Mike cont'd

As I write this I am looking at a photograph taken by Mike, and this must have been in 1964 or thereabouts. He introduced many of us to the delights of Caving and this photo was taken before our first ever trip underground. His VW camper van is there and at the rear stands the assembled throng, some, about to head underground for the first time. We look a motley bunch and are not particularly well dressed for the day. We all have helmets of course; untli we moved house recently, I still had mine, but that has now gone to the skip, like so much of my life. I remember the names of all but two of the group. There is Pete on the left. He was an avid motorcyclist who owned an Aerial Square Four - 1000ccs of power. Next to him is Roger. I can see from his expression that this was something that he didn't want to do. No doubt, well meaning parents had given him a push, hoping that it might give him some confidence. Then there is me, kitted out in redundant CCF kit andtotally unsuitable tight jeans. I look pensive and seem to have my tongue sticking out. Terry, has his headlamp off to one side and Kieth, as cocky and arrogant as ever seems to have a battery powered lamp that most of us would have liked. John, with the glasses was actually an experienced caver and he would be the one to show us the way and make sure that none of us got lost or damaged!

Being underground is a strange experience. Putting aside the cold, wet and muddy conditions, it is of course totally dark. To get separated from the party with a failed lamp is no fun at all and the lamps we were using were Acetylene lamps, powered by a mix of calcium carbide and water. The flame was bright but oh so fragile. Just a drip of water falling from the roof onto a jet, could extinguish it and frankly, once wet, it was almost impossible to reignite without another flame being present. These lamps were also dangerous. It was possible to set fire to someone else's clothing while crawling throught tunnels and there was always a risk that previous cavers would have left little pockets of spent carbide, which can accumulate their own little clouds of acetylene just waiting for a naked flame.

There is no real objective to most caving trips, other than to get out again with all that you went in with, and most caves that are frequented by the beginner are quite safe. The first one that we were introduced to was dryish and relatively easy to negotiate, apart from a few very narrow crawls.

Later on we were introduced to the more dangerous wet caves and these capricious places are not for the faint hearted. Swildon's cavern, in Somerset, had in those days, and entrance that was a hole in the ground in the middle of a farmer's field. A stream dived into this hole and this was where the errant potholer would follow. Just to get in, it was necessary to sit in the stream and slide feet first down ito the blackness. This cave was wet all the way down; sometimes we were wading thigh deep and sometimes crawling on the stream bed. On other occasions we were abseiling down faces, only to meet the stream again. There were places where the roof of the cave came close to the water and it was necessary to lie on your back with your face close to the roof, and then there were sumps. A sump is like the u bend in a WC. They can only be negotiated by diving under the water and hoping that there is an airspace to come up into. This is where most of us drew the line. I was no swimmer and the thought of the sump was just too much.

Emerging from a cave into the sunlight is a wonderful experience. Normally soaking wet and freezing cold, it was so good to feel warm again and to eat hot food and talk proudly of our achievements. The first trip captured my imagination and I was to carry on caving until I finally got a job.

I miss the cameraderie of the trips, I miss the thrill and the adrenaline rushes that accompanied each new passage or new obstacle and I miss the flexibility in my body that allowed me to enjoy those experiences. Life without danger is not very interesting.

Poppies

Income and outgoing

Teenagers can be high maintenance these days, with their designer everythings, iPods, laptops, expensive haircuts, partying and anything else that happens to come along.

It has not always been the case, though as a Grammar school boy, I could have been considered to be that by my parents. In the 1960s there were none of the electronic gadgetry that we take for granted today. Our chief source of entertainment was the old Dansette record player that the youth club owned. Vinyl discs that cost 6 shillings and eightpence were the media of the time and we'd all buy the latest Beatles or The Rolling Stones or whatever new bands came along. So sweet was the feeling that this was something that our parents hated and that we owned it. We'd buy our winkle picker shoes and pale blue skin tight jeans that were so difficult to get on and off.

Anyway, even a lifestyle as cheap and low maintenance as mine, needed to be funded, and it was necessary to find ways of making some money.

The long term job that I first had was as a delivery boy for the village shop. Every saturday morning I'd be up at 7 and be picked up by Eric, who drove an old, green Commer Van with sliding doors and a column gear change. This was already laden with the first batch of cardboard boxes, stuffed with groceries. It was my job to carry these boxes from the van, to the doors of the customers. The van also carried a selection of goods that people could buy as we trundled around the village and its outskirts. We carried, bread, milk and cigarettes, as well as a small selection of canned and bottled goods - it always seemed enough.

The job was undemanding and tedious. Eric would let me do all the donkey work, while he chatted to the customers, took their money and drove us around. 

One enduring memory of that job was a little girl who lived at a farm at the edge of our round. Fay was delightful, she was six and loved to come out to the van and she would play with me while her mother talked to eric. She was always cheerful and had sparkly eyes that could charm anything or anyone.

One day we called at the farm and Fay was not there. She had been taken to hospital. The next day she died, and I still find that upsetting to recall. Her tiny grave is in the village churchyard and I still pause next to her when I pay my fleeting visits there.

