Remembrance

 

A single herring gull weaves under an October sky, crying plaintively for the seaside. It is the only sound that registers in the minute that follows the bugler's final note. He has played "The Last Post" as perfectly as you will ever hear it. And now there's only silence and a single gull. The air is still.

Below the seabird, 24,459 people stand in respectful silence. We are thinking of the brave men and a few women who never came home from war. They were members of our families. Now just names, blurry black and white photographs and tarnished war medals. But we still honour them, giving thanks in remembrance. It is the least that we can do.

And maybe we are also half-thinking of the world today, the conflicts in progress, the uncertainty of the future. Having just finished that Beatles book, I realise that John Lennon's simple request, "Give Peace A Chance" has never been given a chance.

At exactly two minutes to three, the referee blows his whistle and the silence is over. Supporters roar in unison and the herring gull floats off towards the trees of Hymers College grounds. They are putting on their autumn costumes - russet and yellow and pumpkin orange.

I had walked to that school earlier. The first time in fifty six years but I felt nothing. I left there in the summer of 1970, ready to transfer to Beverley Grammar School which suited me much better. It was less rigid, more friendly and was not trying to be Hull's answer to Eton and Harrow.

Hymers College affected me deeply. The teachers wore black academic gowns like Halloween fans of Dracula and they only ever called me by my surname. At Beverley Grammar School they called me Neil. I should have gone there in the first place and would have done if I had not been awarded a free scholarship to Hymers at the age of eleven. How silly of me to do so well in my crucial "Eleven Plus" exam! If only I had known, I would have deliberately scribbled down a few wrong answers.

Over at Hull City's stadium, I watched an exciting football match that swung one way and then the other but finished up as a 2-2 draw. Our opponents had been Ipswich Town. I caught the 18.25 train back to Sheffield and as we rattled along I got stuck into a book by the acclaimed English novelist Benjamin Wood - "Seascraper". I have read forty six pages so far and I am hooked.

I wonder where that screaming herring gull is now as I click on "Publish".

Finished

No. This blog is not finished and neither is its modest author. "Finished" refers to my reading of "John & Paul - A Love Story in Songs" by Ian Leslie.

I would not say that I was ever a rabid Beatles fan but the cultural significance of The Beatles phenomenon impacted on all who grew up in the three decades that followed World War II. You cannot deny that. Their very presence was symbolic of a changing world and many of their songs feature in our imaginary soundtrack for the nineteen sixties and seventies...

And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain,

Don't carry the world upon your shoulders.

For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool

By making his world a little colder.

Ian Leslie is to be commended for crafting this intelligent and well-researched book. Though it honours the two leaders of The Beatles, it is never fawning nor sycophantic. He examines the evidence and presents a very believable thesis - that John and Paul's relationship was something akin to love.

That special bond had its ups and downs, its tears and its laughter but at the heart of it all was a unique chemistry that neither of them could ever resist even when circumstances and other people got in their way. They would always be the music-obsessed Liverpool lads who first met at the Woolton parish church garden party on July 7th, 1957.

Each chapter of the book focuses on a different song. I was very familiar with most of the songs but after the band's break up happened in 1970, I kind of lost touch with their music preferring singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Donovan, Melanie Safka and the great Bob Dylan. So I had to use Google to search up several of the songs that Ian Leslie bases his final chapters upon.

Here are two extracts to give you a flavour of what I thought was a most enjoyable and insightful treatise:-

“In October, Yoko and John celebrated John's thirty-first birthday with friends, including Ringo, in a hotel room in Syracuse, New York, where Yoko had an exhibition. There is a tape of a rowdy singalong, led by John on an out-of-tune guitar. It includes a slightly drunk and maudlin rendition of 'Yesterday'. John gets the words wrong (‘now it looks as though I've lost my way'), and replaces ‘she’ with ‘he’: why he had to go, I don't know, he wouldn't say...”

