BRUCE FELLOWS’ BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

The Spanish Civil War ended in 1939, but not for everyone. Patrick McGrath tells us of one such in his fine novel, Last Days in Cleaver Square. It’s 1975 and Francis McNulty, poet and ex-volunteer stretcher bearer, now lives in London with his cat, his daughter and Dolores, whom he rescued from Madrid. The poems have dried up and he’s haunted by memories of betrayal and by apparitions of the man behind it all, General Franco. This is a gripping tale of memory and regret, with a moving portrait of a father-daughter relationship, a great ending and a cast of fully-rounded characters, including the cat.

In the enthralling and lyrical English Pastoral, James Rebanks writes as grandson, son and father, to describe life on the mixed farm he grew up on and now farms himself. His grandfather made him love the place and understand the importance of birds, wild creatures and everything below ground that makes the soil fertile. Now, food is so cheap that farmers use machinery in ever bigger fields they spray with ever stronger chemicals that break the chain of life. It’s a dim prospect but don’t despair, in this wonderful book Rebanks points the way from the past to a brighter future for all our descendants.

The Lowlife, a contemporary novel when published in 1963, now has a real historical aura to it but is no less riveting for all that. Alexander Baron’s London is poor, crowded and still to recover from the War. Harryboy is Jewish and makes a living by gambling but he’s so addicted he can’t stop while he’s ahead and finds himself flirting with hoodlums. When a family with a young son moves into his boarding house, his life suffers dramatic changes. This terrific novel is wonderfully humane and despite his faults and a bad conscience stemming from his haunting back story, Harryboy is an appealing hero.

Paul Hayward’s excellent study, England Football: The Biography does what it says in the title, tells the fascinating story of 150 years of the England team: selection by committee until 1963; early players paid peanuts though the crowds were huge. The world progressed but England didn’t; in the fifties we lost 6-3 to Hungary. We hear the stories of a stream of managers, the good, the bad and the so-so, right up to our beloved Gareth; and of wonderful players, Finney, Duncan Edwards and Greavsie as well as the more recent ones. This book’s for anyone whose heart’s in their mouth each time we play.

In the library with a knife. That’s the murder that DI Strafford must investigate but the culprit wasn’t Professor Plum although it happened in the County Wexford home of Colonel Osborne. John Banville reveals all in his intriguing and atmospheric mystery, Snow. It’s 1957. The Irish Civil War is a strong memory, the Catholic Church rules the roost and the victim is a priest. Strafford questions the family, an eccentric lot, tramps the snow to meet other eccentrics and resists his boss and the bishop to reach the truth. Read this page-turner by a warm fire lest the icy winter portrayed seep into your bones.

Winning Word Prize Puzzle

Last month’s new puzzle proved popular so here’s another one in the same format for you. Ten questions. Ten answers. Each answer has ten letters. Drop all the the answers into the corresponding lines on the grid and if your answers are correct the highlighted squares will spell out the Winning Word. Send that word to me at andy@bcmagazines.co.uk, 8 Sandyleaze, WoT, BS9 3PY, 0117 259 1964 or 07845 986650 no later than 31st March and all correct entries go into a hat. First drawn from the hat wins a £30 gift voucher.

1. Hedgerow fruit

2. Local Wildlife & Westlands Trust reserve

3. e.g. Stav Danaos and Ian Fergusson

4. Californian theme park

5. Form of inflammation of the airways

6. Greek mathematician b. 287BC known for his buoyancy principle

7. Words connected or split by a “-” are ....?

8. The passing of wind

Name:

... and just for fun, here’s a curry themed wordsearch for you. Eighteen dishes listed, only seventeen are in the gridwhich one has been left out? Words can be written forwards, backwards, up, down or on a diagonal. Answer on page 69.

Curry Time

Date:

9. A journey undertaken to find spiritual meaning or moral direction

10. A hormone and medication often associated with anaphylaxis

Here are your curry dishes -

How do we find our way through the new year property market maze?

There are areas of the British Isles, such as loftier parts of the Isle of Skye, where a compass doesn’t work. This anomaly is due to the local geology – a hard, abrasive, magnetic rock called gabbro. Not being able to trust one’s compass is always unnerving - and potentially dangerous.

At the moment the property market is like an untrustworthy compass. The needle should point accurately; instead it is going round and round, making the public uncertain about the correct way to go. Many people are faced with the rotating needle of conflicting information from the Press and Social Media. Some commentators point to falling values, while others disagree. Headlines scream that higher mortgage rates will make it difficult for first time buyers, buy-to-let investors will be selling up en masse, or that in a few short months we will be in a pre-banking crisis, pre-Brexit and pre-pandemic property market Utopia.

Whether you are selling, buying a home, or buying to let, it’s challenging for most to know which way to go. Should one hold off buying or selling in the hope of a better market? But buyers and sellers will be piling in by then, which could mean losing the advantage of bold action now.

