A Collection of Short Stories by Bill Leicester

A Collection of Short Stories by Bill Leicester (aka Bullfinch)

“Tell him the Vice-Chairman of North Crawley Parish Council wants to see him!�

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Contents A Second Chance An Anecdote from the Past Space A Lonely Hearts Advert In the Mail Birthdays Farewell to . . .

The Bridge The Bet The Phantom Golfer Resolution(s) The Window A Broken Promise – Who’d Work in London A Last Hour The Holiday The Apprentice In the Interest of Better Understanding An Autumn Tale New Beginnings A Day in the Life of a King Charles Spaniel An Interrupted Journey A Problem of Inheritance Tax / A Bit of Bad Timing A Strange Meeting The Mango (written from a woman’s point of view) The New People The Hooks Silence About Cats - Puss Story Based on a Nursery Rhyme The Escalators of Life What’s in a Name?

Meet the Other Half Music. Is it Essential to Life?

The Damsel in Distress Every Picture Tells a Story Day Dreaming

2 3 7 8 11 13 14 18 19 21 24 27 28 31 32 36 38 40 44 47 49 52 53 56 58 60 63 65 66 68 71 72 74 76 78 79

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A Second Chance 20th January 2004 Dear Anne When I came to your writing group I think I said that I had never done any ‘Creative Writing’ but that I was no stranger to writing for publications. My past activities have been in the sphere of writing reports or factual accounts of things that had happened or situations that existed in other countries. In other words my experience has been in writing Non-Fiction rather than Fiction.

Meeting your fellow writers in the group was exciting for me and I liked the people I met and the stories they had written about ‘Buying a Country Cottage’.

I was fascinated by some of the twists that my, hopefully, future friends were able to imagine and write about in such an interesting fashion. When I left you I was not sure whether the subject was one I would be able to rise to.

The last two weeks have been quite disturbing for me, and to some extent, upsetting. You asked us to write about ‘A Second Chance’ and I have been letting my mind roam on the subject ever since. My worse time when I have any sort of a problem is around three or four o’clock in the morning when my brain will not switch off and I find myself going round and round trying to get back to sleep. This is why I said the problem was disturbing. I could not, and have been unable since, to get away from looking at my past life, and my past experiences, to apply them to occasions when I have experienced having ‘A Second Chance’.

Some of the memories, for that is what they were, have upset me and brought back things that have happened that I wanted to forget. Not everything that I have done in my life have I enjoyed or been proud of, some even quite the reverse. In other words I have been trying to do a reporting job on my life and trying to make it into a ‘Creative’ piece of work. And it hasn’t worked. I have been unable to separate fact from fiction.

The editor of our village magazine, a copy of which I showed you, and who I think might like to join your group, when I talked to her about my difficulty quoted someone as saying ‘By imagination we live. But by logic we die’. She didn’t know who said it but it sounded relevant. I asked myself could I switch on an imagination, or an imaginary situation, and write it into a story that others would find interesting or enjoyable? I did not reach any conclusion and as it is now Tuesday and we meet on Thursday I wondered whether I should give your group a miss. I have not as yet reached any conclusion.

As I said at the start of this ‘letter’, I liked the people I met at your last meeting and I enjoyed the stories they told, which is why I have written this rendition in the form of a letter.

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If I can join you with these factors in mind then maybe my imagination will be triggered to produce something. If it doesn’t, then I may fall by the wayside and make room for a budding Hammond Innes or Dick Francis to join your ranks.

On which topic may I say that one of my favourite authors was, and still is, Geoffrey Archer who wrote magnificent stories but made the mistake of needing the experiences in order to be able to write about them. In other words turn his facts into fiction.

Yours sincerely, Bill Leicester p.s. Having written, and re-read, the above I realise that I have in fact asked you to – please give me ‘A Second Chance’.

An Anecdote from the Past March 2004 The Orient Express.

It was an old friend from my young railway days who had suggested that I should not pass up the chance of travelling on the Orient Express to go from Sofia to Istanbul rather than going by air.

I hadn’t seen Tony Goldring for years since our paths had diverged back in 1957, when I had opted for the comfort of a life in the tropics instead of spending winters electrifying a branch of British Railways. Tony had left the company after I did, but he was always a railwayman at heart and had gone on to a nice job in BR but we had kept in touch. So when I found myself in London setting up a series of meetings in Bulgaria and Turkey, it seemed a good opportunity to meet him for a pie and a pint.

“Sofia and Istanbul are both on the route of the Orient Express,” he said. “If you can’t take the train all the way you could at least do the Eastern bit on the overnight train. The Orient Express is one of the world’s most famous trains and there is a possibility that its days may be numbered”. I knew that Tony loved travelling on trains so was not surprised by his comments. He could always persuade me to do things which were a bit out of the ordinary, that was his way, but to go by train on a respectable fact finding trip for my company had not been high on my agenda. His throwaway idea did somehow sound, well – ‘different’ – and might be interesting, so why not? My company travel manager was puzzled, 3

to say the least, when I put the request to him as we normally travelled as quickly as possible, by air. Our travel agents too had been more than a little surprised when I asked them to book me, ‘Heathrow to Sofia - by air, Sofia to Istanbul by train and Istanbul to Heathrow return by air’.

“No problem sir!” they said, with a peculiar look.

No problem indeed! Well there weren’t any in getting to Sofia, nor to the hotel which I had stayed in some years before. But I nearly got into trouble in one of the museums I visited on an off duty moment, when I tried to take a photograph in a picturesque room full of treasured religious icons (This was before the days of computers, when ‘Icons’ were usually very old folding paintings with lots of gold leaf and each worth a fortune). I suppose I had seen a notice at the entrance to the museum saying that photography was not allowed, but this vaulted room full of ancient paintings was more than I could resist. I surreptitiously used my light meter to set my camera and quickly took a flash photograph. As the shutter clicked and the light flashed, a door next to where I was standing opened and a man with a broom and bucket emerged. He took one look at me and shouted “Das ist forbotten.” I asked him what he meant and enquired if he spoke English.

He repeated “Das ist forbotten,” and stormed off, presumably to find someone in authority. I quickly went out through another door and made myself scarce out in the Sofia sunshine. No-one followed me and I still have the picture. Which turned out very well. The fact that I had borrowed the camera from a friend still haunts me today.

So much for a problem that didn’t arise; but it could have developed into a nasty situation in those days when Bulgaria was a Russian satellite and people in authority were all-powerful.

My business meetings in and around Sofia went as well as could be expected.

Since most of the appointments had been made for me through the Commercial Department of the British Embassy, my last meeting was to return to the Embassy to see the Commercial Councillor, a George Sinclair, to thank him for his help and tell him a little of my trip. When he got to the inevitable question as to the time of my flight home, his reaction to my reply that I was going on to Turkey on the Orient Express was one of horror.

“What on earth for?” he asked. “That’ll mean travelling all night.” I agreed and told him of Tony’s recommendation. Mr Sinclair was not impressed. It seemed that the Orient Express was only famous for that part of its journey which terminated in Vienna, Austria; and from there until it reached Turkey the on-train facilities left much to be desired.

“In fact,” he said, “it no longer has a restaurant coach after it leaves Sofia, least of all club cars or observation coaches.” In short it was just an ordinary train of sleeping compartments known as ‘wagon-lits’. My thoughts about Tony 4

Goldring began to change rapidly as I tried to think what to do next.

“The first thing you must do,” said my new friend George Sinclair, “is to ring your hotel and ask for a large packet of sandwiches etc to be made ready for you.

Make sure you have a good book and buy something to drink. It is going to be a long night,” he said ominously. With that, he called his secretary in and told her to get me a bottle of his personal wine to take with me with which to drink to HIS health at least. I certainly would not be drinking to Tony Goldring’s.

I thanked George profusely and set off for my hotel and whatever was to follow. I collected my packet of food when I paid my bill, then took a taxi to the station. By then the train departure time was getting near. Sofia station was not as big as St Pancras, but it was big enough, and all the names and train details were in Bulgarian.

I dashed in and spotted the familiar ‘i’ of the information desk and ran towards it.

“Which way to the Orient Express,” I shouted in English over the heads of the people in the queue and was rewarded with a smile and a four finger salute which I hoped meant ‘platform 4’. It did – but there was no train at the platform, only one on the next track out with the familiar ‘Wagon-Lits’ logo on the side. I stepped down on to the track and up to an open door in one of the coaches, “Orient Express?”

I enquired, of nobody in particular. Receiving a grunt from a uniformed man in the coach, I passed my bags up to him and climbed on board with a sigh of relief.

Fortunately I was in a coach only two down from mine and I struggled along to find out where I was destined to spend the next ten hours or so. I suppose I was relieved that I had actually reached the right place when I gave my ticket and passport to the Concierge (if that is what the fat uniformed official at one end of the coach was). He gave me a key and pointed to a door nearby. Once inside what can only be described as a cell, I flopped onto the seat and wondered what I had got myself into. Blast Tony Goldring and his daft ideas! A whistle and a toot later the train moved slowly forward and the next part of my strange business trip had begun.

As it slowly got dark the view of that part of Bulgaria could only be described as dull and uninteresting. Small towns and villages and cattle in fields tend to look the same whichever country you are in, so it was with some relief that I discovered that the passenger in the next ‘cell’ could speak English. In fact he turned out to be a Bulgarian diplomat travelling to Turkey to take up a new post there. We exchanged many comments about our respective jobs and countries, eventually sharing my bottle of wine sitting my cell and eating sandwiches (mostly mine).

Soon however our conversation dried up and we decided to turn in for the night.

Breakfast, I learned, would be available in the morning once a ‘restaurant’ car was hooked on at some stage in the night.

I recall waking up when the train stopped somewhere and finding the scene utterly depressing. It was snowing and there were soldiers with rifles standing on the opposite platform. Where on earth was I? 5

At about three in the morning, loud noises and banging outside my cell woke me again and a uniformed official came in waving my passport. He was closely followed by another who proceeded to lift my suitcase off the rack and place it on my chest, indicating that I open it. (Obviously customs and excise, I thought).

As I was lying in my bed with the case on my chest this was not the easiest thing to do, but I managed.

Eventually, the officials left, my passport and suitcase evidently being in order.

‘Ah well, welcome to Turkey’, I thought. But this wasn’t to be. Five or ten minutes later my cell was, again, invaded, this time by a less flamboyant official waving my rail ticket in his hand. After much gesticulating and shouting I gathered that he wanted some money. It seemed I was somehow in Greece and I had no ticket for Greece. “Dis is Greekland,” he kept saying. “You’av no ticket for Greekland.” Cursing our Travel agent in England, I fished out my wallet and offered some US dollars thinking they would probably be more acceptable than Bulgarian Lev or Turkish Lira. They were, and I was intrigued to find he had given me my change in Greek Drachma. Marvellous I mused; Buying rail tickets at three in the morning in three different currencies whilst lying in bed. I later found that the railway runs for quite some distance along the Bulgarian-Greek border but for a few miles actually passes within Greek territory. Something our travel agent didn’t know!

We finally made it into Istanbul station after a cursory breakfast of coffee and rolls with the inevitable European apricot jam and some sort of butter. The Café wagon they had hooked up somewhere along the line was not quite the sort of thing travellers on the famous Orient Express would have expected.

The noises as the train pulled into the station I will never forget. Every form of transport could be heard – donkeys braying, steam engine whistles, motorcar horns, boat sirens; the cacophony was horrendous. But the one that surprised me most was an announcement over the station tannoy. “Will Mr William Leicester, passenger arriving on the Orient Express, please contact the Information office.”

But that’s another story.

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Space April 2004 Let us write about ‘space’ the lady said. Fine, I thought, one can really let one’s thoughts roam on a subject as broad as, space. But what on earth is, space?

Well, for one thing it isn’t ‘on earth’ to start with. There is plenty of space on earth but earth itself, or to be more precise THE earth, is the surface of this planet on which we live called earth. Or, of course, it could also be some particles of the surface in which we grow things.

We can’t say what on earth is space, because the earth is, well, in space, so space is nothing really. If there is nothing there (wherever ‘there’ is) then that must be, space.

Well at least I’ve defined what it isn’t and also what it is. It isn’t on Earth and it is, - nothing. So the rest must be easy. So why am I finding it difficult to write about space?

My dictionary takes up a whole column defining ‘space’, most of which is given over to defining it by examples. A ‘space-bar’ on a typewriter is for making space between words etc., so space is something one can make or even, un-make by filling it up with something else.

‘Oh my’, why at three o’clock in the morning do my thoughts go round and round getting nowhere when all I have to do is wait until morning and go outside and look up into real space. For that is where ‘space’, that the lady wants us to write about is. Space is ‘the final frontier’ according to the introduction for the TV Programme ‘Star Trek’ and we can now learn to ‘conquer space’ by travelling into it. Oh dear! This must be one of the most complicated subjects we could have chosen to write about. Only last week I met a man who earned a very good salary as a ‘space salesman’. Fantastic! I wonder what he will do when he has sold it all and where will the rest of us be! Then he said he worked for a wellknown magazine and sold advertising space. Ah well, I suppose someone has to do it if we want newspapers and magazines.

Picture, if you can, a balmy summer day in the country. After a long walk into the hills and feeling tired and in need of a rest and a drink, and lying there, on your back looking up into … what? The sky, or into space? There are birds singing – must be a skylark, only they can sing like that, and here and there is a vapour trail of a high-flying aircraft on the way to some far away place. I wonder if I’ve been to where they are going. How lovely and peaceful it all is and how nice to let your thoughts wander, and wonder about what there is beyond where we can see. If only there was a telescope where one could see beyond the stars 7

and to see if there was anything at all at the end of, yes, space. There must be something at the end of it. Nothing goes on forever. But as I said earlier space is, well, nothing.

