Connections

 

It has often appeared strange to me how things can be connected. One thing does indeed lead to another. As Freddie Mercury would have probably agreed, "It's a kind of magic".

Take the book I have just finished reading today - "The Goshawk" by T.H. White. I decided to read it because it meant and still means so much to my significant friend Richard Hines. He often refers to it.

He read it when he was in his late teens and it was this book that inspired him to acquire and "train" his own bird of prey inasmuch as a bird of prey can ever be trained.  Richard had no means of acquiring a goshawk so instead, balanced on a ladder, he surreptitiously took a young kestrel from the ruins of  Tankersley Old Hall just north of Sheffield and through that bird learnt the ancient art of falconry.

His older brother, Barry, observed Richard's new hobby and turned what he had seen into the basis of his famous novel, "A Kestrel for a Knave" which later became "Kes". It was first published in 1968 and afterwards became an iconic film which still resonates with the British public today.

Though Richard is poorly and housebound these days, his face still lights up when he talks about his own kestrel - also called "Kes" - and his involvement in making the film. It was a special time in his life. Another memory that never fails to illuminate his face concerns his visit to T.H. White's rundown and isolated gamekeeper's cottage in Buckinghamshire in the 1990s.

It was here that Terence Hanbury White attempted to train a goshawk in the late 1930s. His book, "The Goshawk" reveals the difficult process involved, the commitment required, the sleepless nights and the trial and error approach he was obliged to take because there was no one he could call upon for guidance.

 Just to give you a taste, here are two short extracts from the book:-

What a bursting heart of gratitude and triumph as the ravening monster slowly paced down the arm with gripping steps and pounced upon his breakfast! The rest of the day was a glow of pleasure, a kind of still life in which the sun shone on the flowers with more than natural brilliance, giving them the high lights of porcelain.

&

It happened like this in the world. Old things lost their grip and dropped away; not always because they were bad things, but sometimes because the new things were more bad, and stronger.

White's life often seemed troubled and living in an isolated cottage with a rare hawk appealed to him because this arrangement provided a welcome retreat from the world. He was also something of a genius  - very knowledgeable about Shakespeare, England's medieval history and Arthurian legends. Did you ever see the Disney film , "The Sword in the Stone"? It was based upon a book of the same name - by T.H. White!

So yes - it's funny how things can be connected - like links in a chain. Without "The Goshawk" there would have been no "Kes" and I would never have met Richard Hines and talked with him for hours about his life, his memories of his kestrel and his brother Barry. And I would never had to present or "teach" "Kes" to hundreds of children in the three South Yorkshire schools that I worked in.

T.H.White (1906-1964)

Branding

When it comes to apparel, why are so many people obsessed with branding? Let me say straight away that I am not. In fact, I go the other way and actively seek out items that have no obvious signs of branding logos and the like. I have even been known to snip off or unpick designer labels.

And yet for many there is comfort in the labelling and branding. It is as if they are perfectly happy to go about advertising the companies that manufactured the clothing and footwear they purchased - often at large expense. They probably think that people like me are just plain weird... "Did you see that bloke? It was impossible to spot which brands he was wearing!" and maybe, "What's wrong with him?"

I grew up in a world without obvious branding  - apart from that which appeared on motor vehicles. Mostly things were plain and it was impossible to discern what brands other people were wearing - not that anyone was bothered of course. And this was even true of sportswear.

I don't bristle very much when the logos or brand names are quite small and discreet but when the labelling is big and brash, I shake my head as I look on. Why? and What's going on? Why have people allowed themselves to be sucked into the branding game where the items you wear seem somehow to speak of your perceived status?

Sleep

David at "Adventures of Travel Penguin" has a well-organised blog that includes regular features. Every Sunday he comes up with five themed questions under the umbrella title - "The Sunday Five". You never know what the theme might be.

For example, this past Sunday the questions were all about the coffee chain, "Starbucks":-

1: Would you stop at this Starbucks, it is between the train station and the Palace of Versailles?
2: When was the last time, you had something from a Starbucks?
3: How do you feel about those who believe Starbucks is evil?
4: Describe your local alternative to Starbucks?
5: What is your order at Starbucks?

As it happens, I have only been in one Starbucks - primarily to use their lavatory but feeling slightly guilty about it, I must confess that I then bought an iced coffee. It was a very hot day - earlier this summer. This was on the day I travelled to Uttoxeter to undertake a long country walk.

Anyway, that doesn't matter. The main point is I like David's "Sunday Five" idea and that is why I respond  to his questions most Sundays.

At the risk of legal action from a fellow who is well-versed in the law, I am going to borrow his idea this evening as I present "The Yorkshire Pudding Wednesday Six". You are invited to respond in the comments but if you don't feel like it please just go back to sleep. In fact my theme this evening is sleep!

