Belonging

I was born in the bedroom on the right (Google Streetview)

Yesterday, under the headline, "Experiment", I wrote an extract from an imagined memoir. I thought that would be the last of it but no. For whatever reason, today I sat at this keyboard and began to write a second excerpt. I wanted to dig into a less safe, perhaps less comfortable aspect of my life. These thoughts have always swum around in my head - wondering how I came to feel like an outsider. I am sure that there were several ingredients but in this writing I am touching upon how my parents and the life they fell into after the second world war contributed to that feeling. Of course, the experience of reading Richard Hines's memoirs has once again sparked this piece. Next week I think I will print off a copy of it for him. After all, I know so much about him but what does he know of me?

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Where do we truly belong? I know that I am Yorkshire through and through because this was the county of my birth and all my family's births - going back at least four generations. This is undoubtedly my homeland - the land of my heart.

However, though I was born in The East Riding of Yorkshire, my mother was born in The West Riding and my father in The North Riding. They were not "from" the village where I was born. In fact, they only settled there in 1952 - just a year before I was born.

They were incomers, unlike most of the village's established residents. The majority of my primary school classmates had deep roots in the village or the outlying farms. They had cousins there, aunties and uncles and some of them had grandparents there too. I was always a bit envious of that because we had no relatives there. They all lived miles away and I hardly ever saw them. 

In fact, I never saw the family of my Uncle Derek. He was my mother's only sibling. After the war, he had married a Lancashire woman called Irene. They lived over there in the Manchester suburb of Middleton where they raised five daughters. They were my cousins and I did not meet them until July 24th 2014 - the day of Auntie Irene's funeral. In life, I  met her only once at my mother's funeral in 2007 but I never once met my Uncle Derek.

How could that be? We lived less than a hundred miles apart and before World War II , Mum had always been very close to Uncle Derek. He was her little brother and they had been through a lot together - including their parents' acrimonious separation around 1929 that saw Mum and Derek being permanently farmed out to their maternal grandparents in Rawmarsh, north of Rotherham.

Why had this separation arisen? What had happened? Once, I quizzed Mum about it and her explanation follows.

After the war, many civilians struggled to get back on an even keel. The same was true for military personnel who had been posted abroad. Returning was not easy. Economically, Great Britain had been devastated by a costly five year war. 

In April 1946, Uncle Derek asked Mum and Dad for a loan of £50. Apparently, he was desperate for this money and though Dad was reluctant to lend out money he himself could hardly afford, he reluctantly agreed - on the condition that Uncle Derek repaid the loan within two years. Derek assured them that he would honour the debt and even signed an agreement.

Back in 1946, £50 had the purchasing power of £2700 in today's money. Not an insubstantial amount - around $3700 in US dollars. 

But the two years passed by and Uncle Derek did not settle the debt. Then three years. Dad was so incensed that he refused to meet with Derek and his family ever again. Words must have been exchanged but I do not know what was said. A rift had developed between the two families and Mum felt very bad that she had vouched for Derek's integrity. He had let her down at the very time that Mum and Dad badly needed that money to re-root themselves as a newly married couple.

Silver-plated cigarette box presented to my mother in India in 1945

My parents had met in India in 1943 and they married in New Delhi after the war had ended - on December 8th, 1945. The following month, they began the long boat journey home. 

Re-establishing themselves in England was not easy but the Royal Air Force helped my father to secure a temporary teaching position in Uxbridge, in London's western suburbs. Before volunteering to join the R.A.F. in late1939, he had been a primary school teacher for two or three years, having secured his first paid position in Hessle near Hull.

Their married life proper had begun but they yearned for a return to Yorkshire and within a few months they were back, living temporarily with my paternal grandparents in the market town of Malton - or more precisely Norton-on-Derwent which is just over the river. In the summer of 1947, my oldest brother Paul was born in Malton on August 5th, the same day on which Dad had been born thirty three years earlier.

For a little while they lived in the tiny village of Laxton south east of Howden where Dad was the headmaster but it was probably as quickly as 1949 that the little postwar family moved again to Barmby-on-the-Marsh where there was a bigger village school. It came complete with a spacious headteacher's house that was and remains bang next to the old school building.

My second brother, Robin, was born in Goole near Barmby-on-the-Marsh in February 1951 and he claims to have memories of that village but I suspect they are received or imagined memories born out of what he was told. After all, he was only eighteen months old when the family moved once again.

This time they moved to the village of Leven on The Plain of Holderness between Bridlington and Kingston-upon-Hull - a name which is more commonly shortened to Hull which is the name of the river that splits that sprawling port city in half.

On October 8th 1953, I was born in Leven in the tall Victorian schoolhouse attached to the school so I had never figured in the previous family history I have just described. Fortunately perhaps, Mum and Dad decided to stay put in Leven where Dad was the village headmaster for twenty six years. Leven was my home village. It was where I truly belonged... wasn't it? 