Talking of telescopes to look into space, we do of course have them. Big ones too. Only last month I went to see my sister and there at the end of a farm track was the biggest thing you ever saw. Jodrel Bank Telescope. This can look into space further than anything else in this country. It couldn’t actually ‘look’ into space; at least not like we call ‘looking’. What it can do, is ‘listen’ into space.

This massive, 300 foot diameter, metal dish supported on a couple of Blackpool towers can actually move round and tilt so that it can listen to space. What is it listening for?

Again, it listens for nothing much really. It is just listening for very faint radio signals coming to our planet from all those tiny pin points of light which we can see in the sky. But think about it. We can only see those pin points of light when it is dark. They are not there when it is daylight or maybe they are there but we can’t see them. That must be it. We have to use our ears to ‘look’ into space, not our eyes.

Maybe that is what the lady wanted us to write about. Or, maybe, she just wanted us to think about it. After all, if you can see with your ears, why can’t you write with your thoughts.?

I’m going to look a bit silly aren’t I, going to the next meeting saying I’m sorry, I haven’t actually written a story but I‘ve had a lot of thoughts about one!

A ‘Lonely Hearts’ Advert May 2004 Dennis wandered about the flat feeling completely and utterly bored. There were a hundred and one jobs and things he could do but none of them interested him, and he realised to himself that this state had been with him for longer than he cared to admit. It had started, of course, when Elaine had decided she had had enough of him and had walked out telling him not to bother looking for her.

They hadn’t even had time to have a row about it so obviously she had been planning it for some time as her bags were already packed and ready to go.

Where had they gone wrong?

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Dennis poured himself a drink and tried to look back on their eight years of life together. Eight years, which he thought had been reasonably happy ones. In retrospect though, he had to admit that for some time they had not laughed as much as they used to, and maybe they didn’t talk about the important things anymore. He missed her being around for companionship but they didn’t seem to share the same taste in some things nowadays. Television was something he could take or leave but it seemed that Elaine always wanted to watch things that didn’t interest him. And their flat was too small to get away from television. He wasn’t mad keen on watching football but it had more excitement than some of the soaps which Elaine seemed to enjoy. From what he read in the papers their situation was reflected across the whole country – but other blokes wives just didn’t up and go because of their different interests in the telly. Maybe it was the car he had. He had a reasonable salary and he enjoyed his five year old Vauxhall but it wasn’t exactly a passion wagon to pull the birds with. A bit staid perhaps compared with some of the motors his mates had. She hadn’t seemed to take a great deal of interest in cars and they went out quite frequently to different pubs for a meal in it. Maybe it was just the way things went. Should they have had children? Sex was never high on the agenda for him and they had never discussed having kids, but it had never seemed to upset her and it was not a subject they rowed about.

What did we row about he wondered. Whose turn to do the washing up? It was a job he hated but he did it now and again. Shopping! Now that was an activity he couldn’t abide and Elaine seemed to love it. Wandering from one shop to the next without any idea of what she was looking for. For him it was about as exciting as going fishing on a cold wet morning. Maybe that was the problem, their tastes had changed and he had become a boring old bloke and she had just plain got fed up with him. Maybe that was why he was fed up with himself too.

He was a boring old bloke without an idea of how to go on from the situation that the breakdown of his marriage has created.

Did he really miss Elaine? Did he long for her to come back? Or was he just sorry for himself and fed up with housework and mooning about? He certainly wasn’t eating properly and his clothes looked as though a trip to the cleaners wouldn’t do them any harm. What had happened to him?

This state of mind stayed with him for a week or two until one day he decided he had to snap out of it.

Having recognised that he needed something to sort himself out he called an old school friend, Bob Townsend and arranged to meet for a drink.

“My God, you do look in a bad way,” said Bob when Dennis walked into their local. “What on earth’s the matter with you?”

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“Is it as obvious as all that?” replied Dennis as he sat down and picked up the pint of beer that Bob had bought.

“Well something seems to be wrong,” said Bob. “Tell me what’s happened”.

Dennis started to tell Bob all about his upset with Elaine and felt a wave of relief at being able to talk to someone about his problem. Dennis had always been a bit of a loner and talking on personal matters had never been his strong point, but somehow telling Bob was helping him get things into perspective.

“What you need is a woman” said Bob, “Someone to sort you out.”

“Fat chance of that,” replied Dennis. “I’ve never been any good with the fair sex. I go red if the girls at the checkouts smile at me.”

“Why not advertise for one then,” said Bob, “plenty of people do you know.

You’re not the only one who finds it difficult to ask a girl to go out. Try the Independent,” he went on. “That’s a respectable newspaper. I think Friday is the day to look for the ads to find friends.” Dennis looked very thoughtful. “Careful which column you look in though,” Bob continued. “There is also a section for men looking for men. You don’t want to get on that track, do you?” he added with a broad wink.

About an hour and a couple of pints later Bob thought it was time he went home.

“Its alright for me,” he said. “I’ve got somebody to keep warm tonight,” he added cruelly.

Dennis spent a few days thinking about Bob’s suggestion and eventually bought himself a Friday edition of the Independent. Sure enough, there was page 20, headed ‘Kindred Spirits’ – the opportunity to find new friends.’ The whole page was taken up with adverts for dating agencies and Introduction Services, then columns of personal ads. Women seeking Men one was headed. Men seeking Women said another and there at the bottom a short column, Men seeking Men. I wonder why Bob knew about all this, thought Dennis; surely he’s happily married. He began to wonder about his old school friend.

Dennis read one of the ads:- ‘Shy Lady, 59, medium build, fair hair, wltm confident older man, n/s, to be there for her. Enjoys countryside, eating out, theatre. West Midlands. Call me on xxxxx yyyyyy.’

Well that sounds sincere enough Dennis thought, maybe I should do as Bob suggested. He went on to read some of the other ads for Men seeking Women.

He had already worked out that wltm probably meant would like to meet, because most ads seemed to have this in. Similarly n/s meant non-smoker. He too wouldn’t want to have a lady friend that smoked. Elaine had used to smoke but had given it up a year or so ago. Every now and again she still had a cigarette though and he would always tell.

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That evening, he started to put an ad together and after one or two false starts came up with;- Quiet, sensitive, businessman seeks intelligent lady companion for friendship and mutual interests. gsoh, (that, he thought, meant ‘good sense of humour’, and seemed to feature on many of the ads. He wasn’t sure if he qualified on this point but it would be nice to find someone he could laugh with again) classical music lover not too TV orientated. Midlands/North Wales.

Call me on xxxxx yyyyyy.

He posted this off the following morning with a first class stamp and sat back to see what happened.

On Saturday morning, the phone didn’t ring at all and when he got back from the shops at lunchtime, there were no messages on 1571. By 5 o’clock he wondered how long he would have to stay in for, then, at nearly six the phone rang.

“Hello!” he said. “Telford 53467.” There was a hesitant ladies voice at the other end.

“Is that you Dennis?”

“Yes!” he said. “Dennis Glendenning here, who’s that speaking?”

“I thought I recognised the phone number in the Independent,” said the voice, which seemed familiar. “This is Elaine, Dennis, your wife. Are you feeling lonely too?”

In the Mail June 2004 Elaine looked down the hall for the umpteenth time to see if the post had arrived.

It wasn’t like her to be so excited about something but David had been convinced that what he was expecting would arrive that Saturday morning. It was an indication of how he was feeling that he had asked her to open the letter if it came and call him at the office with the result of his interview with the Personnel manager. The Post had still not come.

She went back to her unfinished breakfast and idly turned the pages of the paper without seeing them. The post had always been important to them. So many things in their short lives together had come out of the blue through the mail.

The letter from his Uncle Jack from the West Indies had certainly changed their lives, erupting them as it did from their new company house in Cheshire to an uncertain future in Trinidad in the West Indies.

She well remembered the feeling she’d had as they stood at the rail of the banana boat, the ‘SS Golfito’ as it left Plymouth in the early morning mist for the fourteen day trip to Granada. ‘Can you smell burning bridges’? David had said to his 11

wife, no doubt thinking back to all that had happened since the letter had arrived offering him the area manager’s job in Trinidad. Three times the salary he was on in England, company car, housing allowance and no doubt an entertaining allowance. It had all sounded so good sitting in the companies London Office in February. The weather outside had been frightful; cold damp and foggy. ‘None of this weather in Trinidad’ his uncle had said, ‘Trinidad is 10 degrees north of the equator and the trade winds keep it from getting too hot.’ It had all sounded too good to be true at the age of 26 in 1956.

After they had come back to England eight years later, with all the good things, and some not so good, behind them, their time together in Trinidad were very real memories. Their daughter, Jaqueline, had got on well with both coloured and white friends at school, and in the village where they lived. It had been good but Elaine had been glad to get back to her roots in England and the things she understood.

Then there was the time when David had become completely disenchanted with his job as a Sales Engineer in Nottingham. He had applied for a job in Hertfordshire and had an interview but not been accepted. That letter had upset David and she remembered how grumpy he had been for a week or two. It was almost a month before that company had for some reason changed its mind and out of the blue written to say … ‘… if you are still interested we can offer you the position based at our Hemel Hempstead offices’. That letter had really thrilled David and their lives had changed once again.

Fifteen exciting years had followed with plenty of foreign travel, for both of them and now here he was looking at a possible promotion – perhaps even a foreign posting. Jaqueline was in a good job and living in her own place in Dorset. They didn’t see much of her these days so another overseas post would be quite possible.

‘I wonder where it will be if he gets it’? she said to herself. I hope it will be somewhere nice’. There was a clatter down the hall as the mail arrived. Elaine gave a little shriek and dashed to pick it up. A magazine, two brown envelopes (probably bills), three bits of junk mail she would probably throw away, a letter from her mother (she could tell her mothers spidery writing anywhere) and, yes, there was a letter from the company with its distinctive logo in the corner, addressed to David. Elaine took them all back to the kitchen and picked up the letter opener.

The temptation to open the company letter first was too much for her to resist and she slit the envelope and took out a single piece of paper.

Dear Mr Livingstone, she read. I have pleasure to advise you that, following your interview with Mr North, we have decided that a promotion to Area Commercial manager would be commensurate with your service with the company and this will take effect from the first of next month. The Salary Scale for this position will be in Grade 3.

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We can therefore offer you the posting presently vacant in Dubai and a . . . . . . .

Elaine couldn’t read any further. Dubai! DUBAI!! Who the hell wants to go and live in Dubai at the age of 63 with the present situation in the Middle East?

Elaine reached for the phone. . . .

Birthdays July 2004 Let’s write about Birthdays, the lady said. Fine, I thought, there’s a subject I do know something about. Heavens above I’ve had enough of ‘em – more than most in the group. And if you add in the ones my wife and family have had we are probably almost experts on the subject. Let’s see 76, plus 74, plus 50, plus 67, that’s a total of nearly three hundred in my small family alone. And if I add in all my friends, many of who have stopped having birthdays by now, then there should be enough material to fill a book. But who would want to read about the 300 or 400 birthdays I have been associated with? After all everybody I know has had at least one in the 365 days since I last had one. So maybe birthdays is not as riveting a subject as I first thought. I bet some of the others in the group can find an aspect of birthdays to write about.

I suppose I could do something on a maritime theme and tell about the time we went to the West Indies and the ship couldn’t get a berth in Barbados, and had to anchor off shore. It wasn’t our day to berth it seemed. And the way all those little boats came out to the side of the ship trying to sell things. Fruit and vegetables we had never seen before, baskets, handbags, wood-carvings. That was exciting, and the way the natives – (that was what they were called then, but just because they were native to Barbados not because they were coloured or anything! I suppose we can’t use the word native nowadays) – the way they caught the money people threw down to them it was so exciting. Some even dived over the side of their boat if any money fell in the sea. But what’s that got to do with birthdays? Well it was because we couldn’t get a BERTH on the DAY we arrived in Barbados. More like a un-birthday you could say. But that’s a bit like cheating to write about that sort of BERTH-DAY. (I bet somebody else in the group does though).

What about the one we went to only yesterday? Doris’s 90th it was. Doris was born in the village and had lived there all her life. She had gone to school with Cyril and their birthdays were only two weeks apart. Cyril had said he didn’t want a fuss on HIS 90th, so a few of his lady friends made him a cake and when he came into the coffee morning they all sang ‘Happy Birthday Cyril’. Most chuffed he was. No fuss indeed. He loved it!

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Doris’s 90th was different. She had three daughters all of whom had families so they had a party without even trying. Doris’ daughters, though, thought her friends ought to have a chance to come and say ‘hello, etc.’. So a general invite went out in the village magazine to ‘Come and have a cup of tea and a cake with Doris on her 90th Birthday’. And did they come? When you’ve lived in a place all your life you know a lot of people. And a lot of people know you. And if there is free tea and cake, well I ask you . . . The hall was full. There must have been as many people as years Doris had lived. A big cake, with lots of photographing, and people singing ‘Happy Birthday’. Doris loved it and if there had been any music she would probably have shown us all how to do a Polka.

But that’s Birthdays for you, I thought, and a good time was had by all. Especially the ones who only came for the cakes. I wonder where I shall be when I’m 90.

Probably have my party in a phone box, talking to anyone who happens to be at home I suppose.’

So much for ‘Birthdays’ then. Maybe it’s not such a bad subject to write about after all. It has certainly given me plenty to think about.

Now then. How shall I start? . . . . . . .

Farewell to.....

July 2004 Henry hauled on his trousers, nearly falling over in the process, the clamour of the alarm clock pounding around his head like a banshee calling to its mate. My God, he thought, what a party that was. It surely is not a good idea to have those sorts of parties the night before a long flight. He cursed as he tried to button his shirt without getting the left side longer than the right and flung a tie round his neck to be done up later. What time had he ordered the taxi for? The damn thing would be here any minute and he was bound to forget something crucial.

