Death

Today, mostly for a bit of exercise, I walked a mile to the "Waitrose" store by the inner city ring road. I made a few purchases - including two jars of Italian roast coffee granules, two bottles of my favoured "Essential Care" shampoo and conditioner and half a dozen eggs. Then I caught a bus home.

Almost as soon as I got in I noticed our main kitchen window. It was now smeared or something. It wasn't like that when I left the house.

"What's happened to the kitchen window?" I asked Shirley.

"Well I heard something hit it. I think it might have been a pigeon."

She asked me to look closer and I agreed with her that the ghostly shape seemed to suggest a pigeon's wings and beak and it was just the right size, If a pigeon had flown into the window glass, it was the first time it had happened in the thirty seven years we have lived in this house.

"Well was it a pigeon? Did you go outside to look?"

"No," said Shirley. "I was too frightened!"

"What?"

So Brave Sir Pudding unlocked the back door and sure enough, under the kitchen window was our kamikaze wood pigeon. Now deceased, kapput, no more, gone to pigeon heaven.

There was no funeral ceremony. Instead I picked the dead pigeon up by one of its wings and took it up the garden where it could nourish other creatures - magpies, crows and perhaps one of our neighbourhood foxes.

I found a big black folder and held it up to the window so that Shirley could capture the impact image with her smartphone (see top picture) and then five minutes later, two magpies were pecking at the pigeon's carcass. Later there was a hungry crow and as evening fell, a fox appeared at the feast, licking his lips.

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And as I consider death, yesterday was my 73rd birthday so I myself am  a year closer to pigeon heaven now. We invited our next door neighbours - Jill and Tony to lunch out in The Peak District. I share my birthday with Jill who is now well into her eighties. I booked a table at "The Barrel Inn" in the hamlet of Bretton.

You go up narrow, winding lanes to reach the remote pub. At the gravel pull-in on Sir William Hill, I spotted a blue camper van and thought to myself - I have seen that van before!  Incredibly, it belongs to Ashley - a vlogger I blogged about here. And there was Ashley just outside the van putting her dog Apollo on his lead!

I determined that I would stop to speak with her after the lunch date but when we went back that way, the blue van was gone! I think the mathematical chances of such a sighting happening are incredibly remote. Almost like winning The National Lottery but with no five million pound prize attached!

Later, we had spaghetti at Frances's house and there was a lovely chocolate cake that Shirley had baked and decorated. Of course both Phoebe and Margot needed to have their own goes at blowing out my candles with repeat singing of the "Happy Birthday" song.

As humbly requested, Phoebe portrayed a tiger in her grandpa's homemade birthday card...

You might be able to make out an abstract fellow who is stroking the tiger and saying, "I love Tigers". That my friends, is a depiction of the author of this blog!

Enhancement

Over at Microsoft Image Creator, new AI tools are being created all the time. A new offering allows users to quickly enhance old photographs - bringing them alive as never before. Here are two pictures I have recently put through the system . They are both of my late parents - Philip and Doreen.

They married in New Delhi, India having met there in the early nineteen forties. They were both in the Royal Air Force and had been sent to India along with thousands of other British servicemen and women who had signed up for military service in 1940.

My mother was from a coal-mining family in South Yorkshire and my father was from a humble family of North Yorkshire farm workers. I believe the picture below was taken in Rajasthan, during their brief honeymoon in early 1946 - before they returned home to England. World War II was over by then and the Japanese imperial threats upon India had been successfully averted. Mum would have been twenty five and Dad would have been thirty one.

Eighteen years later and they now live in the village schoolhouse where I was born in the middle of The East Riding of Yorkshire. Dad is now fifty years old and Mum is forty three. In both pictures she is holding a cigarette. Dad is the village school's headmaster. 

I know exactly when this picture was taken because I was the photographer. It's Saturday October 10th 1964 - two days after my eleventh birthday. I had been given my first camera and this picture was one of the first thirty six I ever took. I developed and printed them myself with my father's guidance.

They were just about to drive to Hull to shop at the "Savemore Stores" near King Billy's golden statue. They did that most Saturday mornings - saving money to feed a family of six.

Behind them is the old schoolhouse and the Bedford van that my father bought with a view to transporting school sports teams in it even though it was primarily a "family car".

Well, I was quite happy with both enhanced images above. Then I asked Microsoft Image Creator to enhance the following picture. It is of my coal-mining great grandfather -  Arthur Jackson, the father of my mother's father Wilfred Henry Jackson...

And here's the AI enhanced picture...

But wait a minute! The picture has not just been enhanced. It has utterly changed my great grandfather's head and hairstyle. No longer do we see a proud, timeworn coal miner in his best suit. Instead, we seem to be looking at a well-groomed bank manager or a headteacher. It was most disappointing to me that AI had the audacity to do such a thing. And the chair back is very different too. 