Decades later, I realise that in some ways I didn't really belong there at all. We were like immigrants in a foreign land. Our roots there were not deep and fundamental to our being. They were shallow and could easily be torn from that earth. That is the truth.

Mum's inner psyche was rooted in the South Yorkshire coalfield and Dad's true heartland was back in Malton and surrounding countryside. His own grandfather had been a rabbit catcher. They often spoke about their childhoods and of course there were the life-changing experiences they had both had in India.

As years passed, they both grew to love Leven and became integral, respected figures in the community. As well as being the headmaster, Dad was also the village's polling officer on election days. He chaired the parish council and was, as I have said before, a church warden. He also led a successful campaign to establish a recreational playing-field to serve what had become, by the mid-sixties, a growing dormitory village that had already doubled in size.

For her part, Mum was the key mover in establishing a Women's Institute branch in the village. Neither of my parents sat on the sidelines, they were always involved in village life. It is, I think, less easy to be that way in a city of over half a million - like Sheffield.

But did we truly belong in that village, did I belong? In those days, village doctors along with parsons and headteachers were often viewed as the educated elite. They did not labour in the fields or quarry gravel or shoe horses. Nor did they sweep the streets like old Joe Grubham. 

I suppose that in some ways  - these pillars of the community were seen as a cut above the rest though Mum would have fiercely contested such a notion. Growing up in the South Yorkshire coalfield with a father and grandfather who were both coalminers, she was destined to be a Labour voter all her life and often argued with villagers whose political stance was conservative. 

Being one of the village schoolmaster's sons I was different from many of my peers. We had books and both of my parents were ardent readers, curious about the wider world. Also we had family adventures.

In 1957, Mum and Dad bought a secondhand caravan - what North Americans would call a trailer. Every Whitsuntide for a decade, we went up to The Lake District and unhooked the caravan in a farmer's field in the village of Braithwaite. Together, we climbed the Lake District hills from Skiddaw to Hellvellyn and regularly walked to the inn at Swinside which children were not allowed to enter. My three brothers and I sat on the wall outside swigging pop and chomping on potato crisps.

In the long six week summer holidays enjoyed by schoolchildren and teachers alike, Dad towed the Lynton Triumph caravan  down to Dover where we took cross-channel ferries over to France - usually via Boulogne rather than Calais. Only the rich travelled by aeroplane in those days.

Like gipsies, we journeyed through France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and even down to Italy. We never ate out as families do nowadays. Mum prepared everything in the caravan which was laden with necessary provisions from home. It was very much continental Europe on a shoestring budget.

Back in the village, none of the other children had holidays like that. Instead, their families visited Yorkshire coastal resorts, Butlins camps or maybe Blackpool over in Lancashire. That's if they could even afford a holiday.

I think that my parents' war years in India gave me a sense of what was possible in terms of travel. The world was big and wonderful and there were no laws to say I could not go. Mum and Dad were also inquisitive people who looked beyond safe horizons to the outer world and that broader outlook rubbed off on me.

Each year, well ahead of Christmas, Mum would prepare a cardboard box of treats and essential items to send to a war-affected family in benighted East Germany. I have no idea who they were or how she knew about them. Perhaps a charity like The Salvation Army had been the link. 

That quiet annual act of kindness speaks faithfully of the kind of woman Mum was - a socialist firebrand with a heart of gold  who always remembered her roots and the poverty of her childhood. It did not matter to her that the receiving family were German. They were not her enemies. They were just people who needed a little help and encouragement in those bleak postwar years.

⦿

Okay. I could go on but that's probably enough for today. If you got this far, thank you for reading it. I feel as though I have removed the lid from a private well, opened up a part of me that was previously in shadow. Maybe I will write some more memoir pieces and maybe I won't. Everybody has got a readable story to tell. I guess it is about making the right selections and finding the right words.

Experiment

St Faith's

And so I went to see Richard and Jackie again this afternoon before picking Phoebe up from school.  Our conversation lasted for two hours today - before I put my coat on and marched off to the school gates. Again the talk was easy and comfortable and I plan to see them again next week.

If you have not been following this blog story, let me just say that Richard's surname is Hines and his brother was Barry Hines - the famed author of "Kes". It was Richard who trained the kestrel in the first place.

Both of Richard's published books have been memoirs. Linked to that, I thought I might try a small experiment here in this blog where I pick up on  some aspect of my own early life and craft it as though producing an excerpt from a larger memoir.

Obviously, there are lots of times I could choose from even though recollections of those days become dimmer with each passing year. For the purposes of this experiment, I have picked village life and a small selection of things I remember from the village where I was born and raised on The Plain of Holderness, twelve miles north of the East Yorkshire city of Kingston-upon-Hull...