Anyway, for the whole day, delivering goodies, loading and unloading the van, I was paid ten shilling. That is 50p in todays money, and I was glad to get it. It kept me in the essentials of teenage life, like cigarettes and the odd magazine. My parents added another five shillings, so I did have a little money. 

In the school holidays, I was encouraged to get other jobs, and living in rural England, it was easy to get work on the land, harvesting fruit and vegetables, depending on the season, and I would work on the farm, sometimes being paid for the work and sometimes not. It didn't seem to matter much. We'd pick apples and plums, strawberries and raspberries, peas and beans. We'd pull beetroot and dig potatoes, we'd haul sacks of wheat and help with haymaking, all of which tended to keep us fit and out of mischief. In those days it was common to do a 12 to 16 hour day and not think twice about it.

Later on work diversified and I worked in bars and hotels as well as in local factories. All of which gave me even more determination to escape and not to spend the rest of my days in manual labour, which although quite satisfying in some ways, can be so dull and mind numbing.

fake

Monday bloody monday

It is still raining. How long can this go on?

MIke

Whenever I read a good book, I find myself wishing that I could express myself more lucidly. I know that books are crafted and that it can take a long time to get things right, but even so, I envy people who can captue the imagination and transport me to different worlds. I am reading a book by Amos Oz at the moment and find his prose so inspiring. However, I will try to make the most of what I have and continue to burble on in my own way. At least I don't have to do it for a living.

My teenage life was in some ways a double existence. There was school on the one hand, and the village on the other. The village was home. I slept in a house there but the vilage and its surroundings were where I lived. The people I associated with at home were a completely different group to those in school, and so were the values and expectations. The village was a place that was going nowhere, and all these years on, it still hasn't changed. Oh the graveyard is almost full now, my father and brother having been added to the population, and the residents that i knew have mostly passed on. There are a few of the people that I grew up with who still live there, but I wouldn't recognise them or they me. It was for me a place that inspired me to leave it. I knew that whatever I did, I would leave, and the sooner the better. It was stultifying, and my father overbearing and controlling to ridiculous lengths that forced me into rebellion. There was a time when there was a danger of becoming a hooligan like so many people that I knew.

Friday night was youth club. Around the village, youth club had quite a reputation, and if ever there was any trouble, vandalism or petty theft, youth club was usually the scapegoat and qhite rightly too. This was where the kids from the village would congregate once a week in order to smoke, listen to records on the Dansette, gamble, play snooker and throw darts at each other. There were no drugs around in those days, and not much money either, otherwise it would have been a crackhouse I am sure. We met at the village hall, a tin shack that served a multitude of organisations, including the WI and the village council. I don't think that our use of the premises was much appreciated, though it was pretty shambolic anyway, the old and bearded ladies of the WI did not appreciate dart holes in the walls and cigarette burns in their curtains.

It was somewhere to go and on friday night it was warm, if on occasions dangerous. I don't suppose anyone came to a great deal of harm there, and the fights that broke out usually petered out into nothing.

Then along came Mike. He was a Chemist who worked for ICI. He had an attractie wife, a young child and a VW dormobile. He also had enthusiasm and he took over the running of the club. Mike was one of the people that I thank for the influence that he had upon my life. He arrived too late to make any difference to my school performance but he changed my outlook forever.

Mike would talk to us and find out what we wanted, he'd talk to us about opportunity and experience and he got us to do things that we never thought possible. Of course not everyone welcomed the change and some of the hooligan element, who were getting older anyway, transferred their gathering to the village pub. They were not allowed in of course but hung around outside - it probably seemed cool at the time.
Mike even got some of us to give the Village Hall a makeover. The village provided the paint and we did the labour. The whole thing was painted both inside and out and such was our committment, even the joists under the stage were painted with creosote. Not the most pleasant of tasks and probably none too health either. In those days, health and safety boiled down to a simple interior risk assessment and a bit of bottle.

Mike started a drama group and we'd put on plays for our own entertainment and for the old folks of the village; what they had done to deserve it I don't know. I do remember a variety show that we did, that was mainly made up of comedy sketches that we had put together. They didn't understand any of it and all I could see out in front were a row of deadpan faces, staring with incomprehension. They'd only come for the free tea and sandwiches that we provided anyway. We were even persuaded to enter drama competitions and public speaking contests, though we never won or even came close. This was a start, self confidence was starting to grow. More on this another time.

People who work with teenagers are very lucky. They have the ability to change lives for the better, and while doing so, share in the excitement and thrills as they discover themselves. People like Mike, who gave up so much of his time to help others are the real heroes of this world and they rarely get thanked. I am saying thankyou now Mike - I hope that you are still alive and I hope that you are aware of the difference that you made.