Briefcase, passport, wallet, Oh my God, I’ve forgotten to shave. He flung his electric razor in his case glad that he had remembered to charge the battery the day before. He did a quick look round the flat he had rented when he came to Rio a month ago and it was more or less the way he found it. Maria would be in later to clean the place up and get rid of the corn flakes packet and the odd things he’d left in the kitchen. (‘Kitchen’ – that’s a laugh. More like a galley really; about 2 metres by 1 with just about enough room to stand at the cooker and fry an egg or two. The sink was hardly worth the name but it was big enough to 14

wash up the few things he had needed). His head was beginning to clear and the cymbals weren’t quite as loud as they had been. Tickets, he thought, with a moment of mild panic; then he remembered and with a sigh of relief found them in his jacket with his passport! There was a short ring at the door of the flat as the taxi arrived and with a quick glance around Henry was ready to leave.

Carlos, as usual, had a big smile on his face as Henry opened the door and stepped out. Carlos had been an absolute gem during his stay in Rio. He knew every where a visiting business man would need to go – and a few that he shouldn’t and over the past three weeks he must have saved Henry hours in trying to find his way round this polyglot city. He would deserve a big tip when they got to the airport. Henry had met Carlos at the airport the day he arrived in Rio. How he had selected him from the dozens of clamouring taxi drivers looking for custom was pure chance, but the choice had proved a good one. Carlos was almost a friend now and Henry would miss him. But leave he must. The telex from the office had put an end to what had been one of his more enjoyable overseas trips.

He thought of all his notes sitting in his briefcase – and the parcel of books and things he had sent home for routing into the company library. There would be a lot of work still to do to get all the facts ready for a publication date in August.

And what then? Old Jefferson, his boss, had made it perfectly clear that this was likely to be his last overseas assignment before taking his retirement. Jefferson had always thought his trips were nothing more than expensive jollies and wanted Henry out of the way. Just wait till he has to do them himself. Brazil may be a nice place to visit for a holiday but getting information out of people who were jealous of their own positions was never easy.

Henry sat back in the taxi and let his mind wander over the last month. It had been quite enjoyable and he had made some useful contacts but in a country with such a turbulent history it was difficult to tell if what you were being told was what actually existed or what they were just trying to achieve.

And then last night! Old Van der Veldt from Holland who had been in Rio for months and was doing god knows what. He had really enjoyed himself, and probably justified being accused of being there on a company ‘Jolly’. How he could put away his gin without falling over was a mystery.

Henry had met Van der Veldt (‘Call me Hans’) on his first night in Rio when he had wandered in to the bar at the Gloria Hotel (an unlikely name for a hotel in Brazil but probably dated back to the day when Britain had more influence with Portugal than it had now) and he had got talking to this big Dutchman. Henry had asked him to have a drink and Hans said he was on Dutch Gin. 15

Henry had been introduced at lunch-time by their local manager, to a local drink called Kaipirinia made with the local Rum. It was probably the local Rum Punch.

So Henry ordered a Gin for Hans, and a Kaipirinia for himself. He was intrigued to see the barman pour Hans’s gin from a bottle with a big pink lobster on the label and even more surprised to see the same bottle used for his Rum. Not wishing to start a problem on this first visit he said nothing. After about a week of visiting the Gloria Hotel he found that the same pink-lobstered bottle was used to pour out both gin and rum. He concluded that this pink lobster juice was the local equivalent of Norwegian Aquavite, and German Schnapps and was in fact nothing more than a highly refined white spirit that tasted the same whatever you ordered. No wonder he had a headache some mornings.

Henry never had found out what Van der Veldt did for his living. But then both Hans, and that American, Jackson, that they had been drinking with, were both convinced that Henry was a spy for the British because he was in Brazil to visit companies to get information for a book. Henry accepted that perhaps he did sound like a spy. But spies surely don’t gather information from wherever they can and then put it all down in a book! Henry shook himself. He was wandering again, and they were getting near to the airport. Soon he would have to start being intelligent again. Let’s hope my luggage manages to get back to Heathrow this time, he thought. Varig had been a very efficient airline on the way out. Not like that Italian outfit that had sent his luggage on to Johannesburg when they had changed planes in Milan. God that had been an upheaval, living for three days in just what he stood up in, and with only $50 from the airline to buy some underwear and a couple of shirts.

The taxi turned into the airport approach and brought Henry back to reality.

Carlos was a good steady driver but his English didn’t run to being conversational.

“Well that’s one more trip nearly over Carlos,” Henry said to him, “I hope you will be kept busy when I’ve gone. Look after that family of yours.” Henry got out of the taxi and pressed a 100 rial note into Carlos’s hand. “I don’t suppose I shall be coming back here again so this is farewell to Rio de Janeiro, and farewell to you Carlos. Thanks for all your help.” Carlos’s smile was tinged with sadness.

“Thanks, chief. It’s been good to know you. Have a good flight.”

Henry made his way into the airport and wondered what lay ahead for him.

Retirement in about six months and then what? At least it will be nice not to have old Jefferson breathing down his neck anymore. That’s one bright spot on the horizon.

But will it be a bit dull after all this?

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The Bridge August 2004 Derek had spent a whole summer working on the bridge. 1954 it was and one of the warmest for years. He was living near Chester at the time so he had only half an hours drive through lovely countryside until he got on the outskirts of Runcorn.

Then the scenery was pretty grotty.

He had been transferred to the bridge contract because the cable company he worked for had been short of engineers with construction experience and his own department was in between contracts. So it seemed quite an interesting project, even if the locality left a lot to be desired. Derek was a country boy at heart, even though he had grown up on the outskirts of Manchester. He liked nothing better than to get away from the smoke and grime of the city. As a boy he had ridden off on his bike into Cheshire whenever he could and loved nothing more than to set off on his own, or with a friend or two, to the peace and quiet of a tent in a field somewhere. Now he lived with his wife and baby daughter on a farm on the Welsh side of Chester.

The job entailed taking charge of a gang of cable layers and riggers, to install four high voltage cables to connect the two power stations of Runcorn, on the Cheshire side of the River Mersey, and Widnes on the Lancashire side, using the railway bridge which had been built in 1864. It sounded different from the jobs he had recently been on and there was always something to look at. In addition to carrying the railway line across the river the bridge also crossed the Manchester Ship Canal which, from time to time, had large ocean going ships passing underneath. Derek and his men had spent the best part of two months fitting heavy steel hangers on to the bridge steelwork to support the four cables, one above the other. It would have been a terrible job to do in the winter when they would have had the weather to contend with. The combined span across the Mersey and the canal estuary between Runcorn and Widnes was only about 1100 feet but as the tracks were about 70 feet above the water it was pretty exposed.

On a clear day you could see the cranes and high buildings of Liverpool and Birkenhead in the far distance.

The river started to get much wider soon after passing the bridge and was over two miles wide at Ellesmere Port so that was a natural estuary for the westerly winds from the Irish Sea to gather speed as they approached the bridge. In the summer though the whole area of the Wirral was a seaside and holiday resort.

There had been a number or days when the wind had been off the sea and life on the bridge had not been very pleasant. The main problem was the glue factory on the northern bank near Widnes. The stench, on occasions, was diabolical. It must have been a terrible place to live.

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The Runcorn Railway Bridge was finally built in 1864 as a result of a survey done 30 years before by a group of businessmen, wanting a quicker and shorter route for their exports through Liverpool. A bridge would avoid using the railway through Warrington, much further inland. The bridge was, therefore, nearly 90 years old when Derek and his men were called upon to use it as a big cable rack.

Derek thought many times that a lot of water has gone under this bridge in those ninety years! Where would he and the cables be in another ninety years!

The work of lifting the four heavy 2 1/2 inch diameter cables from drums on the flat trucks of a construction train onto the bridge brackets was finally finished and soon Derek found himself posted to another contract in another part of Cheshire, still to do with railways but no more bridges.

His thoughts, over the next few years, often returned to that bridge with it’s glue factory and the smells that went with it, and the times he looked down onto the decks of ocean going liners (sometimes even down their funnels!), but it was to be about fifty years later before Derek found himself once more in the Merseyside area. The temptation to visit the back streets of Runcorn was too great to ignore.

It was during a holiday in Chester and wondering what to do with himself that Derek realised that Runcorn was only 13 miles away down the M56 (which hadn’t been built in 1954!) that he, and his friend Pamela, set off on a trip of nostalgia.

The construction site car park he had used in 1954 was long gone and a lot more roads had been built but eventually he found his way to the river Mersey and the bottom of the railway bridge. The bridge, of course, was still there and a train rushed overhead to prove it. Not, this time, pulled by a steam locomotive but by a sleek streamlined diesel engine. The tiny row of terraced houses right beneath the bridge was also still there – with cars parked nearby and burglar alarms on the walls. The cables, Derek had seen put on the hangars in 1954, could still be seen from the ground and as he and Pam stood there looking across to Widnes an ocean going container ship, flying the Irish flag at the stern, steamed slowly past on the ship canal.

Parallel to the railway bridge but on the far side from where they were standing, towered the colossal structure of a new road bridge, built in 1961 (at a cost of £2 million), carrying the A557 across to Widnes and beyond. The noise of the traffic above was a continuous roar. As they looked at the view, and Derek looked back 50 years, a lady came out of one of the tiny houses to see what they were watching. As she did so, a Boeing 707 on its way into Liverpool airport passed overhead at what seemed like roof level. They talked to the lady for a 18

little while until Pam asked her how she put up with the noise.

“What noise?” said the lady looking out across the waters. “I’ve lived here fifteen years and I wouldn’t change this view for anything.”

It was so nice to meet a happy lady living in the shadow of two famous bridges under an air bridge into an International airport.

The Bet August 2004 “No, I’m not much of a betting man really. I’ve had the odd quid on the National and the Derby, and I go in the office sweep if someone else runs it. But no Thanks John. Count me out on this one.” Jimmy put the phone down. The last thing he wanted just now was to get involved with John Jennings and his gambling friends. They loved racing and were always going off to Newmarket and Epsom, even as far as Doncaster, and coming back half cut ready for a party and a meal, at the pub. It sounded fun if you liked that sort of thing but Jimmy was never mad keen on the forced jollity that usually went with that crowd.

They were good at bragging how much they’d won but never the cost when they didn’t. All a bit artificial really.

Jimmy wondered if he was being a bit of a wimp not wanting to join in with John and his horsey friends. They were all nice people individually, but when they got together, and their wives too, it was not his scene. Even if he could afford it he would rather spend his money on other things.

Jimmy put the matter out of his mind until he heard that John and his wife had bought themselves into a syndicate to own a horse and from all accounts it was quite a good one. Maybe he should find out more about it and he would then a least be able to join in the conversations. What did they say it was called ‘Scandinavian Dream’ or something, running at Chepstow next Wednesday? I wonder, he thought. The weekend went by and Jimmy forgot all about it.

On Tuesday morning Jimmy had decided that having a bet on John’s horse would only cost him the price of a drink and the experience of using a betting shop was worth that at least. After breakfast,he set off for the town and found a parking place without any trouble. The problem started when he found the shop closed.

Evidently, betting didn’t start until after 10.15 so he had nearly and hour to kill.

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As he didn’t often go into town that early he decided a walk would do him good so he set off to look around the shops. In the next half hour, he met and chatted to three people he knew and skirted round the reason why he was wandering about. He found two car service places he hadn’t known about and started back up one of the streets he had never been along before; interesting neat little houses and the entrance to a school. Suddenly, he noticed what looked like a rolled up bundle of paper with an elastic band round it. It had, evidently, fallen and rolled behind a garden gate. He stooped and picked it up and was surprised to see that it looked like a roll of banknotes. There was nobody about and the house was very obviously empty. Oh dear, he thought, now what? The roll of notes was quite thick and the outside one looked like a fifty-pound note. Jimmy started to feel excited and slipped off the elastic band. Sure enough there were two or three fifty-pound notes, a wad of twenties and some tens. Altogether, there must have been over three hundred pounds there. Temptation, suddenly, got the better of him and he stuffed the bundle into his pocket and walked on.

By the time he got back to the main street, with his mind in a whirl, the betting shop was open and Jimmy remembered what he had come into the town for. He went into the shop which, fortunately, was almost empty and found himself in what looked like a school-room with two-seater desks facing a bank of television screens. In front of each seat was a slot containing slips of paper which he presumed correctly, were betting slips for the punters to write out what they hoped would make their fortunes. He quickly scribbled £2.00 e.w. Scandinavian Dream, Chepstow 3.20 and went to the man behind a glass screen and passed over a five pound note. The man punched the slips and returned a copy with his £1.00 change and that was it. Jimmy walked out and wondered what all the fuss about betting shops was about. It was as easy as going into the Post Office for a book of stamps.

Once back in the shelter of his car Jimmy took out the roll of notes, which had been burning a hole in his trouser pocket and had a look round. There was noone else in the car-park so he started to count them. There was exactly £320 in the bundle and Jimmy was about to roll them up and search his conscience as to what to do with it when he saw something white in between the notes. He fingered it out and there was a cheque, drawn on a local bank and payable to one of the charity shops on the High Street. With a sigh of relief and very mixed emotions Jimmy knew what he had to do with the money. Gone were all thoughts of keeping it or going to the police, which would be long winded and fraught with aggro. No, he would take it to the shop and put some poor old lady out of her misery. IF she had dropped it that morning she would be in a torment but if she had dropped it yesterday she would be frantic. Jimmy got out of his car and set off for the High Street.