Here's a close up of Arthur Jackson's head as he stares at us from a hundred years ago:-

And here's the AI impostor, sans moustache:-

At least the AI enhanced images of my parents did not turn them into other people. They are recognisably themselves.

Quiztime

 

In this big wide world there are many strange or funny place names. I am going to give you ten such place names and you are invited to match them up with the jumbled answers given below - all countries or two American states. I feel sure that some visitors will have been to these places. Good luck! (You'll need it!)

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PLACES...

1. Shitagoo Lake
2. Condom
3. Shit
4. Horneytown
5. Piles
6. Bottom Bush Scenic Reserve
7. Rectum
8. Mount Fanny
9. Dickshooter
10. Shitterton

COUNTRIES... 

a) Spain
b) Netherlands
c) New Zealand
d) Iran
e) Australia
f)  France
g)  Canada
h) England
i) North Carolina USA
j) Idaho USA

How did you do?

Details

 

Often you want the wide picture but sometimes it's small details that can reveal a place. Looking back through the photographs I took on Saturday's visit to North Reddish and Bredbury, I have picked out a bunch that focus on details

The top picture is a close-up of Arden Weir on The River Tame. I noticed the riverside vegetation, the reflection of the sky and trees that edge the river and of course the water gushing madly over the edge of the old weir - constructed in the early nineteenth century in connection with Arden Mill - a big corn mill.

Close by, the sign on Arden footbridge reminds us of the potential dangers of open water and yet whenever we have hot spells in this country a few young people's lives end in rivers, reservoirs, canals and gravel pits. Is it the same in  other countries?

Below - remember that tiger moth mosaic made from food lids and  coloured bottletops? Well, this was the explanatory sign in the bottom right hand corner. Why does everything require a QR code these days?

Below - I think it is a pretty confusing image - taken from the towpath of The Peak Forest Canal at Woodley. Two Canada geese were heading my way, disturbing reflections of canalside properties. They probably thought I had food to throw to them but I had none. Why can't Canadians keep their greedy geese in their own spacious country?

A little way on from the geese, I walked under Woodley Railway viaduct and looked up at the intricate stonework. Interesting colours too. That viaduct has stood there since 1863. Another monument to the industriousness of our Victorian forebears.

In Bredbury, I walked by The Conservative Club  and found it rather amusing that they have abbreviated "Conservative" quite appropriately in my view for a "con" is a trick or dishonest plan used to cheat someone out of money. As a verb, it means to deceive or swindle. One thinks of Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron and the silly twerp who was PM for just forty nine days - Liz Truss. She  has still not apologised for her economic vandalism and stupidity back in 2022. Perhaps she  was responsible for the window signage - "Est. 202". What?

I am sorry that the sign below was both backlit and dirty. I spotted it in North Reddish Park. It recognises one of The Borough of Stockport's most famous sons - the champion tennis player of the nineteen thirties - Fred Perry.

So yes, they were some of the details of Saturday's walk but I leave you with another image from that day...

It's Woodley Stone Bridge on The Peak Forest Canal. The woman who is approaching on the tow path apologised for spoiling my picture but I advised her that she would enhance it. And we smiled at each other before she went her way and I went mine.

March

On May 1st 1981, five hundred working class British citizens set off walking from Liverpool's pierhead. They were marching to London with purpose. It was "The People's March for Jobs".

One of the main organisers was a fiery trade unionist from Birmingham called Pete Carter. He was admired by many and had a proud history of fighting for workers' rights in what had become Thatcher's Britain. Others felt differently about him - including most members of the ruling class, their newspapers and the aforementioned PM Margaret Thatcher with her deeply conservative cabinet.

Like all public figures, Pete Carter had a private life. He was married with two children - Susan and Michael but that marriage, that family life was breaking apart. Soon Pete would depart, making new relationships and two bitter children who found it difficult to love or forgive him.

Thirty seven  years after the original march, Michael Carter set off from Liverpool with a heavy rucksack and a bunch of ideas. He would follow the exact route of  "The People's March for Jobs" and he would talk to people along the way, observing his surroundings. And he would reflect upon modern Britain and his relationship with his late father. In this process maybe Mike would at last find some peace with Pete Carter.

"All Together Now?" is the story of Mike Carter's long walk but it is also a contemporary portrait of this kingdom, warts and all - focusing on globalisation, immigration, workers' rights, planning laws, industrial history, how the rich get richer while the poor get poorer and personal stuff too. The anger, admiration, hatred and affection that Pete (Mike never calls him Dad) lit in his heart.

I found it a fascinating account and I recognise many of the points that the writer makes about changes in our land. In lots of ways, it is a different country from the one that I grew up in and plenty of those changes are not for the better.

Ar one point this last week I told Shirley that the book was quite depressing, quite brutal. My view of modern Britain would not be quite as glum as that for I see more rays of sunshine and hope than Mike Carter appears to notice but in the final analysis I am afraid that the author really did cut through a lot of pretence - right to the bone. What he writes is deeply political and I must admit - on the whole true.