1. On average how many hours sleep do you get each night?

2.  What do you tend to wear in bed - if anything!?

3. If you wake up in the middle of the night, how do you get back to sleep?

4. How often do you remember dreams and what do you tend to dream about?

5. On a normal night about what time do you go to bed?

6. In your opinion, what is the best thing about sleep?

Thank you for your anticipated participation.  All data collected will be studied, reflected upon and analysed before being jettisoned into outer space.

Misnamed

Everybody knows that the current president of the USA got some people to create his own social media channel so that he could exert full control of the propaganda he spews out to the world. He called that channel "Truth Social" which seems a very inappropriate name when you consider the falsehoods and undiluted egotism that the channel pumps out like waste from a chicken farm.

Dozy Don is up most nights - well into the early hours - creating and sanctioning AI slop. Some nights he will publish fifty "truths" which would invariably be better named "untruths". No wonder he often seems half asleep in the daytime.

Is this the way that leaders in the western world should communicate with the public? In the past, there was suitable decorum and filtering as presidents employed official channels to make their pronouncements. But not Dozy Don - on no! He's simply pressing "publish" all the time and does not seem to give a damn about the hideousness of the content

He's like a teenage boy playing late night computer games and fantasising like hell. And of course there's never any apology about the unseemly tackiness of it all and the blatant manipulation of genuine truth. Last week my head shaking got even more shaky when I saw the AI image that he posted of himself with the late Dolly Parton as they strolled arm in arm along the colonnade at The White House. Dolly had died just two days before.

Dolly Parton was a kind woman, a good human being who knew the meaning of humility and generosity. She represented the true heart of America. Her fake companion in the image below would not have been good enough to clean her rest rooms at Dollywood let alone to stroll with her.

So often the raging narcissist has banged on about "fake news" and the "bad" reporters who produce that alleged fakery when ironically his misnamed social media channel seems to be entirely and obviously fake as all the attached images ably demonstrate.

A hideous idea

Zeal

My classroom (Room 30) in 2008

During my teaching career, I never missed a day because of illness or other health matters - well, not for thirty six years anyway. It was only in the last two years that I missed a few days because of two short  hospitalisations. I could hardly say to the doctors, "Let's delay this till the school holidays".

I enjoyed robust good health and if a cold or flu symptoms came along I just battled through. Days off were for the weak. And as for dental appointments - they happened exclusively during my holidays.

For the last twenty years of my career I was the Head of English, leading a team of ten English specialists. Teachers came and teachers went. I was the only consistent figure, holding it all together and in many ways leading by example.

One time, a temporary post was filled by Nigel - an itinerant teacher from Leeds. Another member of my team - Emma - related this conversation to me. Nigel had asked her, "What's the score with sickies here?". Emma had replied, "Sickies? We never take them unless we're genuinely ill. Neil never misses a day." She told me that Nigel had been surprised. It seemed he was used to working in English departments where staff regularly took days off. Perhaps they had sickie rotas or something. 

Looking back, I realises that I was as zealous as a missionary - bringing English to the English. What could be more important than helping our nation's youth to gain good qualifications in English?  A good grade could be the stepping stone to a better future. Besides, English was civilising and personally enriching. It was not just about the grades.

I marked pupils' assignments deep into countless nights. I thought it was all so important. After all, I could not name any job that was more important. Teaching English mattered more than making money or working for a profit-focused business.

Now, years later, and with the benefit of hindsight, it does not seem so vitally important after all. There are many other jobs that are more important or equally as important if indeed importance is ever a useful measure.

Society is like a jigsaw and we need all the pieces to make it whole. They all have their places - the road sweeper, the airline pilot, the hotel cleaner, the tech entrepreneur, the farmer, the hospital nurse, the miner, the singer songwriter,  the car mechanic, the physicist, the shop assistant, the factory assembly line operative, the soldier, the stay-at-home mum, the banker, the baker, the candlestick maker  and yes the English teacher too.

We all belong to this human ant colony and during our working lives we perform interconnected roles, dependent upon each other.  Vocational zeal should be tempered by that simple truth.

Rambling

Blooming heather with Stanage Edge beyond on Friday

Frances, Stewart, Phoebe and Margot have been away from Sheffield for the past ten days. They have been in a terrible region called "Down South" - visiting Stewart's aunties, Peppa Pig World and friends who live in Bournemouth.

Meantime, here in the blessed region of "Up North", we have been filling our time and missing them all - especially the two little girls because we love them entirely. It is hard to remember how life was before those two little characters stepped into our world. But they will be back tomorrow, Back in Grandparent World which is probably quite similar to Peppa Pig World. I am Grandpa Pig.

