Summer

Here in northern England, we have been enjoying a record summer. There have been five official heatwaves and even between them the days have still been hot and dry. 

Gardens and parks have been suffering and our poor farmers have struggled with animals and crops. Their fields have become cracked and desert-like with the greenness sucked away. When we flew back to Birmingham from Majorca on July 25th, we looked down upon a very un-English straw-coloured landscape.

Even our trees have been suffering - shedding leaves or simply drooping. Trees are only big plants. They need water like other plants. Up our garden the branches hang heavy with small apples. Their swelling growth has been slowed to a halt and many have fallen as the trees switch to survival mode.

You do what you can. I have constantly put food and water out for our avian friends and  areas of the garden - including our vegetable plot - have been watered regularly. Surprisingly, we do not have a hosepipe ban here in Yorkshire even though most  of our reservoirs are only 50% full.

Doom-mongers will say that this has been a frightening summer that continues to demonstrate the future impact of climate change and global over-heating. They may be right but for me this has been the best summer of my life.

I think of many summers past when the grass stayed defiantly green and hot spells were limited to a day or two if we were lucky.  I call them green summers and it is, I think, very likely that we will experience plenty more of them in the next two decades.

Don't get me wrong, I am not denying the seriousness of climate change. It is very real but I will not be weighed down by that burden in the years I have left. I would rather just say quite simply that the summer of 2026 has been the best one I have ever known.

But we may be reaching the end of it. This evening was a little cooler with an ethereal bright pink western sky perhaps indicating changing conditions. After weeks without precipitation, it seems that rain is predicted in the next few days. It will be very welcome that's for sure.

Scorched Rosehill Victoria Park in Rawmarsh last week.

My mother often played here when she was a girl.

Nature

On Sunday night Mike's wife Jill dropped me off at the top of our street. And as I walked home down the left-hand path (American: sidewalk), I saw an animal hurrying up towards me. What could it be? At first I thought it might be a domestic cat but very soon I realised it was a badger.

Knowing they have poor eyesight, I quietly stepped into the road and watched as the creature motored past unaware of my nearby presence. What a privilege! Badgers have lived on the island of Britain for half a million years. Traces of them have even appeared in ancient fossils.

For some reason, these wonderful creatures have often been persecuted. There have even been government-led culling operations. The anti-badger lobby have worked tirelessly to promote the myth that badgers have caused widespread TB in cattle but I am a badgerman through and through and I cherish the fact that they still live amongst us - often occupying setts that are two or three hundred years old. God Save The Badger!

On Tuesday afternoon, I went to see Richard Hines once again. As a boy he trained a kestrel and his brother Barry Hines created an iconic novel inspired by his brother's hobby. That novel was "Kes".

Once again Richard referred to a book that had stirred his love of birds of prey. I have not read it myself but I hope to acquire a copy before this year is out. It's "The Goshawk" by Terence Henbury White - about the writer's obsessive attempt to train a wild, fierce northern goshawk named "Gos" in the mid-1930s using archaic, centuries-old falconry methods. The book was published in 1951 and it meant the world to Richard Hines. Without "Gos" there would probably have been no "Kes".

I promised that I would send Richard some images of goshawks I spotted on my favourite photo-mapping website - "Geograph". Such noble birds and of all British hawks the goshawk is the biggest. What gifts evolution has given us! Here's just one of the pictures I sent him.

© David Dixon 2019

English bluebells have figured several times within the confines of this blog. Magically they burst into the light every springtime in shady woodlands often creating a magical blue haze. These native flowers and their bulbs enjoy legal protection. Digging them up is against the law but you can order bulbs from licensed growers.

Yesterday, the four year old bulbs I ordered from Wildwood Bluebells in North Wales arrived. The accompanying advice indicated that I should plant them out as soon as possible. Today I soaked the designated planting area because of our continuing hot, dry weather. Then this evening I planted all twenty five of the bulbs with the aid of a dibber. The instruction was to plant them about five inches deep so that is what I did.

Afterwards, I filled the holes with a mixture of soil and compost before brushing it over and stomping on the area. Fingers crossed we should see some flowering native  bluebells late next April. I hope so because we both love that special spring flower.

In other nature news, we believe that a fox has chewed the tennis ball off our new swingball stand. Our neighbour Tony found it in their garden. Now I have a replacement problem. Phoebe is not happy. Thank you so much Foxy Loxy!