&

“At one point in his 1981 conversation with Hunter Davies, McCartney said rather miserably, "I realise now we never got to the bottom of each other's souls." In the end, McCartney had to settle for not knowing, and not understanding. So do we all. What we can say for sure is that they loved each other, that through music they found a way to share this love with everyone in the world, and that in doing so they made the world an immeasurably better place. Because it was John; because it was Paul.”

And I feel sure that if The Beatles ever meant anything to you, you would also appreciate "John & Paul." You will learn a lot of things you never knew before.

Quotations

 

Most people value astute or pithy quotations that seem to capture fundamental truths in just a few words. I see quotations cropping up a lot in Blogworld where blog owners or commenters often strive to tell it like it is. Quotations can help - like handles to grip on to when riding on a bus.

When I was a student at The University of Stirling in Scotland (1973-1977) I honed my academic papers and essays with care and commitment. I sought the right words and backed up my arguments with textual references and points sifted from other writers. My courses were chiefly in English Literature and Education. I took great pride in my work.

Perhaps it was in my second year (American: sophomore) that I fell into the habit of beginning each academic essay with an epigraph - a quotation that somehow captured the essence of the writing that was to follow, setting the tone. You often see epigraphs where books or chapters of books begin and I guess I thought to myself - why can't I do that? I enjoyed the slightly electric juxtaposition.

Some of my epigraphs emerged from previous reading but I found others in  the book pictured at the top of this blogpost. "The Quotation Dictionary" was one of my constant companions through university but for the last four decades it has mostly just filled shelf space in our house, its pages never more turned. When I opened it today, I half expected book worms to wriggle out.

But they didn't. However, I noticed that the previously well-thumbed pages have yellowed slightly with age. In spite of that, the truth, insight and wisdom that most of those quotations contain has not withered. It's still there. A useful source of quiet reflection. Keyholes that look in on the very meaning of life.

"The Quotation Dictionary" was first compiled by Robin Hyman  and printed in New York by Collier Books in 1962. My edition is from 1967 and it was given to me by my late American friend Richard when we were volunteer teachers on the faraway island of Rotuma (1972-73). He had noticed how I often flicked through the book so he said I could have it.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to pull out five quotations that might appositely be applied to America's forty seventh president. What do you think? 

O, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength! But it is tyrranous 

To use it like a giant.

- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE -

Isabella in "Measure for Measure" (Act II scene ii)

He that would govern others, first should be

The master of himself.

- PHILIP MASSINGER -

in "The Bondman" (Act I scene iii)

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.

- WILLIAM PITT Senior -

Speech in The House of Lords, Jan 9th 1770

Hypocrisy is the homage paid by vice to virtue.

- DUC DE LAROCHEFOUCAULD -

in "Les Maximes" (17th century)

Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more

epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.

- SIR RICHARD STEELE -

in "The Spectator" No. 238 (September 1711)

Peacefulness

 

You never know what you are going to get. Monday was grey and chilly with rain. Tuesday came with blue skies and sunshine so I marched away from the house. My route took me up to the top of Greystones Road then down through the woods into The Porter Valley. I took extra care during my descent because of the stormy, wet weather we had just experienced and the fallen leaves all around. Potentially, a lethal combination.

From Forge Dam I ascended the hill to Fulwood aiming to catch a bus to Broomhill or Hunters Bar.

My first two pictures were taken in the affluent suburb of Fulwood from 

viewpoints just five yards apart. The street is called Chorley Road

We have got decorators in our house at the moment, patiently working on the heart of the home - hallway, staircase and landing so it was good to get out. I don't know why exactly but having workmen in our house for any period of time really puts me on edge even when they are as professional and considerate as our decorators have been.

We will be paying them a king's ransom for the transformation - soon to be followed by the expense of new floor coverings but as they say - it will all be worth it in the end. No pain = no gain.

Fulwood's elegant war memorial

Talking about pain, I was appalled by recent comments from The President of The USA. Once again, he was banging on about the "injustice" of not being awarded The Nobel Peace Prize. In his crazy wrath, he seemed to equate The Nobel Committee with the kingdom of Norway when in reality the only connection is that the Nobel organisation is based in Norway. How could he be so stupid?