Here in England, most schools will re-open on Thursday - a sure sign that summer is over and autumn is just around the corner. But what a summer we have enjoyed! A time of shorts and sandals and sheltering  from the golden orb. The grass turned beige and doom-mongers warned us "The End Is Nigh".

Normally I prepare family Sunday dinners and I enjoy doing that but for the past two Sundays we have been "out" for our Sunday dinners. A rare treat.

Last Sunday, we visited "The Lescar" on Sharrowvale Road. As usual the meals were brilliant - prepared lovingly in a hidden kitchen by a chef who knows what he is doing. The standard had not fallen. And the atmosphere in the pub was very pleasant and peaceful. It is a pub I have known since 1978 and it is little changed.

Today we went to the popular "Broadfield" on Abbeydale Road. It was busy and noisy too. You could hardly hold a conversation but our meals came quickly and mine was good.  Less "love" than in the hidden kitchen at "The Lescar" but still very tasty. I am glad that I went for the roasted half chicken and not the brisket that Shirley chose. I tried it and it was disappointingly bland.

With the noisy babble in the pub we left as soon as our meal was over and drove on to deliver a "New Born" congratulations card to one of Frances's long time friends. Sinnead gave birth last week and has been struggling to adjust to her new situation. Unusually, she stayed in hospital for a full week with the little boy who has still not been given a name. Thankfully, she is out of hospital now but we are all worried about her mental state and how she will cope with things.

For some women. giving birth to a small human is not entirely joyous. There can be anxiety, trauma and post-natal depression. Though the new baby was hugely wanted, Sinnead cannot help how she has been feeling. She never intended to be blue or traumatised but she has many friends, a good man by her side and practical, supportive parents who still live in Sheffield. I hope she pulls through and gives that little boy a name before long. I would suggest Neil but strangely that name is not very popular these days.

Juvenilia

You have to start somewhere I guess. Today I stumbled across a bunch of poems I wrote in my mid-teens - around 55 years ago. As a child, I loved written words - not just reading other people's words but actively trying to string my own words together to make stories and poems. I think that my creative urge was innate and there was nothing I could do about it. It was just there.

Several of the poems are about romantic love and a deep adolescent longing to be with someone, to connect, to find a soulmate. Looking back through the years I find these poems interesting in that they reflect my teenage immaturity and inexperience. Something is stirring in me and I am trying to give it wings to fly. It's like I'm feeling my way through the dark. I wrote this in 1969:-

MY PRECIOUS PERHAPS

Perhaps, one day, there will be me

and there will be you

And we shall have a love

To share -

For better or for worse.

But now for me there's disillusion

And for you there's someone else

But I can wait with memories

And my precious "perhaps"...

I feel better about the following poem written in 1970. Here I am not grasping at romantic love - something I knew so little about - but simply trying to process my feelings about an observed sunset at the coast. I am picking my words with some care, to produce a mood, an atmosphere connected with seasons changing and time marching on.

OCTOBER SUNSET

Colours which kiss like water

Across the day's death

Leave us as cold, grey shapes at windows watching

The pastel pools, forever merging

Beg the night crows come to swim

And through the rippling water rings

The dying summer fondly sings

Her annual farewell

We melt into the darkness, wondering...

In 1965 I was sentenced via scholarship to a posh school in Hull after passing my Eleven Plus exam with flying colours. They had a school magazine  called "The Hymerian" and it always contained selected poems by boys from different year groups.

In 1968, they published one of my poems. I remember picking the idea of a scrapyard or city dump location to deliberately cock a snook at the poshness of the posh school. I detested that institution and transferred to Beverley Grammar School sixth form at the age of sixteen. It was one of the best moves I ever made. By the way, I admit that I knew as much about scrapyards and dump sites as I knew about romantic love!

THE CONTENTED KING

Amid a mound of rust and wire

Of baked bean tins and Dunlop tyres

Sits the king of the county council tip

A Morris Oxford '46.

Its deep black sheen has long since gone

A coat of dust it has put on.

The pompous king stares at the view,

The black oil cans, the vintage crew

Of four stroke cars and Singer prams

Old motorbikes and wheels of trams

Abandoned by the corporation

Because of loss of automation.

After work the youngsters flee

To this ferrous Gethsemane

And there they're met with admiration

From the metallic congregation

And every door its handle lends

And every seat a welcome sends.

From the top of his rusty fell

Past Trafford Park and Dingle Dell

Are bubbling seas and golden sands

But the king knows not of those distant lands.

And so he governs all he sees

Contented e'er more to be.

And so for today that is enough I think. Maybe I will share more such juvenilia in a future post. As I recall I have previously shared the story of another of my adolescent poems in this blog. It was titled "And Now The South" - inspired by the tragic tale of Robert Falcon Scott's expedition to The South Pole in 1912. If interested, please go here.