Optimism

More dislikes

The illusion of choice
Psychobabble
Self help books
Religion
Blind faith

More things that I like

People I can trust
The smell of chrysanthemums
Basil on fresh tomatoes
Greece
Italy
France
Pink Floyd
Live concerts
Red wine
Real Ale
The enthusiasm of the young
Learning new things
Meeting new people
Opera

More things I like

New books
The smell of rain
Sleeping
Cooking
Eating a good meal
Sharing thoughts without being judged
A good story
Butterflies
My own space
Eye contact
Old clothes
GMT
Biology

Things I like

Being told the truth
Being listened to
Good music
Curry
Being appreciated
Being loved
Being warm
The smell of babies
The scent of a woman
Being creative
Creative people
Flowers
Green grass
The sea
Rivers

Recreation time

In those days, the school operated a six day timetable, where wednesday was fixed and the other days were numbered 1-5. This meant keeping tabs on what day monday was going to be and making sure that you took the right books in for the day. The benefits of the six day timetable was that some weeks of course, your worst day just did not happen, unless that happened to be wednesday. That was unlikely though as wednesday afternoons was always games.

The day was droken up into seven periods and I can't remember how long they were. Some days they seemed incredibly long. There were four in the morning, divided by a fifteen minute break, then an hour for lunch and three lessons in the afternoon with a ten minute break somewhere in that time.

Breaks and lunchtimes were times when we could mingle with kids from other year groups, play games, have a crafty cigarette, or get up to all sorts of mischief. During the first few years, free school milk was still available for all who wanted it. The milk would be delivered in the early morning and the crates of one third of a pint bottles with their silver foil tops, were piled in the main playground. On wet days, when confined to classrooms the milk would be delivered by milk monitors, and many of us really enjoyed the ice cold milk in the winter. However summertime milk was warm and not too pleasant. Most days we'd just help ourselved from the stack and as there was always a surplus, and boys being boys, there were regular challenges to see who could drink the most bottles. Many a day we'd waddle back to lessons, full enough to be sick.

Baiting senior students could be fun. Generally they were too sophistcated or lazy to give chase and so there was no real danger involved. The problem arose when one crossed invisible lines without being aware of that, and they remembered you.
I was caught one day by a group of students, who, on some recent occasion, I had caused offence. It was early summer and we were enjoying access to the fields instead of the asphalt playground. I suddenly found myself surrounded by a group of large hairy lads, who picked me up and deposited me onto the top of a hawthorn hedge. Of course I sank into the prickly branches and was trapped. It took me a long time and a lot of pain to extricate myself; I learned a good lesson that day - Don't get caught!

As I grew up, breaktimes ceased to be for silly games. They became times for smoking cigarettes, and later a time for association with girls, although I only had one girlfriend at the school. More about girls another time.

Generally break times and lunchtime were a good thing, and of course the time when friendships were forged. Gangs would gravitate together and rivalries would sometimes, but rarely lead to conflicts. Even though we were ebullient, we were not uncivilised and fights were very rare.

Supervision was very low key, and although there were staff on duty, patrolling their beats, mostly we were supervised by prefects, who although they had their own common room, would share the duties and had the same power as the staff. I never became a prefect, it was a role that one had to aspire to and also was dependent on a clean record. Red socks were not seen as a recommendation.

Obligations and duties

Apart from uniform, behaviour, attendance and the worship of the headmaster, there were other obligations at Prince Henry's Grammar School. Each term began with a church service, at which attendance was mandatory. I'm not sure how anyone would have known if we weren't there, but we always went and hated every minute of it. Churches, like hospitals, have a certain presence, a combination of smell and ambience that I loathe and detest. To sit in stark, grey darkened spaces that smell of death, being lectured by strange, effeminate men in dresses and to have to participate in the mumbo jumbo that is fundamentally a corruption of a middle eastern set of beliefs, seems such a waste of everyone's time. By all means allow those that need the crutch to do what they want, but making such things an obligation does nothing for the church or the obligee.

The annual cross country race was another obligation. Well it was for boys. Girls were obliged to watch the start and finish and do goodness knows what in between. The only way out of this event was to lose a leg, and even then, I am sure that the PE staff would make you hop round. The afternoon was organised into three races. Juniors and seniors wore white, and middle school wore dark and light blue quarter shirts, blue shorts and dark socks. Juniors would go first and their course was of course the shortest. Then the middle school would set off and finally the seniors on the much longer route.

I dreaded this event, as did all the fat, gangly, inept, and uninterested. It was achance for the sporty types to show off and for the rest of us to trudge around and be humiliated by coming near to last.

I remember when i was in the senior contingent, I must have been sixteen by then, a group of us planned a rebellion. Now remember this was the 1960s, and we were the generation that was swept along by the rebellion of the western world, where the youth were no longer prepared to accept the bullshit thrown down from above. The music was changing, the way people looked was changing and for the first time in the history of Prince Henry's, attitudes towards authority were being questioned in ways that had not happened before. People were no longer going to blindly do what they were told.

Our protest against this ludicrous event was to wear red socks, which about 30 of us did. Not only that, at the start, when about a hundred students lined up and waited for the starting gun, we all decided that under the gaze of the rest of the school, we would not run the race, but walk it. The gun fired and thirty red socked rebels were left on the line, casually strolling as one, along the course, much to the amusement of the spectating girls. Oh what fun we had, basking in the glory of rebellion. Of course we all finished the course together, in a line, we crossed as joint last, and were met by the combined senior staff, who ushered us out of sight and into the school hall for a debriefing. I thought that we were going to be caned, but I don't think there was anyone on the staff with enough energy to cane us all. We were however given a thorough dressing down and referred to as disgraces to the school etc etc ......... just what we wanted to hear of course; from then on it was rebellion all the way.