⦿

Beyond the village, low-lying farmland stretched all the way to The River Hull. Historically, it had been marshy "carr" land but centuries earlier drains had been dug across the landscape to take excess waters away.  Running  straight they gurgled, connecting with each other like veins.

The loamy soil was rich and fertile and there were remote arable farms out there - Linley Hill, Aikedale, Low Baswick and Baswick Steer but the one I knew best was Hall Garth Farm, the home of the Watson family. I pedalled there many times to play with my primary school friend Les Watson.

We did not need a commercial soft play area or an urban playground because Hall Garth's farm buildings provided all the opportunity we needed. There were barns filled with bales of hay and straw and we tunnelled into them making caves and once we cornered a rat with potato forks. Trapped in a bricked up corner it has nowhere to run at first. In my memory it is corralled there for eternity though I admit that in reality it was certainly just a few seconds.

Very close to Hall Garth Farm was St Faith's churchyard. The last of the sandstone gravestones that stood there were carved in the middle of the nineteenth century which was the very time that my village,  in agreement with The Church of England, decided to build a brand new church a mile east of there  in the heart of what had become the new village - on slightly higher ground. St Faith's itself was demolished though one or two drawings of what the humble building looked like remain.

On old maps, very close to the site of St Faith's, a mysterious feature was marked - "St Faith's Well". It was probably a holy site but there is no sign of it any more and as far as I know, no history books have ever recorded its significance way back in the medieval period and possibly before that.

When I was a boy, we had freedom to spend spare time and summer days out in that seemingly endless windblown farmland where very few vehicles ever passed by. It seemed to never occur to my parents that there might be any danger out there. Mum just asked me to make sure that I was home in time for tea.

Every two or three days, a milk lorry from Hull collected silver-coloured churns from a stone platform at the bottom of Heigholme Lane. That lane led to a fairly grand country house called Heigholme Hall that was surrounded by trees. It was the very private home of Colonel Wood who was, like my father, a church warden. You only ever saw mustachioed Colonel Wood when he came to church. Looking back, I suppose that he had seen active duty in World War II and he may have witnessed terrible things. Perhaps that is why he was so reclusive and appeared so fierce.

One summer, he generously invited all the Sunday School children to the grounds of Heighholme Hall for a Sunday afternoon picnic and games and that was the only time I ever got to see the place. Though I did not know what it was called, the garden had a "ha-ha" - a kind of sunken boundary wall - frequently used in country house gardens  to prevent intrusion by farm animals without spoiling the view. At that garden party, we repeatedly jumped off it for fun, rolling in the grassy trench below. We also played a strange lawn game called croquet for the first time, bashing wooden balls through white hoops.

⦿

All right. That's enough of that. For now at least, the little memoir experiment is concluded. I doubt that I will be adding two hundred more pages and besides I still have to bring  my "Stanage Edge" poem to the finishing yard.

Memoir

Up in Shincliffe last weekend, I finished reading Richard Hines's second book which is also a memoir. It is titled, "The Place That Knows Me".

Three years ago, Richard and his wife Jackie reached a critical point in their lives which might have been framed by the following question: Should we stay in South Yorkshire close to our roots or should we move two hundred and thirty miles down to Brighton in Sussex?

The reason that this quandary had arisen was that both of their grown up children had settled in Brighton and their daughter had given birth to their only grandchild down there. Should they stay or should they go?

Richard  reflects upon what I have recently referred to as "the land of your heart".  He and Jackie grew up in the mining village of Hoyland Common six miles north of Sheffield and then in 1981 they moved into the city itself where they raised their kids. Their son and daughter were several years ahead of my children but they went to the same primary school and the same secondary school.

He remembers his childhood, meeting Jackie and of course all the business with kestrels. His brother Barry became pretty famous but  remained true to his background and never put on airs and graces. When I spoke with Richard, he admitted that Barry had always been a good brother to him and possessed a naturally "modest" character. 

The middle chapter - in which Richard describes Barry's decline through forgetfulness to memory loss to Alzheimer's and death in a care home is very moving. I read it in my car after exploring the slopes below Stanage Edge in search of abandoned millstones. Here's a small taste:

Over the months and years it became apparent that Barry's forgetfulness was more serious than what most of us experience as we get older; he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Once when I took him on a walk he was troubled by an imaginary financial problem and kept repeating he'd talk to Mother about it. Then, holding out his hands, he mimed  pushing a document under a screen, saying he needed to go to the bank. When I first visited him at his care home he was in a corridor examining imaginary objects on a blank wall. When he saw me, he walked forwards smiling and said: "Richard, I'm so glad you've come." Eventually though, he no longer recognised me and would chat about his brother 'Our Richard'.