Then he referred to Norway as a "s**thole" of a country, causing many members of his partisan rally crowd to guffaw with laughter. Why? What he said was so wrong, so coarse and so undiplomatic. And that leaves aside the ridiculousness of  even contemplating the idea of giving the Nobel Peace Prize to an arrogant, unpredictable world leader who has created an unnecessary war upon Iran and who sides with Putin, the aggressor, in his war upon Ukraine. Where's the peacefulness in that?

In the woods on Greystones Cliffe, approaching Hangingwater Road

Hero

Robin Hood? Winston Churchill? Richard the Lionheart? Paul McCartney? Last night in London, a new English hero was unveiled - none other than the captain of our nation's football team - Mr Harry Edward Kane. He won the prestigious Ballon d'Or, awarded annually to the world's best footballer.

The winner is chosen by a hundred leading sports journalists from the top hundred footballing nations.

Harry is a worthy winner. He is a humble man from a working class East London family and reaching the pinnacle of football was by no means an easy journey for him. He had to work hard to get there, overcoming plenty of disappointments and self-doubts. As a teenager, he trained after the other lads had gone home, educating his left foot to become as lethal as his right boot.

Whereas some top players move around from club to club, Harry has really only had two clubs during his career - Tottenham Hotspur from London and Bayern Munich over in Germany where he currently plays. In his club career, he has scored 329 goals and 91 goals at full international level. However, Harry is more than a goalscorer, he is a team player. With his excellent heading ability, he can be very effective in defence and he is a great long distance passer of the ball too. Reflecting on his career, last night Harry Kane wrote this: "Work hard in silence. Let success be your noise" and that remark kind of sums him up. It is why he is a good leader on the pitch - other players follow his example.

By the way, in the header picture I notice the little poppy on his lapel to remember Great Britain's war dead. Discreet and unremarked by others.

Speaking of Harry's Ballon d'Or success, former England and Newcastle legend Alan Shearer said, "I think the best thing for me is how humble Harry is. Footballers are like movie stars nowadays. You see them walking down the red carpet and some of them are in sunglasses when it's pitch black and eight o'clock at night. Harry is just normal, as normal as they come."

That remark about the sunglasses made me chuckle.

Sadly, I have just heard that The President of The United States is very resentful about Harry's award and believes that he should have got The Ballon d'Or instead. It would look so great in The Oval Office next to his FIFA Peace Prize and Maria Corina Machado's Nobel peace prize  that he has, of course, now stuck inside a vulgar gilded frame.

Well done Harry!

Hughes

 

Ted Hughes (1930-1998)

⦿

Edward James Hughes (Ted) was born in the village of Mytholmroyd in West Yorkshire in 1930. After a life in Literature during which he rose to become England's Poet Laureate, he died at the age of sixty eight in a London hospital while receiving treatment for colon cancer. He had received the prestigious Order of Merit just a few weeks before. 

Hughes's birthplace in Mytholmroyd

At Ted Hughes's funeral in Devon, another giant of post-war poetry, Seamus Heaney, said this:-

"No death outside my immediate family has left me feeling more bereft. No death in my lifetime has hurt poets more. He was a tower of tenderness and strength, a great arch under which the least of poetry's children could enter and feel secure. His creative powers were, as Shakespeare said, still crescent. By his death, the veil of poetry is rent and the walls of learning broken."

Skeleton

 

Oh my, who is that in the skeleton costume last Thursday evening.? Why- it's none other than our five year old granddaughter Phoebe! It is after school but she is about to go back there for the school's Halloween party where there will be hot dogs, candyfloss, scary tattoos and disco music.

Back in my day, Halloween was not a thing in this kingdom but through American influence and films, the notion of Halloween "celebrations" or events has gradually crept into our culture. I suppose it's no surprise that  America's current president is actually a big orange pumpkin with an empty head where a candle flickers dimly ahead of the midterms.

His appearance is even scarier than that  of a five year old skeleton girl. 

By the way, Phoebe had a great time at the Halloween party. Fortunately, Big Orange Pumpkin Man did not turn up to scare the  little schoolchildren away.