The other obligation, again for boys only! was the CCF, the Combined Cadet Force. As soon as we were in the fourth year, we had to join. No excuses were accepted, and on wednesdays, after school, we'd be lined up in our little squads or platoons and taught how to march and salute and to obey anyone that shouted at you. We were issued with uniforms made of wool that were heavy and extremely uncomfortable. In those days, drainpipe trousers were the fashion, while the uniform ones had sixteen inch bottoms and were inevitably too big or too small. It was so uncomfortable to wear, and to sit through a whole day in it was a torture. The boots were even worse; big black and inflexible with huge hobnails that made walking a nightmare. I just don't know how we won the war!

The CCF was a huge organisation and we were expected to participate fully. It wasn't good enough to turn up every wednesday, we had to go to shooting practice in the rifle range, normally used by smokers on a day to day basis. We'd have to attend war exercises at weekends, and unless you had a good excuse, even attend army camps in the holidays. I hated most of it, but did enjoy the shooting. It was quite satisfying, and the secret of my success in that was an ability to see the headmaster's face in every target. I managed to win a marksman's badge and that was all that I got out of the CCF.

At this point, I'd like to mention Squiff again. Now Squiff was second in command of the airforce unit, on the grounds that he'd seen an airoplane once. He'd stalk about in his officer's uniform, complete with swagger stick, barking orders for people to ignore and generally looked a prat. The school owned a Grasshopper. This was a training glider that was capable of just about taking off and landing on skids. It was man powered, in that it's propulsion consisted of two very long elastic ropes, that were attached to its nose, and projected forward in a huge V. Cadets were rounded up to pull these ropes, rather like egyptian pyramid builders, and with the usual lethargic effort the glider woul soar to a height of three feet and then drop to earth after about 20 yards.

One day, Squiff decided to give a demonstration. He donned his flying hat and rounded up a selection of us cadets. Whether his choices were bad or maybe conditions were just right I don't know, but for some reason the assembled slaves were highly motivated and we all ran and pulled as if our lives depended upon it. Never before had a grasshopper gone so high or so fast or so far, and certainly never before had one crashed through the wire fence that surrounded the tennis courts and come to rest against the fence on the far side. We were jubilant! Squiff must have wet himself. He was as white as a sheet and shaking all over. Cadets were rolling around on the grass in absolute hysterics, deeply sympathetic to his feelings. The grasshopper never appeared again for some reason.

Grammar school continued - Biological issues

It's very hard to assemble the memories into a truly chronological order and so far as lower school days are concerned, I won't try.
One of my favourite places was the biology lab. The smell of formaldehyde, blended with polished oak still haunts me to this day. The room was lined on one side with ancient display cabinets and their morbid contents, of preserved animals, gazed down on us as they had on generations of students that came before us. There were hundreds of jars and stuffed creatures, most of which were steeped in mystery. We always imagined that somewhere in the back of the cupboard that there would be preserved human parts or even whole foetuses. The only evidence of that were foetal pigs, but even they had a strange attractiveness to the prepubescent mind. The other side of the room was all windows that looked over the garden and greenhouse, a place that I don't recall ever having access to.

My first Biology teacher was a Mr (Chippy) Woodhead, a gentle and elederly Yorkshireman, who regailed us with tales, probably apocryphal, of his life in the north, while teaching us a form of biology, which now seems like natural history. As a homework exercise, we were expected to maintain a "Nature Diary" in which we'd record observations, weather patterns etc. I quite enjoyed this until one day I was ridiculed for stating that Starlings were migrating for the winter. This public humiliation certainly changed my views of the teacher and took away some of my interest in the subject. This was compounded, when I found out later that I was right. I later dropped biology in favour of additional Maths.

The maths turned out to be a big mistake and so at a later date I switched back to biology and by this time, the work had become more academic and the teacher was Squiff! An eccentric but young Mr Hopkins, who was the butt of every schoolboy prank that was going. On one occasion, his car, an old Austin 7, was manhandled by the sixth form and placed upon the roof of one of the buildings - a real feat of strength and ingenuity. Squiff had a short temper, understandably, and little tolerance of misdemeanour. I still remember one of his favourite punishments. He'd issue lines. One hundred of them at a time. That doesn't seem so bad, but his lines went like this - "There is nothing more distressing, than to see a boy or girl disporting himself or herself in an improper manner." Writing that out a hundred times was not funny. Squiff was not one to cross openly and so mostly he was the victim of the subtle attacks from groups of boys who would find whatever means that they could to humiliate him, but without getting caught. More about Squiff at a later date.

Biology was fine, although not my strongest subject, I did enjoy it and managed to pass the exams that enabled me to go on to a higher level.

The subject was very different then to modern Biology. The emphasis was on structure and anatomy. Much of what we did was to take things apart and draw them, or to copy drawings from books, but there was little emphasis placed on the relationship between form and function. That was to come later, and could be seen as a metaphor for what was going on in my life.