There is great affection, warmly remembered detail and humour in "The Place That Knows Me". In the end, Richard and Jackie decided to stay put in Sheffield even though they had taken out a rental lease on a  flat in Brighton - very close to their daughter's home.  Instincts told them that they would never be able to settle in Brighton. They would always be restless, pining for their homeland here in South Yorkshire.

I will be visiting Richard for the second time tomorrow and taking him a special gift from Durham Cathedral.

Sandra

Sandra is in the middle of the back row

Sandra is a podiatrist. I met her for the first time yesterday afternoon in Sheffield's Central Health Clinic. My own health centre arranged the appointment for me before Christmas.

That was before my last HBA1c blood test result came back with an encouragingly reduced score that caused my doctor to say, "You are now out of the diabetic range. You are not diabetic or pre-diabetic. You are in the normal range".

But Sandra wasn't having any of that. She could see my medical history on her computer screen and advised that though my lifestyle changes and weight loss had been very helpful, I was still pre-diabetic in her book. 

It's all very confusing.

Anyway, Sandra inspected my feet, tested the blood flow and the sensitivity of my toes and concluded that there were issues that I should pay attention to. She has been studying people's feet for twenty six years so she knows what she is talking about.

Sandra was bright and quick-witted with a no-nonsense style. Still passionate about her chosen sphere of healthcare, she has heard it all before. When she was pricking my toes and asking if I could feel anything, I said, "Maybe". She said, "No, not maybe. The answer can be only yes or no."

The way she spoke about feet and toes really pressed home the keypoints she wanted me to take from the appointment. She urged me to check the soles of my feet daily with the aid of a mirror. She encouraged me to use foot cream but not to get that cream between  my toes and she spoke of the importance of drying my feet carefully and thoroughly. She also cut my toenails and measured my feet, advising that my left foot is longer than my right foot - something that I never knew before.

I told Sandra that she should make YouTube videos about foot care and thanked her for the consultation and her advice. I said, "It has been a privilege to meet you" and I meant it. As I was about to leave, Sandra handed me an NHS podiatry services leaflet titled "Moderate risk of non-healing wounds and amputation" (Diabetes information and advice to help your life and limbs).

It's hard for me to explain but in the way she went about her work, Sandra was exceptional. She had knowledge, experience, forthrightness and kindness - a winning combination. Because I understand things much better now, I plan to give my feet closer attention in the future - just as if Sandra was in the room watching me.

Imagery

The Sanctuary Ring (12th Century) - North door, Durham Cathedral

Saturday was not the most auspicious day for photography. Though there was never more than a mere inkling of January drizzle, the sky above was a heavy grey eiderdown through which weak sunlight was filtered in its struggle to illuminate County Durham. In spite of this, I am sharing ten of my images with you.

Old telephone kiosk in Shincliffe

"The People's Lamp", Bowburn

On the south wall of Durham Prison

Church Street, Seaham

"Tommy" on Seaham seafront - the statue weighs 1.2 tons and is over 9 feet tall

Plaque in Durham Cathedral - American visitors should find this especially interesting

Lego model of Durham Cathedral in the museum

North Sea at Seaham

The grave of Saint Cuthbert (634 AD - 687AD) in Durham Cathedral

Back

"Durham" by J.M.W. Turner (c.1835)

You may be relieved to learn that I did not die on The Great North Road - though one or two of you may now be yelling, "Shucks!" at your screens. Since I departed for our forty eight hours in the county of Durham, masked American ICE agents have killed another decent citizen in Minneapolis. Not only did they do that, they also lied blatantly about what had really happened.

In Trumplandia, truth seems to be an inconvenient barrier to be negotiated. 

Please  rest in peace Nurse Pretti - you were the best of us, no matter what the fascist liars might say.

The house in Shincliffe was marvellous - so clean and roomy and warm and well-appointed and historical and "lived in". It was a joy to stay there even though when I was lying in the emperor bed, the empress seemed to be lying in an adjacent parish. 

And it was nice to spend time with Carolyn. She and I have always got along easily.

On Saturday, I walked into Durham and met up with the sisters in the cathedral. Then we drove to the coast and parked in the seaside town of Seaham that was once home to a productive coal mine.

We enjoyed  excellent meals out in Shincliffe's two  village pubs - "The Seven Stars" and "The Rose Tree Inn" and I began a colourful jigsaw called "The New Arrival" which Carolyn intended to finish after we had left.

I have not had chance to look at the photographs I snapped in the last two days and expect that they will feature in my next blogpost. 

So there we have it bloglurkers, I am back.

Durham

As if by magic, this blogpost has published even though I am not  sitting in my lair surrounded by my books, scribblings, papers, souvenir beach stones and imperial regalia. No, I am in a big house in the village of Shincliffe, very near  the city of  Durham which is a hundred and twenty miles north of Sheffield.