The answer to all these questions is to ignore the confused media compass and find a more reliable pathfinder. Enter Howard Independent Estate Agents. You might be astonished to know how much Howard understands about our local property market. After all, our activities are seen in the main to consist of Social Media posts, newspaper ads and For Sale and Sold boards. But at Howard we are like icebergs: ninety per cent of what’s going on is unseen.

Author, Malcolm Gladwell, suggested it takes 10,000 hours (or approximately ten years) of deliberate practice to become an expert in anything.

Over ten years Howard has marketed, agreed the sales and seen through to completion thousands of property deals through markets good and bad, economies booming and busting, in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

Howard has also helped families move during the good and the not so good times in their lives. We have advised landlords and investors, looked after their properties, and have secured good tenants regardless of market conditions. At Howard we have learnt what to do whatever the market, and we know what to do now.

So, if you want to know what direction is best for you in the prevailing property market, don’t trust a compass; ask the experts at Howard!

SNEYD PARK - FOR SALE

OEIO £1,375,000

A most desirable Bristol location. An exquisite home and beautiful gardens. A versatile interior with scope to extend. Secluded walled garden complete with swimming pool. Extensive driveway and detached garage. An abundance of original features and character displayed throughout. No onward chain.

CLIFTON - FOR SALE

GUIDE PRICE £130,000

Attractive one double bedroom second floor retirement apartment. Spacious living room with south facing outlook and windows on two elevations. Separate Kitchen. Shower Room. Attractive communal gardens and guest parking. Excellent Clifton location. Well placed for Clifton Down, Whiteladies Road and Durdham Downs.

MONTPELIER - FOR SALE GUIDE PRICE £240,000

Attractive second floor two bedroom purpose built apartment. South facing Juliet balcony. Open plan living/dining/kitchen. Allocated parking space and secure bike store. Just off the vibrant Gloucester Road. Within walking distance of Montpelier Station. No onward chain.

REDLAND - SOLD SIMILAR PROPERTIES REQUIRED

Victorian Four Bedroom Semi-detached house. Abundance of period features. Redland catchment area. Off street parking for two cars. Beautiful gardens.

Trauma, of course, can be multifaceted and is generally well beyond the scope of a single article, so this may well be a subject I return to in subsequent columns. For now, though, what might trauma look, sound or feel like?

Therapeutically, we often differentiate between small-t and big-T trauma - although a potentially more useful distinction may also be overt and covert trauma. Many people will understand the more overt traumas borne from circumstantial life events such as major car accidents, death of a loved one, sexual abuse/assault, being caught up in a war zone or other natural disaster, etc. Yet, equally impactful, are the more subtle, covert traumas; the life events that happen to us which systemically overwhelm us – and usually those which have no discernible end point; they go on. How we respond to these events potentially have seeds sown in childhood.

When our core emotional needs [broadly speaking: love, safety and healthy boundaries] aren’t met, as we develop we unconsciously gain immature coping mechanisms which then continue into and throughout adulthood. As a result, people may go on to cultivate anxiety, or even high anxiety – the latter being characterised as high functioning, meaning they always feel the need to be on the go and achieving, and otherwise find it difficult to simply be, until they reach a tipping point; this is when distraction can be added to the mix with substances or other unwanted behaviours to get away from emotional discomfort. But what we often don’t fully realise is that unwanted behaviours are a legacy of trauma held in our bodies; held in our unconscious.

Trauma also has no concept of time and can sit in our bodies on high alert for many years waiting to be triggered; ready to keep us safe. Therefore, we can carry trauma with us without being consciously aware because how well these coping mechanisms have continued to function.

What are these covert traumas and how might they continue to impact me?

Fundamentally, by their nature they are highly individual. Something that may affect one person may not impact another in the same way; even the same experience.

Consider two soldiers seeing their friend shot down. They may share the same, extremely visceral, immediate experiential trauma, but subsequently one soldier processes the event and recovers, while the other spirals into darkness. In this example, the first soldier potentially had their core emotional needs met in childhood allowing them to be better equipped to witness such a tragedy, but the second may’ve have been triggered by seeing his mother on the ground the result of an abusive relationship.

I’ve taken a relatively extreme example to illustrate the point, but it’s often the covert traumas that sit on high alert in our bodies which can cause ongoing issues. Consider the young child whose parents separate, then as an adult they experience their own separation or divorce. It’s possible the adult relationship wasn’t a particularly happy one, maybe wellmeaning friends assure them it was the best outcome, but while the ongoing unhappiness was a covert trauma, the overt trauma was their mother or father leaving them as a child – the fear of being left all over again. In this example, perhaps it could hold us back from embarking on potentially fulfilling relationships. Or the unconscious lack of trust or fear of commitment will jeopardise future relationships.

What makes all this matter?

It’s the importance of understanding that our traumas are unique to us and that the perceived size of the trauma is often conspicuously less important. Minimising our trauma as relatively insignificant – when, as we often do, compared to others – is what traps us and makes it likely to resurface again, making it harder to understand or deal with.

Change the things you can. Seek the help of a therapist to help change the things where you feel stuck.