Home was becoming less and less important in my life. Although I was a rebellious student, I really did get a lot out of school and enjoyed being there. Biology and the other sciences were becoming more interesting and I was having some limited success in my studies. All this while, the hormones were beginning to flow and puberty starting to effect its changes.

Monday monday

Monday again, and the week stands before me like a huge blank canvas. The trouble is I seem to have lost my brushes.

The weekend was ok, and my son came down to attend a friend's birthday celebrations. As a result, both friday and saturday turned into quite long and heavy drinking sessions, and I think that this week will be a drying out time. I don't think I could become an alcoholic, I feel so bad after a couple of hard nights, that right now the thought of a drink has no appeal at all. However, there is time for all that to change I suppose.

I was reading this morning of a wedding in Korea that ostensibly was conducted by a robot. At first glance the idea seemed gimicky and silly, but then why not? The majority of people in the west, have no religious faith and many weddings are conducted in registry offices by clerks who chant secular version of the religious mumbo jumbo associated with the church wedding. It's just words in the end and although there is a huge amount of sentiment attached to it, a wedding is just a convenient type of tax dodge.

There was a time when a marriage was a permanent arrangement, but now they tend to be short lived, with neither partner trusting the other totally, to the extent that financially each partner remains separate. Prenuptual arrangements make splits far simpler and in reality there seems little point to the arrangement, and less meaning to the ceremony.

So why not a robot? It could go a stage further I guess, and have the ability to conduct a divorce ceremony too. Maybe each robotic marriage printout should contain a voucher for a discount on the inevitable. I can see a future where such coin operated robots will wander the streets seeking out trade and will offer meaningless pledges and platitudes in all languages. At least then I suppose relationships will be more honest, even if they are more ephemeral.

Grammar school continued - Ron Chalkley

I always felt that I was a disappointment to my parents. I just didn't come up to expectations as far as school was concerned, and I was a thin, gangling and weedy specimen who was no good at games either. I didn't know then, and i am sure that they didn't either, that a child's progress through school is a team effort and that what goes on at home is as important as what goes on in school. I know that I should have tried harder to overcome the obstacles but, my attitude to home was deeply ingrained and hard to change.

My parents would fight almost daily. Shouting and raving at one another, usually about us kids, often about me, and all too often I'd fall asleep with my head under the pillow, attempting to block out the sounds of father shouting and mother crying.
Such conflicts are distressing to third parties, but eventually I think that I habituated to it. To this day, the tears of a woman have the effect of pushing me into a protective shell, and I just block them out.

After a major row, some of which developed into physically violent confrontations, there would be a long lull. My father had a wonderful habit of not speaking to anyone for days. I always though that it was a pathetic way of going about things but welcomed it nevertheless. It meant that he'd not eat with us, and would spend hours out of the house or just listening to his record collection at very high volume. I vowed that I'd never turn out like him, though I hold my hand up to one thing - I also retreat into loud music and when upset I can lie on the floor with Led Zepplin or Pink Floyd at high volume. It's like being washed by the sea and is one of my methods of isolation. He had a wonderful collection of records, mostly Classical and Jazz, but I enjoyed listening - mainly at a distance. He had no toleration though of pop music. We were not allowed to listen to pop on the radio or even play our records on HIS equipment. We'd buy records sometimes, and would play them when he was at work. making sure that we never left traces of our activities.

Anyway, back to school, a place where I could be a different person to the one at home. The areas of the curriculum that grasped me best were Maths and Sciences, though I did enjoy English and RE lessons, largely because of the teachers, who both encouraged discussion and debate. Students like to feel that their opinions count for something and that they are participant in the learning process.

My Chemistry teacher, throughout the first five years of my time at Prince Henry's was Mr Chalkley. His name was Ron, and we'd call him that behind his back. In those days, all teachers would have a nickname that was passed down from generation to generation. His was a respectful one, as he was a thoroughly respected master. I recall to this day my first Chemistry lesson in the ancient chemistry lab. It smelt wonderfully, of mysterious chemicals mixed with wax polish and the encrustation of age and the traces of a hundred years of students. Mr Chalkley began by introducing himself and telling us that "Today we are going to weigh the world." Immediately my attention was grasped and he became my hero. In reality of course he was showing us how to use the chemical balance, and to be able to weigh things with an unprecedented degree of accuracy. He took a small piece of paper and showed us step by step, how to weigh it in grams and centigrams and milligrams. Then he wrote "The world" on the scrap of paper, using his shiny fountain pen. This was reweighed and the difference calculated by simple subtraction. We'd been shown that even his words carried weight. We didn't call it mass in those days. We'd then be shown how to record what we had done in our note books. Aim, equipment, method, results and conclusions.

Ron was a wonderful teacher, not just because his lessons were interesting, but because his discipline was iron. No-one spoke out of turn in Ron's lessons. We learned very early on that a step out of line was rewarded by a whack. He would wander around the classroom while we were making our notes and should anyone ever dare to whisper while he was in range, a clout around the back of th head was delivered with precision and care. It never hurt, it was never meant to. WE all loved Ron and I still rate him as one of my best teachers ever. I still love Chemistry and in my own teaching career often thought that Ron might have been surprised and even proud of me, something that my father never was.

