield

Monty

Yesterday, I showed you a picture of our Phoebe's precious Monty. Today I am showing you a drawing  of Monty that I created just yesterday when Shirley was working at our local Age Concern charity shop. I am pretty happy with this ink and pencil drawing though I know that if I attempted a few more versions I could come up with an even better image. But this one will do. 

I am going to get it framed as a fifth birthday gift. Of course I am very conscious that my picture will surely outlive me so that when Phoebe is a woman, she may look at it sometimes and think, "My Grandpa drew that. He loved me and I loved him. He was always kidding and I remember him fondly". That is the only kind of immortality I can hope for...

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In other news...You may recall that on New Year's Eve I ventured out to trial my new camera while also undertaking a familiar three mile circular walk for exercise.

It is my habit on walks like these to unlock the car boot upon my return. Then I take off my walking boots and put my shoes on. At this time the boots are meant to end up in the boot but that did not happen on Wednesday afternoon.

Today (Sunday) I was about to head out for another long walk  when I discovered that my faithful boots were not in the car boot space and they were also not in our house. Then the possibility dawned on me that I had not actually put the boots in the back of the car.

That was four days ago and as I drove back to the deadend road that is Shorts Lane, I had a very slim hope that I would find my boots close to where the car had been parked.

But there they were! Some kind fellow human being had carefully placed the boots on the adjacent drystone wall. They were upside down and bathing in winter sunshine. Fortunately, there had been no precipitation during the past four days.

Such moments restore one's faith in humanity. There are a lot of good people out there who do kind and thoughtful things. I wish I could hug the person who put my boots on the wall and thank them profusely.