Here's a taster:-

Alone again, I looked at the council building where in 1981, the men and women of The People's March were billeted on camp beds overnight. Then I looked across the road for the public toilets. Pete had built them, and every time we drove through West Bromwich when I was a kid he would point them out. "I built that," he would say, and as it slid past the window I would think my dad was as important as Isambard Kingdom Brunel or Thomas Telford or any of the great engineers we were reading about at school.

But the toilets were gone. There was now a giant supermarket there. It should not have been a big surprise. Public toilets have been rapidly disappearing from our high streets, with over 1,700 facilities closing in the last decade, as local authorities have been forced to spend their slashed budgets elsewhere. (Page 227)

It almost goes without saying that when those determined participants in "The People's March" reached Number 10, Downing Street after twenty eight days on the road, Margaret Thatcher refused to meet with them. But she was happy to invite the ousted Chilean dictator General Pinochet round for dinner.

Why?

•  When I pass roadworks why is that there is seldom anybody there working?
• Why is that when I do see workmen at roadworks they are on their smartphones?
• Why do much vaunted celestial night sky events always seem to hide behind clouds?
• Why do I receive up to one hundred new junk e-mails every day?
• Why do the people who send out these annoying junk e-mails  think that it is okay to do that?
• In the south-western sector of Sheffield, why did we have a half hour power cut on Tuesday night?
• When I  used Google to find the reason for that power cut why could I not find an answer?
• Why do my trousers threaten to fall down whenever I am wearing a belt?
• Why does corn pop to make popcorn?
• Why are there know-all trolls in the blogosphere?
• Why does anybody admire or support the English right wing politician Nigel Farage?
• Why is it it so difficult to get the last drop of  tomato ketchup out of a plastic "Heinz" bottle?
• Why do a significant number of Muslim women wear burkhas, niqabs and hijabs?
• Why does anybody read "The Daily Mail"?
• Why are there so many TV programmes that involve celebrities - in quiz programmes, skills contests and "reality" shows?
• Why do so many TV viewers seem to enjoy these celebrity-oriented shows?
• Why do a small number of adults get off on perverted ideas about sex with children and sometimes follow those vile perversions through?
• Why did the state of Tennessee reach the conclusion that  Christa Pike should be given a lethal injection?
• Why didn't that lethal injection work?
• Why do the poor get poorer and the rich get richer?
• Why did The Duke and Duchess of Sussex return to England to set up a new home with their two children?
• Why didn't they stay in California as promised?
• Why do I have so many football programmes?
• Why do many people claim to like ABBA?
• Why do I never run out of "whys"?

With thanks to Bob Slatten at "I Should Be Laughing"

Reddish

Today I booked a rail ticket to the dark side of The Pennines, intending to ramble around some of Manchester's southern suburbs. I boarded the 10.21 at Dore & Totley station only to find that it was packed - standing room only.

Five stops away at Edale, it seemed that half the passengers left the train. It made me wonder if there was some special event happening in Edale but it was more likely that they were just city dwellers out to enjoy the countryside in October sunshine. Anyway, it meant that I could have a seat and read another chapter of my book.

I disembarked at Reddish North which is a couple of miles south of Manchester Piccadilly. I had maps with me so I knew where I was going even though I had never before walked in Reddish, Brinnington, Denton or Bredbury.

Horse conference by Ross Lave Lane

Soon I was in countryside, trudging up Ross Lave Lane to Hyde Hall and the underbelly of Denton. I popped into "The Fletchers Arms" for a latte and a bag of cheese and onion crisps (American: chips). Then down to The River Tame with its long riverside walk known as The Tameside Trail - a lovely green corridor away from traffic. I reached Humes Wood Weir and as I was taking a photograph of the water cascading I spotted a grey heron standing on a nearby rock. He or she may not have noticed me for these distinctive birds are normally very skittish and fly off before you can remove your lens cap.

Not far from there a young Polish man asked if he could help me. He had seen me studying my map. Kindly he directed me to The Peak Forest Canal constructed in the 1790s.

The highlight of that stretch was probably The Woodley Tunnel - 176 yards long and no electrical lighting inside it. Then I climbed a flight of steps hoping they would lead me to street level. But at the top it was a place for floundering with brambly briars and security fences - there was no way through - so back down the steps.

Emerging from Woodley Tunnel

I reached Bredbury Station forty minutes before my train home was due so on Stockport Road, I entered "The Rising Sun" and ordered half a pint of cider.

At first the train home was less than half full but when we reached Edale again  a hundred people got on and three women in their late thirties joined me at my four person table. They had met at The University of Durham twenty years earlier and reunite three or four times a year even though they now live far apart. They were pleasant, kindly and intelligent and it was nice to chat with them.

Garden Tiger Moth mosaic by The Peak Forest Canal

- Made entirely from plastic lids and bottle tops