I often think that if Ron had stayed as my chemistry teacher in later years that I would have done so much better than I did. Life is so full of things that we should regret. I only regret the things that I didn't do. Working hard at school is just one of those things.

Grammar school Day 1

The day that I started Grammar school was one of those turning points in life. I know that my parents will have struggled to buy the uniform and all of the stuff that went with it - yet another source of resentment for my father. Uniform was strict, and consisted of a navy blue blazer with light blue braid on the lapels, collar and edges. On the breast pocket was the school crest and motto. I remember it well - Parva Magna Crescunt - Studies enter into one's living- I think that is the right translation anyway. Grey shorts were proscribed for all first year boys and all were to wear the hideous cap and tie that went with the blazer. The cap was to be worn at all times apart from in the classroom, even on the bus going home, and there were bus prefects, who not only maintained behaviour, but also enforced the "cap rule", failure to wear the ...king cap led to detention! I was to earn plenty of those later on. Black, lace up shoes, grey socks and a navy blue raincoat completed the outfit. On top of that there were uniforms for games and a separate one for P.E. There were football boots and gym shoes too. Of course there were also the extras; a satchel for books and a duffel bag for sportswear.

Because I had such long and spindly legs, I was given a dispensation to wear long trousers, and this made me stand out from most of my peers who had no such excuse.

I remember the bewilderment of arriving at the "big school" on that first morning. We newcomers were herded into the playground and then led into the "Great Hall" where we were welcomed and given the first of any number of talks about rules and regulations. We were then divided up into form groups and taken away by our group tutors who would be responsible for our pastoral care over the year. Mine was Mr "Curly" Edwards, so called because of his shiny bald head. He was a kindly soul and a music teacher, one who continued to nourish my interest in music. We were 1E and we were small fish in a very large pond. I soon learned that there were loads of kids who were much smarter than I was, and for the first time in my life I found things a bit of a struggle.

It is easy to blame others for one's own failings, especially retrospectively, but the gulf that existed between home and school was more or less impossible to bridge. At home there was no real support for homeworks and nowhere that I could call my own to study. If I had to write, it was at the kitchen table and as this was a focal point of the house, it usually meant that I was in the way. I envied those from middle class families with their own bedrooms, with hot water, indoor toilets and supportive and encouraging parents. However there were others in the same boat as myself and so I had no real reason to complain. I felt myself slipping down the pile though and my academic standards began to drop. I was placed into the C stream and very soon became a C stream student, associating with the less well motivated and badly behaved in the group. As far as school was concerned, my fate was sealed there and then.

I liked school. It was varied and interesting, there were lots of people to talk to and interesting things to do. We had to learn French and woodwork as well as all the usual subjects and there were after school activities; though that was difficult because of buses home. Teachers were firm, discipline was excellent and we all had a health fear of the headmaster. All in all it was a sound and well balanced educational establishment - at least it was until I hit puberty. Then for some reason it all changed.

Haikuless

It's wednesday again and I seem to have achieved very little this week. OK I finished some fitting jobs in the kitchen but that is not particularly satisfying, and neither are the normal maintenance jobs in house and garden. I have started the design work for the hotel but I am finding it hard to raise much enthusiasm for it. I went to a meeting with the owners the other day and was given a free meal for my efforts. While I was there, I took some more photographs for the brochure and even a little video to put onto a DVD. We chatted a while and I got some feeling for what was required and set some short term and long term objectives. Then the meal. I designed the menu for the restaurant so knew it pretty well. The Crevettes were wonderful, but not really what I would call a main course. The sweet course was a disaster. Clearly the chocolate/brandy whatever had been made as a batch and kept in the fridge - too long. I took a spoonful and found that there were a whole variety of fungi growing between the dish and the dessert. Now I had a dilemma! I wasn't paying for the meal so what should I do? I had no further appetite for chocolate pudding and so quietly pointed the wildlife out to the waitress before leaving. These things do keep happening to me!

Anyway I suppose that I can keep plodding on with the brochure; at least it will keep me out of trouble, though there is little danger of finding any these days as I don't seem to meet people anymore. I still haven't seen a single neighbour since we moved into coffin dodger land. Maybe they all come out at night to feed.

I miss having someone to write to and someone to share my thoughts and feelings. That has been replaced by the daily blog and although it is ueful for me in a cathartic sort of way, it is very one sided and unsatisfying.

There is no point in going on with this diatribe. Clearly I have very little to say today. There was nothing in the news that grabbed my attention and, as yet, no inspiration for a haiku. Maybe I'll continue with the life story later.

If anyone is reading this - may your day be better than mine.

Ice and fire

Winters of my boyhood always seemed cold. Our house was exposed to the wind that hurtled through the vale, and we had no heating other than a coal fire in one room. The toilet was outside and across the yard.

There was one winter in particular that stands out for me. It started early and seemed to go on forever. The snow came in December and I think it stayed until march. Goodness me it was cold that year.

On a daily basis the glass of water at the side of my bed would have a film of ice on t when I was wrenched out of bed in the morning. The insides of the windows were covered with a patina of ice crystals, and the daylight had an intensity that I have not seen since. WE'd push pennies against the glass to thaw peepholes so that we could see out. Nothing kept us indoors though and with two pairs of socks inside our wellies, we'd don scarves and home made balacalavas and head out into the wilds.