Noises

You never quite know what you will hear on BBC Radio 4. Just last week, after my shower , I  listened to an item about personal noises. It made me chuckle.

We all make noises - especially as we grow older - farting, belching, coughing to clear our  throats and some of us make involuntary noises when we get up from sitting positions or when we are straining to complete physical tasks - umphing and ahhing.

Mind you the central premise of the item was that in general men make more personal noises than women. Men sneeze more wholeheartedly and if a man wants to fart he just lets go but a woman muffles the fart so much so that you don't know she's dropped one. And when was the last time you heard a woman emit an unrestrained belch?

The item pushed the notion that in a paternalistic society where men still seem to rule the roost in a world built on sexist division, a man considers it is his God-given right to produce loud personal noises without apology. In contrast, women are rather repressed and weighed down by long-standing cultural assumptions about how they should behave - quieter, more discreet and less drawn to self-announcement through personal noises.

There are exceptions to every rule of course but I think that the item got it pretty right. Men simply are more noisy. Take my Shirley for example. In all the years I have known her, I have never once heard her fart - apart from when she farts unknowingly while asleep. That always sounds like air whining from a balloon. On the other hand, she is used to hearing me trumpeting like a bull elephant or the foghorn at the mouth of The River Humber. I refuse to constrain my gas emissions. Let 'em rip is my philosophy.

With regard to personal noises and gender differences, what is the best way forward? Men working to quieten and control their noises or women letting go and being less self-conscious, less restrained in their noise making?

⦿

Before I climb the stairs to bed at the very end of another hot summer's day, I just want to leave you with this picture I snapped on Monday when I walked through Endcliffe Park.  Through a gap in the trees I spotted Queen Victoria's head. Her statue sits close to the Hunters Bar entrance to the park...

Song

In the early summer of 1967, in the same week that "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" surged to the top of the British album charts, Procol Harum's debut record became the best selling single. It was titled, "A Whiter Shade of Pale". Enigmatic and rather haunting, the song remains in the nation's consciousness when so many other hit singles have been buried in the past and largely forgotten.

What was "the light fandago" and why all those vestal virgins leaving for the coast?  The music was certainly influenced by Bach as the chief composer Gary Brooker later admitted and the lyrics created by Keith Reid have a dreamy, metaphorical quality - suggestive rather than clearcut.

Keith Reid once said that he had been at a party when he heard someone tell a stoned partygoer that she had lost her colour and turned "a whiter shade of pale". That odd phrase stuck in his head, only to emerge later when he was crafting the lyrics for Brooker's music.

"A Whiter Shade of Pale" might easily have been the theme tune for that so-called "Summer of Love" - 1967. It's getting on for sixty years since the song was first played by British disc jockeys. Now it is part of our modern cultural heritage. It has its place and in my humble opinion,  it remains kind of magical.

By the way, the band's odd name, Procol Harum was an error. For some odd reason they wanted to name themselves after a breed of pedigree Burmese cat with the official Latin moniker - procul harun. Apparently, a friend had one.

We skipped the light fandango
Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor
I was feeling kind of seasick
But the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
As the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
The waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale

She said, "There is no reason
And the truth is plain to see"
But I wandered through my playing cards
And would not let her be
One of sixteen vestal virgins
Who were leaving for the coast
And although my eyes were open
They might just as well have been closed

And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale

Ghoulish

The grave of a local hero - Samuel Holberry

Even though I claim not to be ghoulish or obsessed with death, I seem to have done a fair amount of hanging around in graveyards recently. If you are not quite sure what "ghoulish" means - here's the definition: "an unhealthy, morbid fascination with death, disaster, or horrifying things. It also describes things that look or act like a ghoul—a mythical, evil creature that robs graves and feeds on dead bodies". Interestingly, the word has Arabic roots.

Anyway, today I needed to burn off a few hundred calories so I donned my walking shoes and set off down Ecclesall Road aiming later to turn down Cemetery Avenue en route for the northern gate of The General Cemetery. This Victorian civic cemetery was opened in 1836. Some of it remains overgrown but it has an active "Friends" group and on a hot summer's day it is a pleasant place to stroll in the shade of mature trees.

The grave of Mark Firth 

Significant people who are buried there may seem insignificant to outsiders. One of the giants of the Sheffield steel industry was Mark Firth (1819 - 1880) and his impressive grave is Grade II listed. The grave that means the most to me is that of Samuel Holberry (1814 - 1842). He died of consumption in York Castle. He was a key figure in the Chartist movement that sought better conditions for working people and that is why the establishment had him arrested and imprisoned. It is said that over 50,000 people attended his funeral during a time of social upheaval in this country.