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He was glad to see that there were only a few people in the shop and he recognised the lady on the cash desk. He didn’t know her name but they smiled at one another.

“Is the lady in charge here?” he asked.

The lady pointed to a back room.

“That’s Helen through there but she is not feeling very well. Can I help?”

“No thank you!” said Jimmy and walked into the back room. Helen certainly didn’t look well at all, her eyes were puffy and she looked very tired.

“Have you lost any money?” enquired Jimmy with a smile. Helen’s face lit up.

“Indeed I have,” said Helen, “all our takings for the last two days”.

“This will probably be yours then,” said Jimmy, passing over the roll of notes.

“Oh my God,” said Helen bursting into tears. “I must have dropped it yesterday when I went round to my daughters. I have been frantic with worry. How can I thank you?” she added.

“Your face thanked me enough,” replied Jimmy as he made to leave the shop.

“Wait, oh do wait,” called Helen. “You must tell us who you are so that we can thank you properly.” Jimmy smiled.

“There is really no need to. I have been only too happy to restore it to the rightful owners and I am very supportive of your work.” He went on, “and it has prevented me from giving into temptation. I would not have lived peacefully if I had kept it. If it hadn’t had been for the cheque I wouldn’t have known what to do with it.”

Jimmy took his leave after joining the two ladies for a cup of tea and a biscuit.

He went back to his car and felt pleased with the way the day had turned out.

He forgot all about the bet he had placed until the following morning when he looked in the paper. Scandinavian Dream had come in second at 4 to 1 after an outsider call Happy Lady at 25 to 1. So instead of winning over £64 all he got was most of his money back. ‘Ah well’, he thought. Maybe that was why he had never been a gambling man.

The Phantom Golfer October 2004 In the North Riding of Yorkshire, just north of the spa town of Harrogate, sits Fountains Abbey, or at least the ruins of Fountains Abbey, that was built in about 1132. From what survives today the Abbey took many years to complete and its sheer size, and the whole area where it stands is an awesome reminder of the skill of the hundreds of ancient craftsmen and the foresight of the monks responsible for its existence. Today the Abbey is owned by the National Trust and for the fit and able it is well worth a visit.

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Not far from the site of Fountains Abbey is the Fountains Abbey and North Yorkshire Golf Club and for those whose interests lie in chasing a small ball around beautiful and well maintained grassland, this too is well worth a visit.

The costs of a round of golf is considerably higher than a walk round the nearby ancient Abbey but the surrounding countryside is equally awe inspiring even if the enjoyment of your visit can depend on your ability with a set of golf clubs.

The proximity of the Golf Club to the Abbey has given rise over many years to stories that stretch ones incredulity from time to time; which is perhaps not surprising as the goings on over the centuries since 1132 are stories of myth and legend – those of the Golf Club are more akin to showing that a man, or woman’s ability to achieve their aims are sometimes less than their ability to talk about them afterwards.

There are two places on the golf course that are very close to the grounds of the Abbey and on those areas golfers have reported strange sightings, and peculiar happenings during the progress of a game of golf. For a ball to veer gradually to the left or right whilst in the air is quite common and is known as a hook or slice.

But for a ball to suddenly jump to the left or right, as though plucked out of the air by an unseen hand is, to say the least, unusual. When the event is witnessed by three or four players, it certainly gives an opportunity for talking about it in the bar after the game.

Such things happened from time to time at the FA&NY GC. Strange sightings have occurred on a particular part of the course near the Abbey, usually in the form of a solitary golfer dressed in plus fours and tweed jacket seen on a distant fairway.

Plus-fours went out of fashion many, many years ago, as did the wearing of a jacket to play golf. Golfers today usually prefer colourful trousers and a shirt or anorak. The phantom golfer, if that is what it was, usually appeared early in the morning or at twilight, and always alone. Sometimes he would stop and lay his bag of clubs on the ground and after selecting a club, make as if to hit a ball; a ball that no one could see. He would then pick up his bag of clubs and walk after the ball. If his way took him behind a clump of trees he would rarely reappear on the other side.

Many of the players at the FA&NY GC were getting on in years and seeing the phantom golfer became quite usual. Many of them would talk about him among themselves but not when back in the clubhouse. They had enough to contend with in the usual banter from younger associates. ‘How’s the nine holes gone today then?’ ‘I hope I shall still be playing when I am your age, etc., etc..’ It was all good humoured and most of them enjoyed the fellowship that went with it.

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Two of these ‘seniors’, Dave and Harry, who were both around Eighty years old, had been playing together for many years and were familiar figures to others in the club. They had both seen the phantom golfer, as they called him, on many of their morning games and what is more both of them were staunch supporters of the local Church. Neither of them were strangers at the Abbey, and they often went round it when families came for a day out. During one occasion at the club these two were talking and started wondering if there was in fact a life after death. From that led them to ask if the phantom golfer was in fact a man like themselves from long ago who somehow had found out how to continue playing his favourite sport.

One Sunday when they were leaving Church they got back to the subject as they walked home and agreed that if one was to die before the other he would try hard to find the phantom golfer and come back to his old friend and tell him what golf was like ‘on the other side’.

It was quite some time before the subject was put to the test but inevitably Dave had a stroke after a game and never recovered. His friend Harry was desolate and inconsolable. It was one thing knowing it would happen one day. But when it did happen! Well it just wasn’t fair was it? Gradually Harry came to terms with being on his own but golf was never the same again even though other seniors asked him to join them for a game from time to time. Harry and Dave had had a very special relationship.

One night when Harry was having difficulty going to sleep he thought he heard someone calling his name. “Harry, Harry wake up” it seemed to say. And it sounded just like Dave’s voice. Harry sat up with a start and could just make out a shadowy figure at the end of the bed.

“Harry,” the figure said, “it’s me, Dave. I told you I’d try and come back.

I’ve got some news for you.” Harry wiped his eyes.

“Is it really you Dave? It’s so good to hear your voice. What’s this about news?” Dave moved round the bed and sat next to Harry.

“I told you I’d come back and tell you about the golf here. It’s really wonderful,” he said. “The fairways are like lawns, the greens are like billiard tables, and it only rains at night. There’s a super club house and there are some nice people to play with. It’s absolutely great and you’ll love it.”

“What do you mean I’ll love it?” said Harry.

“Oh didn’t I tell you” said Dave. “Our phantom golfer friend was old Henry Cotton and he has broken his leg. You’re down to play with me against Anne Boleyn and Maid Marion next Thursday.”

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Resolution(s) January 2005 Ted took off his spectacles with a tired sigh, rubbed his eyes, sat back in his swivel chair and gazed skywards. He still couldn’t get the figures right. No matter which way he juggled them about there still seemed to be short-fall of about £93 a month. It looked as though he would have to rob a bank or something if he was going to keep their way of life ticking over; at least until Jenny finished as University. It wasn’t as though they lived far beyond their means but somehow by the time his salary, and his wife’s wages from the shop had been paid into their joint account, most of it seemed to be earmarked for household bills and the day-to-day living expenses.

Jenny, their 17 year old daughter was costing him quite a lot more than they thought it would at University, but they were resisting her having to take on a student loan and land herself with a big debt once she graduated and started a job. Medicine was her subject and she wanted desperately to qualify as a doctor.

Both Ted and his wife, Angela, were quite proud of the way Jenny was getting on at Durham ‘Uni’. Why the kids of today had to abbreviate everything was a mystery to Angela and Ted and there were times when they hardly understood the jargon words they got pounded with when Jenny came home with friends. It was fortunate that Jenny seemed to be in with a decent lot and was not living it up in the drug and booze scene which some of her contempories had done. They were lucky in that respect, unlike poor old Tom down the road whose lad seemed to be trying to qualify to be a first class tearaway.

Ted felt the need for a rest and a coffee and decided to postpone the computerised third degree he was undergoing, doing his monthly accounts; the resolution of his finances could wait for another day. Maybe he needed a ‘displacement activity’ like the one suggested by the lady from the phone company who had called him.

“What on earth is a displacement activity?” Ted had asked her.

“Oh,” she had said. “It’s something you do when you don’t want to do what you should be doing.” With a cup of coffee in hand he remembered that he had been putting off a trip into the loft to look for a box-file he had stored up there last year, so a trip up the loft ladder seemed an ideal displacement activity.

The loft was cold and the wind under the tiles made him feel even colder, but when Ted put the light on it didn’t feel quite so bad. He soon found the box-file he had gone up for and just before he switched out the light he noticed a strange package lying behind a box on the rafters. That’s odd, he thought. I don’t remember seeing that before. He pulled the package toward him.

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It was indeed a brown paper package that looked as though it had been where it lay for years, and could even have been there before they bought the house ten years ago. Ted was sure he hadn’t seen it before, but then he had not been up in the loft for ages. The cobwebs were off-putting but he carefully carried it down the ladder into the garage and looked for the vacuum cleaner. It seemed to be a picture frame about 3ft by 2ft and when he had carefully untied the string and peeled back the wrapping paper he realised it had been wrapped up with a great deal of care.

With mounting excitement Ted at last extracted an elaborately gold framed picture of an old warship with two brass funnels and a bow wave indicating it was going somewhere at a good speed. Beneath the picture itself was a notice, that looked like an invitation. Surrounding the whole picture was an elaborate border of wreaths and shields headed by what appeared to be a royal coat of arms, complete with a lion and unicorn, flanked by two flags; a Royal Navy white ensign on the left and a peculiar green flag, which could be the house flag of some company, on the right. Ted, feeling mystified by now, carried his find carefully into the living room and went in search of a magnifying glass to read the inscription.

The inscription was in fact an invitation on ancient looking parchment issued by Palmer’s Shipbuilding & Iron Co. Ltd, the builders of the ship in the picture.

The company, he read, Requests the pleasure of the company of Mr and Mrs Alfred M Palmer to witness the launch of Her Majesty’s Battleship ‘RESOLUTION’, at Jarrow on Saturday 28th May at 4.14pm. The invitation was dated Jarrow 8th May 1892. The names of Mr and Mrs Alfred M Palmer were written in faded black ink by some bygone scribe of the day.

Ted realised he had been holding his breath while he had been deciphering the inscription and he let it out with an explosive gasp. My God, what was this he thought, and how had it come to be lying in his loft and for how long? He was very thoughtful as he carefully wrapped the picture up as best he could in its paper. He even tied it up again with the string. What a shame he thought that his wife Angela was away for the weekend, and had not been there to share his excitement.

The implications of his find occupied Ted’s mind almost constantly for the rest of the week and he even managed not to tell Angela about it, wanting to sort his ideas out first.

What was the position of a person finding an obviously valuable painting in his own house? Was it now his, or at least theirs, because it had been in the house when they had bought it? The previous owners of the house were long gone, he thought they were somewhere abroad. Where could he go for information without 25

letting it be known he had found it? His brain went round and round. At last he decided that a call to Christie’s or one of the smaller auction houses might be the obvious place to start, and he made Angela sit down one evening while he showed her the picture and told the story. They talked between them long into the night.

Ted wondered if there was anything he might learn on the Internet and a day or two later he settled down at his computer and typed in ‘HMS Resolution’. The result was startling. He had tapped in to a whole mine of information with two pages on the battleship of that name. One thing soon became obvious, all the references were to a battleship called ‘HMS Resolution’, which was built by Palmer’s but launched on January 14th 1915... Not May 1892.

Obviously his, (he smiled at his use of the term); ‘HMS Resolution’ was an earlier ship that had been sunk or scrapped before the First World War. Ted realised that he had a lot of research to do to find out about the picture he had found.

It was some weeks before Ted’s call to Christies produced any definite results.

They had been very helpful and their Naval Architectural Art department were most interested in the picture Ted had found. They had even been on to the executors of the old Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Ltd estate to try and find the origins of the painting, but to no avail.

It seemed that Christie’s Naval Art dept had been alerted to the possible age of the picture when they looked further into the date of the later HMS ‘Resolution’ launched during the firstWorld War, in 1915 in fact. If Ted’s picture was of an earlier HMS Resolution, launched in 1892, then some further investigation was obviously necessary. Christie’s said they would be making enquiries into both the existence of such a ship and more importantly into name of the artist that had painted the picture. To say that Ted was encouraged by Christie’s attitude was putting it mildly; it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him.

A few more nail biting weeks later Christies had written to say that they confirmed that ownership of the picture was very definitely his and they had would be pleased to put the painting up for auction at a forthcoming sale, “without guarantee of course”. They had gone on to say that until their investigation into the picture’s provenance was concluded they couldn’t put a value on it but suggested that Ted had it insured for around £25,000 at least.

Ted’s reactions were, to say the least, ecstatic. At last, for he and his wife, this was to be the best sort of resolution he could think of for his ailing finances.

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The Window (Lincoln) May 2005 Approaching Lincoln from the south on the A15, it is difficult not to see the magnificent twin towers of the cathedral from about five miles away. As one who had never before visited Lincoln the prospect made the distance we had travelled from Milton Keynes seem insignificant.

I wondered as I drove up the hill on which Lincoln Cathedral stood, what the reactions were going to be of the people we had met in the hotel, coming from the USA, Australia and New Zealand, when they reached a cathedral, which was built in the 12th century. Most of them would be unused to seeing things more than a few hundred years old. The castle too, standing virtually opposite, dates back to a few years after King William of Normandy conquered England in 1066.

As with any city the size of Lincoln, today’s traffic is one of the major hazards putting the ancient infrastructure to the test; the streets and bridges were not designed for 20th century traffic. We expected to have some trauma finding somewhere to leave the car but did eventually find somwhere in spite of all the ‘No Entry’ signs and double yellow lines that litter most roads. It was, therefore, a pleasant surprise to find that it only cost three pounds for four hours parking.