That year the river froze, as did every pond lake and ditch. Wildlife had major problems finding food and daily, we'd find wood pigeons with their feet frozen to the tops of brussels sprouts plants. There was nothing that could be done for them and mostly they were put out of their misery. Snowdrifts piled over the hedges and formed wonderful sculptures around bushes and trees. They even formed shelves over the river, and often the unwary would fall through and onto the ice below.

The millpond froze, except in the area where the millrace entered. This was an accident waiting to happen. Mostly the ice on the river was about six inches thick, enough to support most things, but towards the mill race it tapered down to near nothing. We cut sticks and played our own version of ice hockey here - yes in wellies! Remember I did everything in wellies in those days.

One day, tired of ice hockey and falling over and getting cold and wet, some bright spark decided to have a competition to see who could get closest to the water at the millrace end. Now this would be foolish even if one could swim, but many of us couldn't, never having been taught, and so this really was insane. However the contest began and gradually, one by one we ventured towards the thin ice at the edge. The ice creaked and as we got closer, we could see the water through the ice, with bubbles pouring under our feet. Most of us saw the red light and backed off, but one lad didn't. He was determined to get to the edge. To everyone's horror and no-one's surprise, the ice gave way with a sickening crunch, and Richard vanished under the freezing water. For a moment his head came back up and he grabbed the jagged edge of the ice. It gave way and he went down again, this time, the current took him under the ice and we stood helpless as he thrashed away below our feet. The only way out was the way he went in and the current was dragging him away from that point. The ice was too thick to break and so we stood, helpless, and strangely detached from his plight.

I'll never know how, but somehow he managed to get back to the edge and hauled himself above the water. Someone reached out to him with a home made hockey stick and he was dragged, out and into safety.

No-one talked about that event. We knew that if a single parent found out what had happened, the river would become out of bounds, and besides, nothing that happened out of the house was any of their business.

There was little traffic in those days and what there was had compacted the snow into a lethal sheet of ice that covered every road. Getting to school was tricky and to manage the walk without falling over was hard. School was a welcome break from the aching cold and it was pleasant to sit in the classrroom with its coal fired boiler.

The nights were bitter. The cold was palpable and had a smell of its own, and journeys to the toilet were less than pleasant. There was always the risk of being frozen to the seat and mostly we learned to control our bladders and bowels, so that night visits out there were rare.

When winters go on for as long as that one did, the novelty of it all wears thin and we yearned for the thaw, knowing that it would bring with it the inevitable flooding. And of course it did come to an end as all things do. There were other winters that were as cold but none went on so long as that one. Global warming has it's good points.

Primary endings

Reading through previous entries, I notice that I rather vaguely use the word "we", in reference to activities out of school. There were no close friends, the kids in the village would hang around as a loose bunch that varied in it's composition according to weather, time of day, or just whim. Brothers and sisters would associate, and the size of the gang would vary enormously. Much of the time I preferred my own company.

I had a fascination for fire, and most days a campfire was a focus. There were plenty of places to go, but mostly, social life was based on the banks of the river and inevitably we'd light a fire and try to cook any vegetable that we could find. Sometimes fires would get out of hand and I admit to burning down a tree as well as igniting a fallow field that burned beautifully.

For us the river was in two parts. The upper reaches, were above the old Mill race, and this stretch of river was largely shallow, and it flowed through agricultural land. The fishing in that stretch was not much good, though legends of brown trout were legion. I never saw one. The lower reaches, flowed on for about five miles until it confluenced with the river Avon. Here the waters were deeper, more accessible and better endowed with fish.

Where the mill race poured over it's small cascade, there was the mill pond, a square, reinforced holding area. A footbridge crossed the river at this point and this area, with its wooden boards and concrete platforms acted as a magnet for bored kids. Here there would ususally be a congregation, and from this place oiur adventures and mischief would begin. This was a favoured fishing spot too and many hours of boyhood were frittered away here.

In those days, we walked everywhere, and as I only had one pair of shoes, wellington boots were the norm. I lived in wellies and they were frequently wet, or filled with hayseeds or straw. I even played football in them, no wonder I was never any good at it. Have you ever tried running in wellington boots? To make matters more interesting, our wellies were always at least two sizes too big, in the vain hope that we'd grow into them. Mostly though they got punctured or torn within a few weeks of being new, so they never were outgrown.

I am sure that weather in those days was more extreme than now. I can recall snow that came over the tops of our wellies as being a regular event, as were scorching summers where the grass turned to tinder. Rain was real rain in those days. I can still feel the downpour that one day soaked me on my way home. My wellies really filled up with rain water as I walked, and that makes walking quite tough.

Summers were long and so were winters. Mostly the days were long too and some cold days it was a pleasure to come home and sit in front of the fire. This was rare though and mostly I would stay out until it was dark or I was hungry.