The post has been "scheduled" so if I have been killed on the Great North Road then I am in effect speaking to you from beyond the grave. WHOOOOOO!

For the very first time, Shirley's widowed sister Carolyn is currently house-sitting for strangers for two whole weeks. The wealthy owners of the property are away on holiday in India for six weeks. Other arrangements have been made for the following four weeks.

Carolyn doesn't even have to walk a dog. There's just a cat to look after and I suspect the owners also feel happier that responsible adults are living in their house during their Indian vacation.

In case you were thinking otherwise, the owners know that Shirley and I will be staying in their house for two nights. I believe we have been allotted "The Emperor Room" which seems most appropriate in my opinion. As an emperor I will rule with sagacity and benevolence  until someone crosses me - then there will be hell to pay.

The weather forecast is not very promising but hey, this is January. What should we expect? There will be better days ahead and spring will spring again.  Even now the days are becoming longer. We are a month past the hump of mid-winter.

I have been to Durham before with its magnificent Norman cathedral and I hope to walk there from Shincliffe to pay homage to one of my heroes - Saint Cuthbert who should by rights be England's patron saint. Saint George makes no sense whatsoever. He was not English and he never visited England.

However, if the weather is too inclement I may just stay in the big house with The Empress surveying our empire or watching Hull City v Swansea City on the imperial TV screen. Back Sunday evening.

The shrine of St Cuthbert in Durhan Cathedral

Lawrence

I feel heartened by the number of bright  and politically astute Americans who are critical of the Trump regime. Over at YouTube, several of them regularly comment pointedly on his presidential  antics. 

One of the most articulate and insightful of these observers is Lawrence O'Donnell who has a regular late night slot  called "The Last Word" on the MSN TV news channel.

Lawrence has enjoyed a varied and interesting career that has included writing, TV production, advisory political jobs in Washington and even acting. He is nobody's fool and he holds Donald Trump in absolute contempt, meticulously dissecting his outbursts, his character and his spurious claims.

I am creating this particular blogpost for American visitors as much as anyone else. You should be proud of this son of  Boston who tells it like it is. He is worth following. This was him just last night, speaking truth to power and not holding back...

Googlediving

"Googlediving"? I was introduced to this term by a prisoner who sometimes visits this wholesome, everyday blog. He goes by the name of "Marcellous" and is currently serving a fifteen year sentence for reasons I am not allowed to disclose. He has also requested that I should not state the name or location of the high security prison facility in which he is currently incarcerated. His internet use is frequently constrained by prison staff and of course his real name is not "Marcellous". It's Knuckles O'Haggerty.

Anyway, all of that is by the by. I just wanted to pick up on the term "googlediving". I think it is a useful term and one that everyone who has ever been on the internet can relate to. "Googlediving" has become a feature of everyday life in the western world.

Have you noticed how in the past couple of years, many of one's questions to Google are answered very quickly in the form of an "A.I.  Overview" that presumably makes swift sense of the lead answers that are floating around in the ether? It's quite remarkable really. As months pass by this "A.I. Overview" facility is becoming increasingly astute, more accurate and more fluent. And yet it has just drifted into our online lives without much trumpeting at all.

As a kind of experiment, I put two questions into Google. The first one concerns a blog that I visit nearly every morning. I know the real life name of this particular blogger but most of us know him as Cro Magnon. I had never paused to ask why he chose that pseudonym and why indeed he came up with the blog title, "Magnon's Meanderings" so I asked this and received the following response in approximately two seconds:-

This is the aforementioned America photojournalist - Paul Chesley:-

But I cannot see any link between this guy and Cro Magnon's blog. Perhaps I am missing something and confusingly there's also reference to "Lady Magnon" and a dog called Bok. Perhaps Cro Magnon himself may be able to illuminate.

Next, with curiosity, I asked this question:-

I like the idea of this blog being "notable" and also "eclectic" but I must say that I was a little surprised that after just two seconds, Google's AI Overview  was able to reveal so much knowledge about this little outpost of the internet. It's not especially gratifying - just interesting to see how deep the facility is able to go.  

I am not sure I want to visit "Rimping Supermarket" as "rimping" sounds like a rather rude activity that I  have no wish to explore. I am fine without "rimping" thank you very much! Happy to stick with "googlediving" instead.

Solidity

To all those out there in the blogosphere who thought that my "Alvin the Avenger" story was true, I have a confession to make. It was all pure, unadulterated fiction! The tyrannic reign of King Blabbermouth is not over. In fact, he has just invaded Switzerland. Sorry.

This afternoon I needed some self-therapy after all that fictionalising. With the afternoon brightening, I drove over to Stanage and parked close to the little car park  at Dennis Knoll.