“Thank you,” we said, “you burghers of Lincoln.”

The west front of the cathedral, with its famous Romanesque frieze, was as dramatic in close up as the whole cathedral had been from five miles away. We stood in a small square almost miniscule in proportion and, like most visitors, tried in vain to take a photograph. Getting the complete edifice in the viewfinder was impossible. Ah well, I’ll have to buy a post card. Maybe when we come out and go to the castle behind us, I thought.

The door through which we entered was almost tiny, but the moment we stepped inside the nave the sheer size of the place was awe-inspiring. The huge vaulted arches stretched into the middle distance with the sunlight glinting on the white stone and gold mountings making artificial lighting completely unnecessary.

There was so much to look at that it would take a guide book to mention everything; and there were plenty of those on sale. But the most breathtaking view came when we reached the crossing and looked to our right up the south transept. There was a rose window the like of which I don’t think I have ever seen. The sunlight shone through it in a rainbow of colours defying description.

This was something that one could stand and look at for hours without seeing all the pictures in the glass which was set in delicate stone tracery. It was truly magnificent and must have measured fifty feet in diameter.

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After I had tired of standing in one place I turned to look at the north transept that normally houses a similar window only to find that there was no window at all, only a mass of scaffolding, tarpaulins and dust covers. What, I wondered has happened here? I became aware of a gowned figure standing just behind me He wore the collar and robe of a cleric and smiled at me asking if I was enjoying my visit. We spoke for a while during which he confessed to having been associated with the cathedral for 34 years.

“It is costing a million pounds to restore this Dean’s Eye window,” he told me. “The original glass was 13th century and was dismantled during the war, (he didn’t say which war) and had to be buried to preserve it.” I wondered what stories this glass could tell, and the magnificent multi-coloured glass of the Bishops Eye window behind me. I later found out that the glass was mediaeval and had been saved, like the windows in the Nave, from being damaged during the Civil War, and patched together in new stone tracery only a few years ago.

On the way home I mused about what we had seen, both in the cathedral, and later in the castle, where the story of the Magna Carta was illustrated; an original of that charter had actually been on display. I thought of the origins of the very words and languages that had been used in those times; the very name, ‘window’, where did it come from?

As a matter of interest when we got home I looked up the word ‘Window’ in the big dictionary in my office. It read, ‘Window’ noun. an opening in a wall or roof of a building to admit light’.

I thought about the smallest window in my little house, 22” diameter of plain clear glass. And I thought that the same small word applied to the fifty-foot diameter Rose Window I had just seen in Lincoln Cathedral.

Strange that the same name, meaning ‘a hole in a wall to admit light’ should apply to two such divergent objects.

A Broken Promise - Who’d Work in London June 2005 “Oh, but Daddy you promised.” Amanda’s face crumpled and her eyes were wet with tears. George stood inside the front door looking down at his daughter’s distraught face and felt cold right down to his toes.

The day at the office had been one of the worst he had had for months and that was saying something. Ever since Johnson had been appointed to head up the department he had made it very obvious that having George as a deputy was not 28

his idea of a good thing, and he had gone to great pains to belittle George’s efforts at every opportunity.

Here he was, late home again and just because Johnson had needed briefing for a meeting in Ireland in two days time. A meeting that George had been planning to go to, as he was the usual company representative on the product safety committee. Everybody in the department knew that Johnson had been jealous of George’s position on the International Committee and wanted the role for himself.

Now he had got it and had made George two hours late for his train home on the evening of his only daughter’s sixth Birthday. How do you explain to a six year old, that Daddy had been unable to get home in time for her party just because his boss was a spiteful old so-and-so that could ruin her father’s career?

George put his briefcase down and picked Amanda up in his arms and kissed her.

“I’m so sorry darling,” he murmured in her ear. “There are times when even Daddies can’t always control things and have to do what other people tell them to do. Did you have a good party?” George mentally wished Johnson in Hell for making him break his promise to his wife and only daughter. One day, he thought, I’ll get even with the man. Just because he has no children of his own he thinks everyone else has to be at his beck and call. Secretly, he admitted that it was his own fault for not standing up to Johnson when he had left it too late to call George into his office for the briefing. An evil idea began to form in Georges mind.

It was two weeks before George saw Johnson again in the office. The crafty devil had taken ten days leave tacked on the trip to Ireland and taken his wife away with him. So he got a nice holiday without having to pay his own airfare; and no doubt absorbed some of his wife’s expenses onto the trip as well. Maybe that was the sort of thing the department didn’t really trust him for. George was even more determined to find some way of paying him back for the distress he had caused him over Amanda’s birthday party.

George’s feelings towards his boss were beginning to fester and turn from mere dislike, to pure hate. George avoided Johnson as much as he could and he began to notice that others in the department were resenting Johnson too, and were as uncooperative as possible without there being outright defiance.

Sooner or later the situation would be noticed higher up and although Johnson was the senior man in the department, other people had noticed the atmosphere and the matter was being talked about in the canteen and around the coffee machines.

Matters came to a head one day when Johnson told George he was needed at an evening engagement where he was giving a presentation to a group of business 29

people. He told George he would be required to field any awkward questions that might crop up. This was not an unusual situation and with anyone else George would have been only too happy to go along. But with Johnson, oh no, let him pull his own chestnuts out of the fire! Unfortunately, George found that there was nothing he could do to get out of going so was forced to make arrangements to travel together straight from the office.

The venue for the event was not far from their offices in the West End and it made sense to go by tube, as it would be during the rush hour and there wouldn’t be much equipment to carry. They set off down Tottenham Court Road about the same time as a few hundred other people, and joined the crush at the station entrance. They were only going the five stops to Queensway but by the time they reached the Central Line platforms they both felt as though they could have walked it quicker. The pushing and shoving with a briefcase getting heavier by the minute was doing nothing for George’s peace of mind and by the time they reached the westbound platform his temper was almost at boiling point. Johnson was some way ahead completely unaware that George was struggling and puffing like someone twice his age. Typical of the man, he kept thinking, having a hairbrained scheme like this. Even a taxi would have been quicker.

After what seemed like an age he caught up with Johnson halfway down the platform and stood just behind him. The crush was diabolical and more people were packing in behind them. ‘Mind the Gap’ bellowed the Tannoy as a train burst out of the tunnel, at which moment George felt a jab in his back from someone’s umbrella, and as he lurched forward his briefcase caught Johnson’s legs just behind his knees. Johnson dropped like a stone and before he could do anything to save himself he disappeared towards the tracks. George himself was engulfed with bodies trying to move backwards as the trains brakes screeched wildly and the driver tried to stop the inevitable.

George felt himself carried along with people trying to get away from the place where Johnson had disappeared; his mind in a turmoil. Had he really pushed the man he hated into the path of a train or was it the woman behind them both who had pushed him with her umbrella? Would he ever forget Johnson screaming as he fell? Had he really in his hatred of the man, actually considered doing what had just happened or was it an inevitable accident?

Was it all because he had been forced to break a promise to his six-year old daughter?

Would he ever know the answers?

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A Last Hour July 2005 Always being late and doing things at the last minute was a particular failing of Geoff Harkness. But in spite of this he had got good results at school and had succeeded in being accepted for Durham University. He was studying Computer Sciences with Economics so in educational terms he was no slouch and was quietly happy in a laid back sort of way. Nevertheless he was, even at the age of eighteen, still to be found arriving for tutorials or social events at the last minute and being the last one to hand in course work and essays.

Like many of his contemporaries he had a room in a house in Durham town with three friends and did his share of the housekeeping, such as it was; but only when it became obviously necessary. His car was an eight year old Ford Fiesta which he kept in good condition and did most of the servicing and occasional repairs himself which enabled him to enjoy the freedom of being able to go where, and when, he pleased, away from parental constrictions. His car would be said to be his main hobby, but only as a means of getting away into the countryside around the university and into the Yorkshire Dales with friends, of which he had many, both male and female. In short he was a reasonably well balanced student that enjoyed university life and made the most of the opportunities he had.

Tuesday, 17 May, started for Geoff much like any other in early spring. The air was crisp and cool with flowers in the small front garden and the trees were beginning to show their pale green shoots; in fact it looked like being a lovely day. Geoff was more or less up to date with his studies and there was nothing he had to do before late afternoon. He could put his essay in at the last minute – as he usually did, so it looked like a good time to go over to see a friend about a noise he was getting in the nearside rear wheel. His friend Harry lived on the outskirts of town and ran a small garage. He had a big enough place to pull the car into to work on the wheel.

Leaving Durham was easy. The morning rush hour had finished and Geoff decided, at the last minute as usual, to go the country route to Harry’s rather than sticking to the main roads. That decision was destined to change Geoff’s day completely. In fact it was to change his whole life somewhat for some time to come.

The country route to Harry’s place was through a small hamlet called Bennetts End, along Gog Lane, a winding single-track lane, wide enough for cars with occasional passing places. Geoff knew the lane well and there was rarely any traffic on it. Unfortunately for Geoff, today was going to prove the exception to 31

the rule. He had been on Gog Lane for about half a mile and was passing a couple of people dressed for hiking, with rucksacks and strong boots etc when round a bend ahead came a light truck right in the middle of the narrow lane going far too fast for the lane conditions. Geoff, temporarily distracted by the hikers he had just passed, hardly had time to slam on his brakes before the two vehicles hit head on. Geoff had instinctively turned the steering wheel to his left, which made the car go into the ditch but not before his head hit the steering wheel and he blacked out.

Geoff woke up with a splitting headache in Durham Infirmary two days later.

His head was bandaged except for one eye and his right arm was strapped to his side. He only learned the rest of his story when a nurse came up to his bed a few minutes later.

What had started as a fairly normal day for Geoff developed into an hour long rescue operation recounted by the two hikers Geoff had passed, who had pulled him out of his car minutes before it caught fire. Both the hikers and the truck driver had received burns and minor injuries and it was fortunate that the truck driver had used his mobile phone to make a 999 call and put the rescue services into top gear. Gog Lane had to cope with a fire engine and two police cars, and the field next to the accident enabled the Air Ambulance helicopter with its two paramedics to get Geoff and one of the hikers into Durham Infirmary.

Geoff left hospital after ten days to convalesce at home with his parents. His broken nose will forever remind him of his last minute decision to go down Gog Lane and set him on what was almost the last hour of his life. He and the two hikers are now good friends up in Durham. The truck driver was fined £2,000 and got three points on his licence for careless driving and driving a vehicle with faulty brakes.

Geoff’s approach to taking last minute decisions, and doing things without careful consideration was one of the more useful bits of his education he learned at Durham University.

The Holiday July 2005 In the 1970’s and 80’s, air travel, even into Europe, was a much more costly business than it is today. Package holidays were just becoming popular and low cost airlines were a thing of the future. Companies doing business in other countries had to carefully watch the costs of their executives foreign travel, and shopping around for air fares a the right time and price was a job often delegated 32

to an experienced ‘Travel Manager’, who knew the right people to contact in travel agents and sometimes direct with airlines. Discounts and special deals were part of their brief and Club Class travel was usually reserved for the really senior people in all but the largest or influential organisations. Against this background Harry Baldwin thought nothing odd about having to contact David Singleton, the company’s Travel Manager, when the need for a short trip to Frankfurt, in Germany, was suggested. The company’s contacts with the Electrical Testing Laboratories in Frankfurt were long standing so the trip was not unusual.

Harry picked up the phone and dialled David Singleton.

“I need to go to Frankfurt for a couple of days in August,” Harry said to his friend. “Three days at the most; and the costs are crucial,” he explained.

“OK old son, leave it with me,” replied David. David was as good as his word and phoned back the following day. “The cheapest I can do it, I’m afraid,” said David, “is an early morning, 6.50, Lufthansa flight from Heathrow on Monday August 10th, two nights at the Burgherhof Hotel, returning on Wednesday evening on the 7.30 flight; that’s the most popular one, so it’ll be crowded,” he explained. “The flight costs are £456, and the hotel is “£125 per night with breakfast, so the all up cost’ll be around £706 plus expenses. Say £850 all up.”

David waited for Harry’s reaction.

“That sounds a bit much for a two day trip,” said Harry after a few moments thought. “Are you sure we can’t do it cheaper? Old Roberts is not going to like it. He already thinks we live it up when we are away from UK.” “I’ll look into it,” said David with a resigned sigh realising the work he had already done hadn’t been enough.

It was early the following morning, before Harry had got himself his first cup of coffee, that his office door opened and in walked David. He had a satisfied smile on his face.

“If you can go on Sunday the 9th, leaving Luton at 8.00pm and are prepared to stay five nights instead of two I can get you a package holiday with Thompsons for an all up price of £495 half board,” he said with a grin.

“Blimey,” said Harry “that’s a lot better, but I’ll have to get it agreed with old Roberts. I don’t think anyone has used a package holiday to go on a business trip before. Maybe I can take a couple of days leave seeing as how I shall be travelling in my own time on Sunday. I’ll come back to you in an hour or two.”

“Don’t be longer,” said David as he left Harry’s office. “I’ve got them holding it open for you.”

In spite of his reputation for meanness, Mr Roberts, the department head, was quite taken by the idea of using a package holiday trip to do what they needed to sort out in Germany and Harry, travelling in his own time, at the weekend, and taking some leave, also appealed to him. He gave Harry his consent quite happily.

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On his way back to see David, Harry felt pleased with the way things had gone.

“You can book us in for two,” he told David “and I’ll pay for my wife to come with me.” David grinned and agreed to get on with the booking.

Harry and his wife May had a leisurely drive to Luton airport on the Sunday and left their car in the long stay car park. Harry, unlike some of his colleagues, preferred to fly in a jacket and trousers or a suit as it saved the weight he had to carry. He did, however, feel a bit overdressed when he looked at the people going on this holiday. He never was one for jeans but they seemed to be the uniform for both sexes these days for casual wear. Even with holes in the knees.