Food was traditional fare and dependent on seasonal availability of vegetables. There were no exotic treats, and no choices. There were no snacks between meals and no out of season fresh fruit. The only thing that always seemed to be abundant was the pappy white bread, potatoes, and pickles. We ate for fuel and at the meal table we'd listen to my father's opinions on things. We didn't have any! After meals, it would be a case of going out again until either the next meal or until darkness or the weather forced us home.

School went on and eventually we were told about the eleven plus. This was an exam that children would sit at the age of eleven. It was an intelligence test that had the effect of dividing kids into two groups. Those that would form the elite 20% of the population would go to the Grammar School, the rest to the Secondary Modern. Those of us on the top table were groomed for this test and four of us passed, and after interviews at the "posh" school were accepted. I was to be separated once again from the people that I had come to know. Secondary school was to present a whole new world to me, and one that I was not prepared for.

endings without beginnings

Primary times continued

I'm not sure that I should write this at the moment as my life seems to have sunk to a very low pitch right now, but my desk is one place where I can feel that things are less likely to go awry. So here goes.

Mostly my memories of primary times are of coming to terms with not being an an institution all of the time. Lessons were ok and generally undemanding, and my place in the top group was never in jeapardy. For the first time in my life I was also aware that there were such things as girls and that they were different to us boys. They were the quiet ones and they kept themselves to themselves, they didn't play football or cricket and rarely had anything to do with us roughs. They also worked hard and wrote neatly and never ever got told off.

My least favourite work at school was the handwriting lessons, where we would have to write with nibbed pens, that dipped into the inkwells in our desks. There was a position of responsibility called the ink monitor, and it was their job to make sure that each day the ink wells were full so that ew never ran out and had no excuse not to write. I always managed to make a mess with pen and ink and however hard i tried I could not make those nibs do what was expected. My pages were all blobs and blothches and i got more and more frustrated.

Twice a week we'd get to listen to the radio. Music programs that were accompanied by a printed book. Along to the radio we'd sing, chant or sometimes we'd just listen, and there my love of music was rekindled. Music has the ability to enchant and to transport. It was and still is a way of escaping.

Home life was pretty dull and before long my father had changed jobs again. This time as a shift worker. Consequently our paths rarely crossed as when he was home during the day, we were expected to be out of the house, so that he could sleep. In the evenings he was at work and so relative peace was the order of the day. Weekends and school holidays I recall leaving the house after breakfast, returning for lunch, then away again all afternoon and often through the evening too. Living in the country helped as we were safe from human predation. There were loads of other risks however. Our playgrounds were farmyards, fields and river banks and there we probably learned as much as we did in school.

One farm where we were tolerated was owned by an alcoholic Irishman, who terrorised the village driving his tractor back from the pub each day, with no consideration for any other users of the road. His long suffereing wife, did not allow him drink in the house, but all over the fam there were hidden supplies of cider. Over the years we got to find and sample most of them. We'd play in the hay barn when it was wet, creating rope swings, hideouts and probably damaging large numbers of bales.

Sometimes we'd even play with the animals. younger pigs and sheep were fair game and wed' ride these like small horses. The mature animals were rather more wary and probably dangerous too so we avoided them by and large as they did us.

We learned to drive tractors. The farmer's son would oversee this and in years to come, we'd pay back for the damage by putting in many hours work, haymaking or harvesting.

Much of my time in the village was spent fishing in the river that flowed through. We had been told at school that this river had the distinction of being the onkly river in the world that flowed due north, from source to sink. Whether it's true or not I don't really know or care.

That river I came to know like the back of my hand. I even learned to swim in it eventually. When I wasn't fishing, i was making rafts, or dams or toy boats. In the hard winters it would freeze over and we'd skate or play hockey or just see how far we could go before the ice broke. It was a dirty little river by and large but it was ours.

Fishing began for me with a home made rod cut from a willow tree. All boys in those days carried knives. Not for attacking others but for cutting string and making bows and arrows and for whittling sticks and the like. I'd steal some nylon line and hooks from my father and I'd walk the banks and find ways of catching fish. Bread and worms were the bait and small fry were our trophies. Most of the fish that we caught were no more than 3 or 4 inches long, and mostly theyd be returned to the water. I'd sit on a river bank for hours hoping to catch something bigger but rarely did that happen at that time. It didn't matter, there were always kingfishers, water rats, and dragonflies for company and no-one ever bothered me. I can still smell the river and the stinging nettles.

And so my early boyhood passed. Avoiding conflict with my father became a way of life as did having no money and nothing to spend it on anyway. I sometimes think that those days in the fields and on the riverbank were the best of my life.

Oh Deer

I feel the need to draw to your attention the fact that Frederickton, my Mother's birthplace, is in the news today. As ususal, Canadian headline writers, desperate for news of interest, report the invasion of a local government office by a deer. The deer wandered into the office building, damaged a few articles on a clerks desk and wandered out again, never to be seen apart from the CCTV footage.

Now forgive me if that seems a trifle dull, but any reference to Canada in the news is noteworthy, as like hens teeth, they are rare. Having read this one, you can see why.

The sun has broken out this morning, and I found a slow worm in my compost heap. There - a story to equal the Canadian Deer, but of course, just like the New Brunswick tale, no-one at all would be interested.

May all you Canadians continue to live in uninteresting times.