At this time of year, summer swathes of vigorous green bracken have been replaced by dead and fallen vegetation that is rusty brown in colour. One advantage of this scene of death that is simply waiting for springtime is that you are better able to locate abandoned millstones.

The millstone industry probably began at Stanage Edge in the fourteenth century before peaking in the seventeenth century. The millstones were all laboriously hand-carved and were mainly used in flour production though some were used for grinding metal. They were exported far and wide.

The industry petered out at the beginning of the twentieth century when many perfectly fine millstones were simply abandoned. It was no longer cost-effective to hand carve them. They could be created with machinery instead and besides the millstone grit of Stanage Edge had been overtaken by the finer grained French "chert" which did not leave tiny grains of silica in the now fashionable pure white flour.

The result of all of this is that dozens of never-used but timeless grindstones can be found in the undergrowth below Stanage Edge. To me they are almost as evocative of times past as the famous moai statues on faraway Easter Island.

Alvin(II)

The first time I saw him, he entered a cubicle. You could hear him straining and muttering curses as I quietly replenished toilet rolls in the adjacent cubicles. I remained loitering silently in one of those conveniences as he emerged, still muttering, to wash his famously tiny hands.

He was bulkier than I had imagined and even from behind I could see how swollen his ankles were. Beyond the restroom door muffled disco music seeped inside from the golden ballroom.

"Beautiful!" he exclaimed to his own reflection as he preened what remained of his weird hair. It seemed amazing that I was effectively alone in that rest room with the bloated forty seventh president of The United States of America who clearly imagined that he was King of the World and perfectly safe in his Florida palace . However, like millions of other earthlings, I thought of him as  a narcissistic fraud, a dangerous fake president whose rampant authoritarianism needed to be stopped in its tracks. He had already caused too much hurt, too much chaos.

Somebody had to do it and I felt that the invisible finger of destiny had pointed my way. I owed it to the world and there was no turning back now.

I continued for weeks as "Good 'Ol Alvin". Other members of the maintenance team sometimes called me Chipmunk for some strange reason but I just kept on smiling inanely and humming those country and western tunes as I had done at The Palm Beach Country Club. I even got to see Dan Gilbert again and thanked him profusely for his "kind reference". What a dolt!

It was a question of biding my time and seizing the moment when it arrived. I had to be prepared. Almost twelve months  passed by with me polishing mirrors and taps, mopping floors, replacing toilet rolls and undertaking minor  plumbing repairs. "Patience", I told myself.

I had heard that He was back at Mar-a-Lago for another long golfing weekend and perhaps I would be lucky after several previous opportunities had had to be aborted - mostly because of other gentlemen using the bathroom facility.

However, on this occasion he was alone. As on the first weekend I saw him, he entered the first cubicle to defecate.  He vocalised as he strained and angrily muttered  unintelligible expletives before emerging.

He stood at the sinks washing his little hands and preening his mane, grinning at himself and saying "Beautiful!" three or four times. 

I waited until he was at the noisy electric hand dryer before swiftly grabbing my pre-prepared bucket of extra soapy water from the "Out of Order" cubicle. Silently, I flooded the marble tiled floor just behind him and as planned, the magic happened in the very second that he turned round.

His feet went from under him - as though on  black ice - and as he fell onto his back his skull thudded sickeningly against the unforgiving sink in which he had just washed his hands. Then his head hit the hard floor with a heavy scrunch. 

Almost immediately, there was blood.

I had to act quickly before somebody else came in. Most of the slippery water was mopped up in an instant and I put out  the two yellow "Wet Floor" warning cones that I had also stored in the "Out of Order" cubicle.

If he wasn't dead, he was at least out cold. The pool of blood was growing. It all appeared exactly as I had envisioned. A belligerent, entitled old man had entered the restroom, ignored the warning cones and slipped on the floor, fatally fracturing his skull. It had all the characteristics of a "terrible accident". Nothing sinister or suspicious.

I could not resist booting his fat bulk twice. "That's for Renee Good!" I hissed. And in my head I said, "That's for the deaths you caused by defunding USAID!"

With no time for anything else, I got back in the "Out of Order" cubicle with my bucket and mop, locked the  door and stood in silence on the toilet bowl so that nobody would see my feet. I could hear the sound of my own heartbeat as I waited there like a bird of prey on my porcelain perch.

And then the voices came. First an aide yelling, "Help!". Then two or three security guards arguing about what should happen. One said, "I think he's alive! Shut up guys! Call 911!" Others came and a woman - possibly Karoline Leavitt - screamed. Then ambulance personnel arrived with "Make space! Let us through!" There were flashes of photography.

Then after an hour or so, all went silent. I got down from my perch and slipped out through the cubicle door. The bleeding hulk of the odorous tyrant had gone - presumably to Sollis Health Emergency Center at Palm Beach - or maybe, if my luck was in, to a morgue.