He blamed the American pop stars and folk like Bob Geldof for what he saw as a general lowering of standards of dress for travel and everyday wear. He hoped the folk at the hotel wouldn’t be like this lot.

“Good job we are not going to a seaside resort,” murmured May as she saw Harry’s disapproving looks.

The flight and transfer to the hotel passed without any difficulties and their room seemed very nice and looked out onto a pleasant garden. The hotel was in an international class so they were happy to have dinner in the restaurant and a short walk in a nearby park before going to bed.

At breakfast Harry got some funny looks as he put his brief case beside his chair.

The suit was bad enough, but a brief case as well! Oh dear he thought I hope May gets on OK with them.

His first appointment was out of Frankfurt at the Electrical Testing Laboratories so he caught a taxi at the front of the hotel. He had been there many times before and was on good terms with the people he was to see. The morning went by quickly and at lunch time his friend Klaus the Senior Test Engineer, who spoke excellent English, asked Harry to have lunch with him.. He suggested that for a change they could eat in the Managers dining room instead of going out. Harry agreed and they went up to the top floor.

Klaus took the opportunity to introduce Harry to a number of his colleagues most of whom were about his own age; old enough to have seen service in the war, and Harry wondered what sort of service they had seen. It was always difficult meeting older Germans to know what sort of feelings they had these days, when meeting English or American contemporaries. Most times they all got on well and put wartime experiences aside. The fact that they were all speaking English, for Harry’s sake was something which one of the Germans decided not to ignore.

“Herr Baldwin,” he said during a pause in conversation “do you notice what language we are all speaking?”

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“I certainly do Herr Gunther,” replied Harry “and I am very grateful. We English are most discourteous in not being fluent in other languages than our own.” After a pause he added, “have you ever been to my country Herr Gunther?”

Gunther looked thoughtful, and a little uncomfortable.

“Yes I have Herr Baldwin; but only once. Next time I come I will land.”

There was laughter all round including Harry’s.

“I hope next time Herr Gunther we will give you a warmer reception,” replied Harry and with that Gunther left the table leaving the others looking somewhat ill at ease. Harry felt that he too should leave and thanking his hosts for an enjoyable lunch returned with Klaus to the laboratory.

Klaus was obviously embarrassed at Gunther’s comment which, whilst funny was not in the best of taste, and Klaus started to apologise for his colleague.

Harry stopped him saying that he had not taken offence and thanked Klaus for his hospitality. They agreed to meet again in two days time.

On his way back into the city Harry asked the taxi driver to go via the British Embassy so that he could see an old friend he hadn’t seen for some time. He planned to ask them to dinner at their hotel as both wives knew one another from way back. On the way he passed a theatre and Harry was pleased to see that the London Philharmonic Orchestra was playing until Thursday. He resolved to try and get two tickets for himself and May; Wednesday if possible.

By the time Harry had seen his friend and got back to the hotel the time was getting on and he had told May he wouldn’t be late. Fortunately she knew him well and was happily reading a book in the lounge. There were one or two others of the Thompsons group there so May was not alone. He told her of his plans for the evening and they went upstairs to change. He had also been able to get two tickets for the London Phil Concert. May liked Delibes and the Brooke violin concerto so Wednesday should be good. They talked about the day they had had until it was time to meet George in the bar.

The evening went much as it would have done in London. Old friends talking about their families, their jobs, their health, life in Germany and England etc..

When they broke up Harry and George agreed to meet at the Embassy the following day. In fact Harry’s next two days were spent at meetings while May toured the shops, art galleries and a museum. May met one or two of the people from the hotel, but apart from casual conversation they didn’t have much in common.

Harry and May did manage one trip out together, to a winery. They sampled some nice wines and were given souvenir glasses. It was during this that a lady 35

May had got to know quizzed them about the reason why Harry had hardly taken part in the tour. She said that most of the rest of the Brits thought he must have been a spy or something. Harry said she was almost right and left her to pass this on to her friends.

“Did you have a good holiday?” asked his secretary on his return to the office.

“May did,” he replied “but I spent so much time at meetings, the folk in the hotel were convinced I was working for MI5.”

The Apprentice August 2005 The term ‘Workplace’ is an odd one, as any place where people ‘work’, presumable for wages or a salary, is by definition a ‘Workplace’. It is one of those English words, which means different things to different people. And for me, at the age of fifteen at the beginning of World War Two it meant an engineering works. And anybody that worked in an engineering works was called ‘An Engineer’. My father was ‘An Engineer’. He had worked at one of the countries largest manufactures of engineering products ever since he left school. In fact the company he worked for was called ‘Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Engineering Company Limited’ and at the start of the war it employed 25,000 people (give or take a few hundred or so). Yes! It was a big place and when they all went to work in a morning, or home again at night, it needed a transport system all of its own to get them there and back. This transport system consisted mainly of dozens of tram-cars that lined up end to end outside the works before five o’clock and when they started off the load on the electricity supply was such that a special power station had had to be built to supply just the tramway system.

Having a father that had worked in engineering all his life it was inevitable that his son would follow in his footsteps and in those days serving an apprenticeship was the way to becoming ‘An Engineer’, and, in the terminology of the day ‘learning a trade’. I well remember the time when father and I had to attend the Works Education Department so that we both could sign the indenture paper for me to start a five-year Apprenticeship.

“You’ve just signed my life away,” I said to him as we walked away from the Holy of Holies where my future would be determined. At the age of fifteen, five years was a third of your life and spending that time in this huge, sometimes frightening world, filled me with dread. Even though this was what I thought I wanted to do in order to become ‘An Engineer’.

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I say the future loomed somewhat frightening and so it was. First year apprentices learned all sorts of tasks, some quite menial, and an apprentice was often a ‘goffer’, or glorified errand boy. But running errands taught him to find his way around this colossal workplace. Many of the departments existed to make, or process, things for other departments so being able to go anywhere he was sent, he learned what was done in each department. One of the most important jobs of a first year apprentice was making the tea for his department. This work was soul destroying, especially if you were in a big department with lots of men all wanting their tea made in their own ‘billy-cans’ the way they had it at home. Imagine queuing at one of the boiling water sheds with other errand lads with a four wheel trolley loaded with trays of billy cans, all with the owners names painted on, and all to be put under the scalding pipes of boiling water; and getting them back to their owners before the tea went cold. To put an instructional light on the whole process one could say that it was a first step on the mass catering ladder.

But I don’t thing many apprentices saw it in this light. One was nothing but ‘an errand boy’.

There was a very good educational side to my first year apprenticeship and these were the classes one had to attend, two or three days a week, in the education department. Here we learned all about the various tools we would use as we moved around the departments. How to use a grinding wheel to put the right cutting edge on chisels or drill bits. How to use a file to shape pieces of metal to fit into holes or spaces. How to solder wires and metal things together. All about nuts and bolts. How to avoid getting electric shocks (and finding out what it felt like when you did!). There were also paper exercises about metals and materials. What they were used for and how to do calculations relating to their strengths and such like. In short one learned to become ‘An Engineer’. One department that I did not enjoy working in, in fact I hated every minute of it, was ‘The Foundry’. How I got in there I never knew. An apprentices progress through the works was arranged and devised by the Education Department who sent us from one department to another based on the reports we had from each department.

We were given some choice as we grew older. But some moves were made when vacancies for an apprentice were wanted. I think this was how I found myself in ‘The Foundry’. At one end of this huge shed were the furnaces where molten iron and steel were made and poured into moulds on the floor. The floor was dark sand and for large castings. Modellers would dig into the floor shaping the outer shape of a turbine housing or generator. The atmosphere was a smoking sea of sand and grit. On a cold day the shed was as draughty as hell with bursts of overpowering heat as one of the furnaces shed its load of molten metal. On a hot day it was purgatory. Sweat pouring out of you and choking fumes to breathe.

Not a very nice place to be at all. I imagine today’s Health and Safety Executive have caused a lot of changes to be made in the working environments in places like that foundry.

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Apprentices were used to clean up the sharp edges of castings after they had cooled and before they were despatched off to one of the machine shops. This job is called ‘fettling’ and is done with a hammer and chisel. I seem to recall that we were not issued with gloves and it certainly taught us how to use a hammer and chisel. If you didn’t learn quickly you got very sore knuckles when your hammer missed the chisel and flying metal particles were everywhere. I have used a hammer and chisel many times since and those lessons I learned in ‘The Foundry’ have been very useful. I rarely skin my knuckles these days. I enjoyed most of my apprenticeship days but I did not enjoy my five or six weeks in ‘The Foundry’.

In addition to learning about life in a very big engineering works we were also expected to attend evening classes, or ‘night school’, on two or three evenings a week at the local technical colleges. These courses were an extension of the Science and Physics subjects one learned at secondary school with examinations at the end of term for those who had ambition to improve their status, in an industry where the sky was the limit. Today of course the sky is no longer the limit. The limit now is ‘Space’, and then ‘Outer Space’. But Astronauts themselves have to be engineers first!

Five years is a long time when you are a teenager but the discipline was good, even if we didn’t think so at the time. And in a company like the one I worked for there was an associated social life second to none. One didn’t just learn to be ‘An Engineer’. I learned to dance, drink, play bowls and other games, and how to behave with the opposite sex. In fact, like many of my contemporaries, I met the girl I subsequently married.

Oh yes! As workplaces go an engineering works, and being ‘An Apprentice’, is as good a way as any to learn a trade and embark on a happy and productive life.

It is a pity that apprenticeships are no longer the norm for young men and women to learn the facts of life. But that’s another story involving politics, economics, trade unions, big business, and many other nasty topics.

Written in 2005, about a lifetime from 1943 to 1948.

In the Interest of Better Understanding September 2005 “Please Sir,” Mr Sandar said with all the deference he felt was owed to a distinguished foreign visitor, “Can I ask of you a great favour?”

“Certainly you can,” I replied to the short, smartly dressed man who was our interpreter on an international visit to Prague in Czechoslovakia. “If I can help you in any way I would be only too pleased.”

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The occasion was a meeting of the electrical representatives of fifteen countries who had gathered to discuss how each of us was implementing an agreement made the previous year. The date was the tenth of June 1969 and the Russian, or should I say Communist, influence in Prague was very noticeable. There was a military presence everywhere and even the traffic police carried side arms. Prague itself was very run down and it was obvious that there was no money available for maintaining the buildings, which had stood for decades or longer. The trams still ran through the drab streets but the people looked cold and undernourished.

The whole air of the city was uncomfortable and even the weather had been overcast and oppressive for most of our four days of meetings. We all felt that it would be good to get back to our own homes in spite of the lavish hospitality we were receiving from the host committee.

Mr Sandar, the interpreter, provided for the English speaking fraternity, had been most efficient and had worked hard, and for long hours attending to our various needs. His command of English was very good indeed and he was treated, by most of the delegates, as an essential part of the conference. He had not been able, or should I say allowed, to accompany any of us to the theatre or the other social activities laid on by our hosts, and this we were sure was deliberate to prevent him, or other of his colleagues getting too close to any anti communist influences. It was a pity because he seemed quite a nice man.

“How can I help you then, Mr Sandar?” I asked noticing that he and I were standing apart from the majority of the group. A situation I felt he had perhaps been careful to arrange. Was I about to be asked to agree to something our Foreign Office had warned us might happen?

“I have been trying for some time,” he said, “to obtain a book which is published in England which would be very helpful for my work. It is called ‘Fowlers Modern English Usage’ and I have not been able to buy it in this country.

I believe it is published by Oxford University Press.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

I was not going to be asked to smuggle anything out of the country for him, change any Czech money for US Dollars or get him any hard currency. I had been up that path before.

“I know the book well,” I told him. “In fact, I have a copy in my book case.

My wife is a librarian and is often asked for advice on words in our language.

She uses ‘Fowler’ nearly every day. I shall be glad to buy a copy for you if you give me your address.” Sander gave me his business card and scribbled his home address on the back. “Will there be any objection by your authorities to your receiving a book from England?” I asked him after a few moments. He said he didn’t think so as he was in the habit of buying books for his job. Nothing more was said until our last day in Prague when Sandar asked me if he could give me some Czech money for the book and postage. I declined his kind offer and said that my company would be happy to pay me for the book in the interests of creating better understanding between our two countries.

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Back home in England I lost no time in locating and buying a copy of the much sought after book for Mr Sandar and sent it to his home address. I still have a copy of my letter dated 19th June 1969. A copy was also attached to the receipt on my expense claim. But the company will have destroyed that, years ago.

The reason why I still have my letter is because in September, I received an airletter from Mr Sandar thanking me for sending the copy of ‘Fowler and asking me if I would like a ‘picture book of Prague’. Needless to say, I replied yes please, as it would be a constant reminder of my visit.

Early in October 1969, a large parcel was in my post with the wrapping covered in picturesque Ceskoslvensko stamps, which I suppose had been specially selected and carefully stuck on the wrapping. Inside was a 250 page book of the most beautiful black and white photographs of Prague (Praha) which would have cost many English Pounds in this country. What Mr Sandar had to pay for it I never knew but he did say during our subsequent, infrequent, letters that Educational material was quite cheap in his country. We lost touch after a couple of years.

But the book has had pride of place in my bookcase ever since.

No, I’m sorry, you can’t borrow it, even if you do say please!

An Autumn Tale December 2005 Old Tom woke with a start as the front door bell gave an unaccustomed clatter, something it rarely did these days.

“Who the devil’s that?” he muttered as he levered himself out of his easy chair. Since his wife died a few years ago, Tom Fellows felt his 70 odd years more and more these days, and having his afternoon Zizz interrupted was not something he enjoyed. He set off for the front door ready to be rude to whoever it was that didn’t appreciate the joy of an afternoon nap on a cold October afternoon.