Not far from Samuel Holberry's grave, in an area that was specially reserved for children, I came across this gravestone:-

You might need to enlarge the image to read the inscriptions.

What we are looking at here is heartbreaking tragedy and of course it was not at all uncommon in past centuries.  Ebenezer and Sarah Adams lost five children after they had been born.

In 1839 William Abraham died after just twenty one days of life. In 1846, young Joshua died at the age of six. He was followed by Elizabeth Mary Ann who was only two years and two months old when she passed away. And then in 1855, little Selina died at the age of fourteen months, followed in the same year by her sister Sarah Hannah who was six. 

In the modern western world we expect babies to live - perhaps to a ripe old age. After successful births, we do not anticipate early deaths. But back then it was different. Ebenezer and Sarah would have been very aware of the possibility of infant mortality.  Plenty of families were touched by this shadow. Life was a precious gift that could be snatched away in a few days. Just imagine how Ebenezer and Sarah Adams must have felt when Sarah Hannah left them. The pain must have been unbearable even if it seemed to prove that "God" did indeed move in mysterious ways. Perhaps not just mysterious but downright cruel.

I walked all the way along Psalter Lane and back to Banner  Cross. In an alleyway next to The Banner Cross Hotel, I spotted this graffiti. If only William, Joshua, Elizabeth, Selina and Sarah Hannah could have lived forever - but sadly they didn't. Far from it...

Supertram

 

Is it a train? Is it a bus? No - it's Supertram! Some cities, like Melbourne in Australia or Miserable Manchester, have mere trams but Sheffield has Supertrams! They began serving this city in 1994.  It is a great system with a few lines but the network does not cover the entire city. The Edwardian system that was shut down in the 1960s was far more comprehensive. 

My nana - Nana Morris - was a Sheffield tram conductress for a couple of years in the early 1930s. I wish that I could talk to her about how it was back then but she died in 1988 just before our Frances was born. If she were still alive today she would be 125 years old. She was born just before the death of Queen Victoria.

Anyway, this past week, I went on not one but two Supertram adventures. On  Wednesday,  I travelled to the southern terminus at Halfway and on Friday I rode the tram to the northern eastern terminus at Rotherham Parkgate. Of course, my journeys were free because I am an old fogey with a senior travelcard.

On both occasions, after I reached the termini, I set off on planned long circular walks. Naturally, I wore shorts to show off my muscular Majorca-tanned legs. Keep back ladies!

I always think that "Halfway" is an odd name for a place but it is not the only one in England. It was a stagecoach stop that was literally "halfway" between Sheffield and Chesterfield. I think that's how the story goes. Nowadays Halfway is home to several modern estates with their samey, rather characterless houses.

That walk took in nearby Killamarsh, Nethermoor Lake, St Giles parish church, former railway lines and the overgrown coal mining wasteland that lies between Halfway and Killamarsh. It was a great eight mile workout for me and I saw many things of interest before getting back to the Supertram stop.

Railway footbridge at Halfway

Birds in Nethermoor Lake - once an opencast coal mine

St Giles's Church, Killamarsh

Friday saw me walking away from the Parkgate shopping complex and out into the countryside between Greasbrough and Rawmarsh before climbing the hill to Upper Haugh then down into Rawmarsh itself.

Quarry Street, Rawmarsh

That area has special resonance for me. Quarry Street, Rawmarsh is where Nana Morris was born and raised and it's where my mother and her brother Derek were also raised by my maternal great grandparents after Nana and my blood grandfather Wilfred Henry Jackson split up in or around 1929.

Mum always remembered those days with warm affection. It was the land of her heart. Years ago, when she was an old woman, I took her back to Quarry Street on a magical mystery tour. It brought tears to her eyes. When she was a girl, she could never have guessed back then how her life might turn out and of course she could not have foreseen World War Two when she volunteered to serve in The Royal Air Force.

Amazing cobbled bridleway heading up the hill to Upper Haugh

As I walked through Haugh Road Cemetery, it crossed my mind that Mr and Mrs White - my great grandparents could be buried there but in spite of looking I did not see their gravestone - that's if they even had one. I know that my great grandmother was called Annie but I have forgotten the first name of my great grandfather. This may spur me on to do a little family research.