Like other staff members, I was questioned briefly by FBI men in dark suits who took down my name and address but when my work shift was over I headed back as normal to my shabby rented room in Roosevelt Estates.

Switching on my secondhand laptop, I checked out the live TV news. A grim-faced Fox News reporter with coiffured platinum blonde hair was in the middle of an announcement: "...passed away ten minutes ago... following a fall in his Mar-a-Lago residence...I repeat..." 

Naturally, I punched the air. "Yes!"

I continued working at Mar-a-Lago for the next month,  during the period of national mourning demanded by President Vance in association with Tesla and the McDonalds Corporation - until accidentally on purpose I knocked over a priceless Chinese vase outside the therapy facility. It shattered into a thousand pieces and I was promptly frogmarched into General Manager Andrew Kiser's office where, to my inner delight, I was fired on the spot.

"I haven't got a choice Alvin!" he said.

Days later, jetting back across the Atlantic, I sat in business class sipping cold champagne while smiling the peculiar smile of a cold-hearted assassin. Nobody else in the world knew what I had done and I determined never to tell anyone. For that, my friend. is the only way to keep such a deadly secret.

Alvin(I)

Palm Beach Country Club

Sometimes you need to play the long game then when you later achieve the desired result it's all the sweeter.

I started the planning many months before. One of my first moves was to perfect my Floridian accent which I managed with online support through a trusted contact in Lloyd which is a village up near Tallahassee. She coached me well.

It was easy to acquire a US passport through Greenland-based fraudsters. $10,000 seemed like a good deal. My goal was fixed clearly in my mind but I didn't wish to die. Disguising my identity was vital.

Soon after arriving in Miami on a flight from London Heathrow I secured a menial janitorial job at Palm Beach Country Club. It included basic onsite accommodation. There I had little to do with the golf. I was mostly concerned with restroom cleaning and maintenance. It was a temporary appointment. The usual  guy was in hospital following a serious car accident.

As planned, I quickly gained a reputation for friendliness and willingness. Even the most important, wealthiest club members began to address me by my adopted first name -  Alvin which means "noble friend"...

"How's it going Alvin?"

"Fine Mr Schwarzman," I would smile, looking up from my mopping or mirror polishing. "How's your good lady sir?"

I had learnt to put on a mask of benevolent humility - never initiating conversation. Sometimes I would hum country and western tunes as I worked and the wealthy members seemed to like that. Thomas Frist Jr and Dan Gilbert - owner of The Cleveland Cavaliers became particularly chummy. However, I never dropped my guard because these rich blokes were merely pawns in my game.

I knew that both of those men were also frequent visitors to the Mar-a-Lago Club and once, as they were washing their hands, I overheard them chatting about the long term owner of that infamous venue.

"The guy's a douchebag."

"You ask me dude. He got owls in the loft!"

They laughed as I grinned malevolently.

After several months at Palm Beach Country Club with my temporary contract coming to an end, I noticed that there was a permanent "career opportunity" on the Mar-a-Lago website. They were advertising for a "reliable restroom attendant". The job required "flexible working", "discretion" and character references from two Mar-a-Lago members.

Thomas and Dan were happy to help.

"Sure thing Alvin. I'll talk to them on Friday. I gotta brunch over there with Marco," beamed Dan Gilbert, squeezing my shoulder before drying his hands. "We were at school together".

Anyway, essentially that's how I managed to pierce the Mar-a-Lago security net and a month later I was working there. I had a smart attendant's uniform in deep blue with a gold-coloured name badge.

Quietly, I got on with my job. Still smiling at restroom visitors, I kept humming those infernal country and western tunes.

One day, J.D.Vance said, "Thanks man!" when I picked up his vial of "Maybelline - Master Ink" eyeliner. He had dropped it near the electric hand drier. However, it must have been a full six weeks later that I first clapped eyes on the famous owner of Mar-a-Lago. Apparently, he was back there on yet another extended golfing weekend.

to be continued...

Messages

On Fridays, our Frances does not go to work and her youngest daughter, Margot, does not go to nursery school. Consequently, they get to spend some precious one-to-one time together.

Usually, they attend a playgroup  in a local church hall and for months Margot has always enjoyed this. However, two days ago she announced that she did not wish to go to playgroup. Instead she wanted to visit a cafe to eat "sausage". By the way, eating is probably her number one pastime.

And there the wee cherub is in the cafe. I just had to share that picture with you. She is eating her grub and drinking her "Fruit Shoot" so of course she is happy. If you will excuse the expression, the sausage has already gone down the hatch.

Isn't she a doll - or is that just grandfather bias once again?

⦿

Of less importance is the blatant advertisement below. It is for a  new publication that will be coming your way in two parts with the first installment as soon as tomorrow. I bet you cannot wait.