At the door stood a tall, youngish man with a large cardboard box clutched against his chest, which even for him looked quite heavy. A large white van was pulled up behind him in the road. Before Tom had time to be rude the delivery man smiled and said “Good afternoon, Sir, I wonder if you would be good enough to take this for the lady at number 93. She did say to leave it at No 95 but there doesn’t seem to be anyone in there either.”

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It had been a long time since old Tom had received a box as large as this one, and the young man seemed quite presentable.

“Certainly,” said Tom, his annoyance at being woken up evaporating. “But you’ll have to carry it in, looks a mite heavy for me.” The young man carried the box into the hall and put it on a bench seat as though it was full of fresh air. “Do I have to sign for it?” asked Tom. “If you don’t mind,” came the reply as the man fished a small box like device out of his coat pocket. Tom hadn’t seen one of these before and was quite interested to notice that the thing he had been given to sign with wasn’t a proper pen or pencil, more like a pointed metal rod. And the place he had to sign looked like, a glass screen on the face of the box. As he wrote with the rod his name appeared, not on the glass, but on a paper or something behind the glass.

“This is a funny old thing,” said Tom. “Is it one of those electronic things they keep talking about these days?”

“Certainly is Sir,” said the man. “I don’t know where we’d be without them.

I’ll drop a note through the door of No 93 to tell the lady where I have delivered her box.”

Tom was quite sad when he had gone and forgot all about his earlier annoyance.

It was not often he chatted to someone a lot younger than he was and the man had called him ‘Sir’ which was nice. The man knew how to be respectful to older people. Most young workman these days called you ‘Mate’ and got quite upset when he told them he wasn’t their ‘Mate’; he was Mr Fellows, or ‘Sir’.

Some of his friends had told him he could get into bother if he continued to be uppity with people who knew no better. He should try and put up with ‘Mate’.

It was after all, the jargon of today.

Tom had a good look at the box that now sat on his hall bench and saw it was addressed to the new lady who had moved in up the road. It was from a company of wine merchants he had seen advertised somewhere. So, her name is Mrs J Kenwood is it he thought. He had seen her passing his house with a small white dog once or twice and she had a nice smile when she said good morning or whatever to him. Now it looked as though he was going to meet her and talk to her properly.

I wonder if there is a Mr Kenwood he mused. I don’t suppose she is planning to drink her way through all this case of wine on her own. Tom wandered back down the hall and decided to make himself a cup of tea. J Kenwood he said to himself while the kettle was boiling; wonder what the ‘J’ stands for? Joan? Joyce?

Jaqueline? Why did I think of Jaqueline? I don’t know any Jacqueline’s. How about Jennifer, are ladies still called Jennifer? Tom let his mind wander while he made his tea and took it back in the living room.

It was about ten the following morning and there was another ring at Tom’s doorbell and this time he was up and about sorting out the kitchen. He went to 41

the front door and there stood the lady with the small white dog on a lead that he had seen passing on the road.

“Hello,” said Tom. “You must be Mrs J Kenwood from number 93. I was wondering when you were going to come.” The lady smiled.

“That’s right, and I was wondering when I was going to meet you. You have my wine I believe.”

“I certainly do,” said Tom. “Come on in and bring your dog. What’s its name?”

“His name is Snowy,” the lady said “and mine is Jennifer. What’s yours?”

“Ah, I wondered what the J was for,” replied Tom. “I never thought of Jennifer,” he lied. “Anyway come on in and we can sort out how to get this large box over to your place. Would you like a cup-o-tea? It’s probably too early for a glass of wine.”

Tom was suddenly aware that this was the first time he had invited a stranger into his house for ages, least of all a strange lady. He couldn’t figure out what had come over him.

He and Jennifer walked along the hall and into the kitchen. Tom started to fill the kettle. Snowy seemed to like the place and curled up near a radiator.

“What part of the world have you come from?” asked Tom as he busied himself with cups and saucers. (He usually used a mug for himself, and it was a long time since he had got the cups and saucers out).

“I came here from Watford,” Jennifer replied “to be nearer to my daughter, just after my husband died last year. Angela, that’s my daughter, lives in Newport and she persuaded me to move.” Tom suddenly realised that this lady was very nice and he was beginning to feel quite at home with her.

It was nearly an hour later after they had chatted about themselves that they got back to the reason for her being there and how to get a heavy case of wine a hundred yards down to her house.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Tom. “Alan next door has a trolley I could borrow.

I’m sure he’d lend it to me and he might even give me a hand with it. He’ll be home about 4 o’clock; I’ll bring it over then.” They settled on that and after a few more minutes Jennifer and Snowy took their leave.

“See you later,” she said as they went down the path. “Oh, and by the way my friends call me Jenny . . . . Tom.” Tom and his neighbour Alan duly delivered the case of wine to number 93 and Jennifer asked them both in. Alan declined as he had a function on that evening but Tom accepted and he and his new acquaintance had another cup of tea. For a little while they talked about life in their village. That meeting set the theme for a developing friendship between the two and it soon became evident to neighbours that they were visiting one another’s houses quite often.

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Soon Tom found himself going to church and meeting Jenny and they began making a few mutual friends around their own age. Tom hadn’t been to church since his wife died and Jenny found that she too was taking an interest in village activities. It wasn’t long before they were being referred to as ‘Tom and Jenny’, but nobody made any references to cats and mice. They both seemed to be becoming good friends.

October came to a colourful autumnal close giving way to a cold and misty November with threats of a cold winter ahead, continually being forecast on the radio and television. Tom hated winter and was not looking forward to it at all.

Although he had come to look forward to the times when he saw Jenny, he was still cooking for himself and keeping his house clean and tidy. He also did not look forward to Christmas time with its enforced jollity and commercialism. He wasn’t exactly a scrooge but as he had not had much contact with his only son for the past forty years being with children didn’t come easily to him.

Jenny by this time had made quite a lot of friends in the village. She was an open and friendly person and rapidly got herself drawn into community life. She was secretary of a youth club and was attending a computer course at the local technical college. She was learning quickly how to operate the old computer Tom had given her. Tom in the meantime was wondering what Christmas was going to be like now that Jenny had her own friends. Should he ask her to have Christmas with him? He could cook for himself o.k, and had cooked one or two simple meals for Jenny at his home but he didn’t feel up to trying a Christmas Dinner.

Jenny, on the other hand was a good cook and he had enjoyed going to her house for a meal. Christmas Day! Well that was different. Maybe she would like to go out for the day?

The matter was solved for him one day when Jenny came round to his house and over coffee asked him if he would like to have Christmas Day with her and two or three friends from church. Tom was overjoyed. The problem was solved and he would be able to meet some new friends and really get to know Jenny properly.

“Oh I’d love to my dear,” he said. “I was wondering how to ask you to spend the day with me but didn’t really know how to.”

Tom’s thoughts were in a turmoil. He still wasn’t easy with women even though he and Jenny got on well. But now! Maybe they could think of going away together somewhere soon. Then he realised that was jumping the gun a bit. He had only known the lady for three months.

“Oh and I have a favour to ask you,” said Jenny hesitantly. “I’ve got myself involved with the Church Bazaar on Saturday the 14th “and they have asked me to ask you if you would be Father Christmas for them and give presents to the children.”

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New Beginnings January 2006 The lady said, let us write about ‘New Beginnings’, and this was agreed. So I thought it might be as well to look back at some old Beginnings first. I mean one could go on about moving house to foreign climes, or getting married (again!), or starting a new job, or spring arriving after a hard winter and snowdrops and daffodils pushing their little heads through the hard snow covered ground, or going through a messy divorce, or a bereavement, and having to take stock of ones life and put all that is past aside, and start all over again , but then I thought it would be a good idea to look back at ‘New Beginnings’ I have used for some of my own, or even other peoples, stories, and see what evolved from those. So here goes:‘Dear Anne’, this was my first attempt at creative writing and was a letter to say I didn’t think I should join her group as I had never written fiction, but I liked the people. Not a good excuse because I am still here.

It was an old friend from my young railway days who suggested I travel on the Orient Express. This was ‘Beginning number 2’ and opened up the opportunity to tell about the Orient Express.

Let us write about ‘SPACE’, the lady said was the next one. Plenty of room there for expansion. But I finished on a philosophical note about ‘seeing with our ears, and writing with our thoughts’. That doesn’t inspire me now.

‘Dennis wandered about the flat feeling completely and utterly bored’, was the beginning of a ‘Lonely Hearts Advert’ and was pure fiction. And hopefully they both lived happily ever after. (How fictitious can you get?) If Dennis was bored so might be the reader.

Then came a series of other stories, the best beginning of which was ‘Henry hauled on his trousers, nearly falling over in the process, as the clamour of the alarm clock thundered into his brain like a banshee. . . . . .’ I could perhaps have a ‘New Beginning’ where ‘Henry wrenched OFF his trousers’ but that route may not be in the best of taste for our lady readers Later my first murder story started with ‘Oh but Daddy you promised’, which as an opening line had possibilities – but perhaps a bit specialised?

As the stories went on, so more beginnings emerged. ‘What are you doing a week on Saturday?’ was a surprise invitation to a wedding. My daughters!

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‘Old Tom woke with a start as the front door gave an unaccustomed clatter . . .’ was a good beginning for a Father Christmas story and not once did I have to say ‘Yah Bunkum’. And then the last one began with ‘It all started about twelve years ago whilst watching the birds on the peanut feeder’. Not a bad beginning but the end had absolutely nothing to do with this beginning.

So how do other peoples’ stories start? Well there is one book that most people have on their shelves that starts, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’, but I know of few people who have actually read the whole story. The book, however, has led to more debates, and even wars, than any other book one could mention. It has also led to many ‘New Beginnings’.

I don’t think I could improve upon this one so let me look a bit further down the literary spectrum.

‘James McFadden died in March 1905 when he was forty-seven years old. He was riding in the Driffield Point-to-Point’, is the opening line in Nevil Shute’s ‘A Town Like Alice’ and contains a whole raft of information in a mere 22 words.

The book, one of fourteen of his at the time, was published in 1950 and has been made into a film and a television series. As all of us will have heard of the author, without singling him out from the millions of authors before or since, but it can be said to be an opening line worthy of examination.

We don’t know at the outset who James McFadden was, or how he relates to the story, but we know he was born in 1858, and became a reasonably, competitive, horseman. He therefore had plenty of money to be able to indulge his sport in those days, when only the gentry could afford to do such things. We, therefore, know a lot more about the gentleman, for that is probably what he was, than the words themselves convey. Beyond these facts, however, we need to read further.

But those 22 words have captured our imagination and perhaps this is why it is a good beginning; and is probably a ‘New Beginning’, since Mr Shute is unlikely to have used it before in another book.

Without looking too deeply into the literacy spectrum, Jack Higgins is another author whose opening lines may be worthy of inspection. ‘When the Land Rover turned the corner at the end of the street, Kelly was passing the church of the Holy Name’. An intriguing beginning if you like reading fictitious adventure stories about goodies and baddies. Kelly was probably Irish and obviously trying to keep out of sight of the law (in the land Rover). We expect that, as he is outside a Catholic church, (Church of the Holy Name) he is likely to go inside.

People in Land Rovers rarely go into churches unless running away from or chasing someone. And Kelly doesn’t want to be followed. From the first line, or 45

‘New Beginning’, the tone of the whole book, or story, has thus been set; Very intriguing.

Dick Francis, another ‘who-done-it writer’, has the same ability with a ‘New Beginning’. ‘I had told the drivers never on any account to pick up a hitchhiker but of course one day they did, and by the time they reached my house he was dead’. The mind boggles about what happened in between and, of course, we want to read more to see why a hitchhiker found himself dead.

Dan Brown is a ‘New Beginning’ for me. I was given ‘The Davinci Code’ for Christmas and Dan Brown is described as a ‘New York Times Best Seller’. He is also a graduate of two English Colleges where he taught English and Creative Writing. He should therefore be well qualified to write ‘New Beginnings’. The opening lines of his book ‘Angels and Demons’ may, however, have the opposite effect and put some readers off reading further. I quote; ‘Physicist Leonardo Vetro smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own. He stared up in terror at the dark figure looming over him “What do you want,” he gasped through parched lips.’ The next few lines are equally torrid.

So what is all this leading up to you may ask? The answer, of course, is that if you have picked up a book because you like the author, or the title, or the cover (even if it is a lurid one), then you are likely to read at least the first line to find out if you are likely to read the book; so, with the possible exception of Dan Brown, if it works for the authors I have mentioned then perhaps it should work for us all and we should give more thought to the opening lines or the ‘New Beginnings’.

Which makes me realise that one of the best first lines or ‘New Beginnings’, I can recall for any budding writer or reader, is the one we have all read at some time in our lives, You know, the one that goes:‘ONCE UPON A TIME . . .’

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A Day in the Life of a King Charles Spaniel February 2006 My name is Annie and I am a brown and white King Charles Spaniel bitch. That means I am a female dog! I think I am about nine years old. Some of the humans that only have two legs (I believe they are called ‘people’), say I am a ‘Cavalier’ but I think they are just trying to be superior because a long time ago King Charles’ soldiers were called Cavaliers because they had round heads, or wore round hats or something. But maybe I’m getting them mixed up because I don’t really know what a hat is as I don’t wear one. In fact I don’t wear anything at all, except a nice brown and white fur coat that seems to keep me warm when it is cold outside and cool when it is warm, or hot, outside.