First World War grave in Haugh Road Cemetery.

This is the grave of Fergus Law. He died of his wounds

in a convalescent hospital in Epsom, Surrey on May 15th 1917.

The bottom inscription reads:-

"SOME TIME WE'LL UNDERSTAND"

but frankly I doubt that.

"Tomorrow"

There was an old sideboard in our Majorcan villa. Half of it was filled with old paperbacks - no doubt left by previous renters. Ninety nine per cent of the titles and authors did not appeal to me with the genres being crime, horror or romance. Not my cup of tea at all.

However, amongst all that dross I spotted a rather thin novel by the living and much respected English writer - Graham Swift. Immediately, I was intrigued by the title - "Tomorrow". It reminded me of this speech by Shakespeare's Macbeth:-

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow 
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Knowing nothing about the novel, I nonetheless decided to purloin it. I liked the intriguing cover image too. As I often say, "Always judge a book by its cover".

In Majorca, when not being assailed by grandchildren, I occasionally picked up "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King so "Tomorrow" would have to wait. And then when I got home I needed to finish reading "The God Delusion". However, this week I picked up "Tomorrow". With only 247 pages it was likely to be a much swifter read (geddit?).

And I must say that I absolutely loved "Tomorrow". It was set in a suburban house in London. The narrator is forty nine year old Paula Hook.  She is wide awake but right next to her, in deep sleep, is her husband Mike. Sleeping in other rooms are their sixteen year old twins - Kate and Nick.

The little family has always been "normal", healthy and happy. Paula and Mike have had good jobs and they are comfortably off - or as we often say in Yorkshire - "not short of a bob or two". So what has Paula to fret about? Why is she awake? And why is she addressing her children?

The answer is revealed slowly. Tomorrow is going to be a momentous day, perhaps a turning point in their lives. Paula has no idea how everything will pan out so she's mulling over family history, thinking about minutiae which is what most of us do when we are awake in the middle of the night with things on our minds.

When I began reading the novel I imagined that we wouldn't be in Paula's head for very long - perhaps three or four chapters and then the drama of tomorrow would happen with everybody in the house awake and actively participating.

But I was wrong. The entire novel was Paula's sometimes confused but always tender and kindly nighttime monologue.

Of course, Graham Swift is a man so could he successfully pull off the trick of being in a woman's head? Later, I discovered that some past literary critics - all female - have derided his sterling effort. Perhaps that response was rather predictable.

To be honest I thought he did a great job of it. Intelligent, sensitive Paula is very believable though I felt that I could have done with less reference to her marital and pre-marital sex life. That jarred a little for me. Most people keep that stuff in safe boxes in their heads labelled "Private".

Here are two small  tastes of the language of "Tomorrow":-

"Everything's quiet, the house is still. Mike and I have anticipated this 

moment, we've talked about it and rehearsed it in our heads so many times..."

&

"How quick and rushing life can sometimes seem, when at the same 

time it's so slow and sweet and everlasting."

I am so glad I read "Tomorrow" with zero foreknowledge, my mind untroubled by what critics might have written about it. To me it was quiet in its ordinariness and coloured with genuine humanity. Maybe I was ready for such a read but I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Graham Swift b.1949

⦿

On Wednesday I watched live streaming from Glen Hansard's funeral in Dublin. Good heavens, what an event that was! I blubbered several times. Nobody does funerals like The Irish. They know how to give a much loved relative, a friend or a hero a proper send off. And as the service ended and Glen's wickerwork casket was carried from St Patrick's Cathedral the performers and the congregation sang Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" in unison - extending it like a mystical dirge. It was as if they were singing Glen away. Outside on the green hundreds had gathered to watch the  funeral on a big screen.

Here's Glen's big brother Gary singing "I Can See God" by their uncle - Paul Cahill...

And here's the self-penned poem that Glen's wife Maire bravely read out from the lectern:-

Come to me with beauty,

I require it to stay alive.

I'm not talking of precious gifts,

nor do I want a dolled-up, dutiful

and well-assessed array of tender words.

Hurl the cash of what you've pocketed

from this day at my feet,

and then be brave enough to look me in the eye.

Push the boundary of two minds 'til it stretches,

'til there are two bodies in one embrace,

and a moment of understanding or acceptance,

or blind faith and a sense of the infinite jump and jive.

That to me is beauty, and I require it to stay alive.