Who is Alvin and who or what is 

the target of his revenge?

"I couldn't put it down" - Nurse Pixie in  "The Edmonton Journal"

"Justice prevails. A rollicking good read. Vengeance can be bitter 

and yet so sweet." - Andrew de Melbourne in "The Age"

"Zzzzzzzzz!" Bob Slatten in "Bed"

Don't let the comedy cover vibe mislead you!

"Somebody had to do it and I felt that the invisible finger 

of destiny was pointing my way. I owed it to the world 

and there was no turning back now..."

Richard

Just a week ago, referring to Richard Hines and his wife Jackie, I wrote this:

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 would have liked to shake Richard's hand and ask him a few questions.

But I was wrong. Richard and Jackie did not move! They are still in the house they have lived in since 1981.

This morning, Shirley paved the way. She was passing their house when she saw a woman conversing with her neighbour in the passageway. Shirley asked the woman if she was Mrs Hines and somewhat surprised, Jackie confirmed it.

After a little explanation,  they went inside and Shirley was introduced to Richard. He was sitting in an armchair drinking soup from a bowl. He is not a well man and at the age of eighty he is suffering from hydrocephalus, awaiting a vital draining operation. His balance has been affected and he is now pretty much housebound.

Anyway, Shirley asked if I could also pay them  a visit - to which they wholeheartedly agreed. Somewhat nervously, this afternoon I went round and knocked on their door. I did not emerge from inside for three hours.

They were three glorious hours in which the conversation flowed naturally. Richard has retained his brusque Yorkshire coalfield accent. We talked about many things - not just about "Kes" and Richard's more famous brother Barry - but also about education, Nigeria, Fiji, The 1984-85 miners' strike,  our grandchildren, film-making, the ruling class, the construction of the M1 motorway, "Hamnet", Stanage Edge and poetry. There were other things too.

Jackie showed me some of her excellent artwork and Richard signed his book for me. Actually, he signed two books because as well as "No Way But Gentlenesse", he has also written a second memoir  titled, "The Place That Knows Me". My copy arrived at our house just two days ago.

Kindly, they gave me spare copies of these books to pass on to our neighbour Janet who was also, like me,  an English teacher in a mining village for several years.  Like me, she also taught "Kes" many times, not knowing that the lad who inspired the writing of that iconic book had been living just round the corner from us for years.

Yes. It was a memorable afternoon - one that I will not forget in a hurry. I promised Richard that when I have finished "The Place That Knows Me" I will call round again. I also left him our phone number in case he needs anything. With his health issue, he is not driving any more. and Jackie never passed her driving test.

Edgeways

Yesterday I visited the north end of Stanage Edge. It involved parking by Manchester Road - up on the verge opposite the entrance to Moscar Lodge. My plan was to walk from the north to the triangulation pillar on High Neb and back again. You may remember that I walked to this very point from the southern end of the escarpment just before Christmas. Go here.

Though our recent snows had almost all gone, it was bitingly cold when I set out across the rising moorland. Any puddles were iced over and soft ground had been hardened by frost. I was wearing my fingerless gloves which are useful for photography but I was wishing I had brought the lovely lined leather gloves that our Ian kindly gave me a few years back. For the first mile, I kept my hands in my pockets just for the extra warmth.

The north end of Stanage End is far less popular with visitors than the southern end. Quite possibly this may be explained by the difficulty of  simply parking at the north end and also the mile long trek before you actually get to the rocks.

At Crow Chin

At first, the day was grey and still. Not the best day for photography but at least there was no rain or snow in the local forecast. Besides, not long after arriving at the rock buttress known as Crow Chin, the sky lightened and weak sunshine  began to illuminate my surroundings quite nicely for an hour or so.

Thought I had not encountered anybody else, I could see the white triangulation pillar just up ahead. It was at this moment that a mountain biker rode past me with a pleasant, "Hello!".

At the pillar, he dismounted and then, damn me, just as I arrived, he climbed up on the pillar and simply stood there. Upon reaching that remote destination, my plan had been to drink some hot coffee from the flask I had made up at home. This liquid vision required a slight delay.

Icy grouse basin 13 on Stanage Edge

I asked the young man if he would like me to take his photograph and then I could e-mail it to him. When he clambered down we shook hands. He told me his name was Lincoln - a very unusual forename in this country. He also said that he rides to High Neb every week of the year and always climbs up on the pillar but this was the first time he had ever had his picture taken there.

By the way, the sheep at the top of this blogpost was about 250 yards away from my viewpoint. She is snuggling down  in the dead bracken of winter with Stanage End's millstone bulk behind, looming like an ocean liner. The rock is around 350 million years old - formed during the Carboniferous period.

Lincoln at High Neb