I live with a lady and a man in a place that they call ‘home’ which is nice and warm, and where I have a basket to sleep in. Every day I am able to go into the open air where there are trees and shrubs and other plants and I can run about on green stuff called ‘grass’ and play with things called ‘birds’ which are a bit dull really. They don’t play fair, because every time I get near to them they jump into the air and go away. I think it is called ‘flying’. They seem to be able to fly everywhere these birds. The lady I live with puts food out for these birds and lots of them come and eat it where I am playing. Most of the food is put high up on a tree out of my reach but some times it is put, or falls, on to the ground. One of the things I like to do is eat the bird food off the ground but most of it is not very nice and my lady gets cross if I eat this and she shouts and says I will get fat. I normally get a bowl full of food all to myself that the lady puts near to my basket. But she only does this late in the day when I am very hungry. I do wish she would give me some two or three times a day. But maybe this is what she means when she says I will get fat. What is fat? And why can’t I get it? They are very confusing these people. But they are quite nice to me most of the time.

Every now and again the lady and the man that look after me take me in a nice warm thing they call a ‘car’ that moves quite fast when we go away from the place where my basket is. I like going in the car because I can sleep on a lovely cushiony thing behind the two people and wake up in a completely different place from where we started. Sometimes they get out of the car and tell me to look after it and walk away. How can I look after it? All I can do is look after them as they walk away. They are confusing these people. Sometimes my lady and the man stay away for ages and I think it is a good job I am happy being asleep all the time. But it is a nice comfortable car and the cushiony thing is better than the basket I have at home. Sometime there are other cars next to the one I am in and there have been times when there has been another dog in one of them. These dogs often create a lot of noise at being left and leap all about their car and bark. What is the use of doing that when they have a lovely car to sleep 47

in? Maybe they are jealous because my car is nicer than theirs. It is nice though when my people come back and make the car move away. The rocking motion is much nicer than when there is another dog in the next car jealously barking its head off.

I do enjoy going out with my two people in the car but I also like being at home with the lady that looks after me because two times each day she fixes a coloured thing on to the leather thing I wear round my neck and takes me off to where there is lots of lovely smells left by other creatures that have four legs like me.

The smells are often so nice and exciting that my lady gets cross with me and pulls hard on the thing round my neck. She doesn’t realise just how lovely some of the smells are. I have got quite friendly with some of the other dogs that we meet when we are out, and which leave some of these lovely smells, but they are all very different. In fact I don’t understand why they are all called ‘dogs’ like me, because some of them are very much bigger than me and all different colours.

There is one great big ‘dog’ that we meet often when my lady and me go out on the grass and his name is ‘Toby’ and I don’t like him much. He keeps trying to sniff my back legs and he is very rough. He frightens me a bit. It think he is called a ‘Rough Collie’; not because he is rough with me but because he has a very long light brown and white coat, and I do wish he would leave me alone.

Whenever he comes near me I have to sit down to stop him sniffing me. A lot of the male dogs seem to want to do this and it can be quite nice, but not when Toby does it. I am glad when his people take him to a different place.

Very often while we are out, having what my people call ‘walkies’, my lady will unfasten the coloured thing from my neck and let me run off on my own. This is much better than when I’m tied up and walking on the hard black stuff, with my lady’s legs next to me and noisy cars whizzing past, for I can sniff away to my hearts content and find all sorts of tasty bits to eat. There is one place we go where there are a lot of holes in the ground with peculiar creatures with long back legs and long ears. They seem to be able to eat the green stuff called grass but they are not very sociable. As soon as any of them see me they are off like rabbits. Funny that! They never want to stay and talk.

There are other creatures with four legs like me that never stay and talk. Much bigger than me with long spindly legs and gee can they run! I’ve never caught one yet but it is fun trying, even if it is exhausting. Once I chased one of these creatures that had hurt its leg and couldn’t run very fast. I nearly caught up with him and could see that he had two huge sets of horns on his head. I realised that this thing could hurt me if I caught up with him so I let him get away. It was fun though and worth the slap I got from my lady who was cross that I had run so far. It was nice to get home when it was nearly dark and curl up in my basket and go back to sleep.

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They have a funny system this lady and man I live with. When they have been sitting and watching a big noisy lighted box at the end of the day they decide to do what I have been doing most of the time. They have a thing called ‘bed’ in another room in the home and they send me outside to run around the grass in the dark. There aren’t any birds then but they tell me I am a good girl and leave me in my basket until it is time to wake up again. I don’t know what they do after they go to this bed thing! Maybe they go to sleep because unlike me they don’t do that during the day!

Peculiar creatures these ‘people’.

An Interrupted Journey (The Plan Was... ) See P. 52 March 2006 The man in the astrakhan coat was big; very big, in every way. He stood about 1.9 meters (that’s over 6ft 3 in old units), weighed over 95 kilos with huge shoulders and looked the sort of man who did not like people getting in his way.

His face was red and bad tempered and he flung a few notes at the taxi driver with an exasperated grunt, which probably meant he was late for his check in time and not at all happy with the way the taxi driver had handled the traffic. He picked up his large suitcase as though it was empty and stormed off towards the check-in desks. I hoped he wasn’t on my flight or was travelling business class, because anybody next to him in an economy seat was in for an uncomfortable trip. I followed him at a more sedate pace and watched people move to one side as he passed.

There were four queues at the check-in desks for the Moscow flight and I made a point of joining the one that he didn’t. I presumed he was on his way back to Russia, the astrakhan coat and arrogant bearing, he had looked like a Russian from the moment I had noticed him. Russians all seem to be big and those able to go on business trip abroad have something about them. Arrogance is an attitude that I find most objectionable and Ivan had it in spades.

There was a family group in front of me, all big, but they had obviously been visiting the Paris shops and had enjoyed it. Their luggage had the look of people who had indulged themselves and I wondered if the stuffed owl and a big green lampshade that the mother was carrying were going to be allowed in the cabin.

I had a sudden thought of the reaction if Big Ivan and the green lampshade were going to have to share seats. There isn’t much room in a Tupolev 111 so if they all had to sit in one row it could be hilarious.

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Gradually we all moved forward towards the check-in desks hitching our bags along the floor. I was two away from mine when Ivan in the next row reached his ticket clerk. He lifted his huge bag onto the shelf and indicated that he would be taking it in as cabin baggage as he passed over his ticket and passport. From the conversation between them, the ticket clerk in French and Ivan in a guttural mixture of Russian and English, I gathered the bag was too big to go in the cabin and must be put on the belt to be weighed and go in the hold. Ivan exploded and I had to admire the ticket clerk for holding his ground and insisting, in French, that the bag be weighed. He must have pushed a hidden button under his counter because from somewhere behind him a uniformed official appeared. The situation had reached an interesting point.

By now the family in front of me had reached the ticket desk and were having a similar discussion about the owl and the green lampshade. Again, I had a laugh to myself about an owl and a pussy cat but I realised that this would mean nothing to either the mother or the French clerk, as it certainly wouldn’t translate into French or Anglo/Russian. I kept my thoughts to myself.

From somewhere behind me there was another commotion and I turned round to see what it was all about. A late arrival in the form of an entourage centred on a large busty lady, who could have been an opera singer, and a man with a cello or double base case had joined the queue next to mine. My God, I thought, this is going to put the cat among the pigeons if they want that thing to go in the cabin.

Then I realised that most musicians usually have to book extra seats for their instruments as they can’t risk the temperature changes in the hold affecting their expensive charges. Ivan and this opera singer will make good travelling companions I thought, particularly if he has to put his bag in the hold. And there won’t be much room if they are in adjoining seats. I turned round to see how Ivan and the Russian family were getting on.

Ivan and the French official had, evidently, found a language they could communicate in and it looked as though the question of excess baggage charges had entered the equation, as Ivan had taken his wallet out and the ticket clerk was scribbling some form of ticket. The family in front of me had also reached some form of compromise and the green lampshade was being put into a large airport plastic bag with a special label on it and was disappearing up the conveyor belt.

Their boarding passes and tickets were duly passed over to them and the family moved off. The stuffed owl I noticed was also in an airport plastic bag but a smaller one and was being carried on by one of the children. It was now my turn.

I moved up to the ticket counter and put my passport and tickets on the shelf in front of the clerk. I put my single overnight bag on the conveyor belt and waited for my simple transaction to be completed and my boarding pass to be issued.

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The ticket clerk seemed to be having difficulty with my diplomatic passport.

“Une moment Monsieur!” he said as he slid off his seat and went behind the screens with my passport. Oh my God, what now, I thought as I tried to figure out what could have caught his attention! After all I wasn’t on Foreign Office business in France, just passing through on my way to Moscow.

The clerk emerged from the screens accompanied by a tall man in a dark grey suit who was holding my passport.

“My name is Pierre Leblanc, Monsieur Bollinger. Would you come with me please? Your case will be brought through.” We walked along the check-in desks and into a room at the end of the row. “I am sorry to startle you Monsieur Bollinger,” he said, “but we have had some communications for you from your office. Please sit down.” I did as requested and he handed me my passport and an envelope bearing the crest of the British Embassy in Paris. It was addressed to me so I slit it open. Inside were some surprising instructions. It seemed that the Russian businessman I was on my way to meet in Moscow was being deported from Russia and I was to escort him back to England to face trial: I would be accompanied by a Russian policeman and one of our Scotland Yard police inspectors.

I thanked Monsieur LeBlanc and asked him if he knew of my orders and where I was to pick up my new travelling companions. Monsieur LeBlanc said he would take me to them and our plane would be leaving in an hour. The airport loudspeakers were playing the James Bond melody ‘From Russia with Love’.

Very apt I thought if somewhat ironic.

The walk through the back corridors of the airport seemed endless but eventually we reached a door watched over by two gendarmes. They saluted Monsieur LeBlanc and one of them unlocked the door.

As I walked in, imagine my surprise to see Ivan, the big Russian I had seen in the airport concourse, and two late arrivals, one of whom was handcuffed, presumably these were the Scotland Yard man and his prisoner. They were enjoying the hospitality of the French police or at least two of them were. The buffet that had been laid out nearby looked a lot more appetizing than one would have done in a cell in England.

I introduced myself and picked up a sandwich. Evidently, Ivan, like me, had had his orders changed and was not going on the plane to Moscow, so maybe after all I was going to have to share a seat on an aircraft with the big Russian. But not going in the direction either of us had first imagined.

I hoped he didn’t snore!

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The Plan Was...

A number of words had been chosen for inclusion in a story. Exasperation, Astrakhan, And, Owl, Singer, Family, A green lampshade, Melody, Cat. These words are included above in Bold Type in ‘An Interrupted Journey’.

A Problem of Inheritance Tax - A Bit of Bad Timing March 2006 I was stunned. The man on the other side of the desk had no doubt seen the expression on someone’s face before, as I am sure this wasn’t the first time he had had to tell someone that they had been mentioned in a Will. But £480,000!

My God, that’s nearly half a million quid. And to think I was the last living relative of dear old Auntie Margaret who had died somewhere up in Scotland that I had never heard of. The solicitor was still talking, something about costs and inheritance tax but I could hardly take it in. It had all happened so suddenly and I never knew Auntie Margaret had two ha’pennies to rub together. Maybe she had won the pools or something.

The letter had arrived at my home in Brighton about a month ago whilst I was in Germany and because it looked ‘official’ my landlady, Mrs Jennings, had just put it behind the clock until I got back. There it had lain like a catalogue from John Lewis’s until last week. Mrs Jennings had been very apologetic when she gave it to me. She had completely forgotten it until the clock stopped and she had had to put a new battery in it. ‘I do ‘ope it ain’t bad news,’ she had said ‘but wiv you being away, like, I didn’t fink ter send it to yer office’. ‘No that’s alright Mrs Jennings’, I had told her ‘I’m sure I can explain to whoever it is that my work had prevented me from getting this’.

The letter was from a firm of solicitors in Peebles that had asked me to contact them ‘as we have some information for you that we are sure you will be pleased to receive’, it had said. I had called them a day or two later to apologise for not contacting them earlier and they told me that my aunt had died and I was a beneficiary under her will. They refused to give me details and asked that I visit them in their Office. The first thing I had to do was find out where Kirkton Manor was in Peeblesshire and how the devil to get there. I reached for my battered road atlas.

I smiled wryly as I noticed that page 76 was in pristine condition; sure sign that I had never been that far north, and found that Peebles was in fact a small town about 20 odd miles south of Edinburgh. It wasn’t a county at all, it was in an 52

area called ‘Scottish Borders’, and Kirkton Manor was a village a few miles further south. A check with Brighton Airport told me that Ryanair flew to Edinburgh twice a week. So it looked like a flight and a hire car would see me there and back in the day. I did wonder if the hundred quid or so would be worth spending to find out what Auntie Margaret had left me. Little did I know!

So here I was, sitting in a village solicitor’s office, surrounded by dusty files from way back, maybe even back to the battles against the English and two thousand foot hills gazing down on all sides. Or are they called ‘mountains’ when they get that high? Kirkton Manor was a nice little village and Auntie Margaret had probably been very happy living here. Maybe, I too, was going to be very happy staying here for a few days. It certainly didn’t look as though I was going to get back to Brighton that night after finding out I was nearly half a million quid, less inheritance tax, better off. At least I owed it to Auntie Margaret to see where she had been living for her last how many years and try and find out if she had any friends I should know.

There was a lot for me to think about now that I was going to have to plan my life differently and Kirkton Manor might be just the place to do it. The one thing I was going to need was a lot of advice about what to do with the money. After all when your doctor has just told you that the lump in your back is malignant and your life expectancy was to be measured in months rather than years, there was little point in giving Auntie Margaret’s money to people who would have to pay 40% tax on it if I died within seven years. I had to find out if she had had any charities she would like me to pass it on to.

Beneficiaries to charities are exempt from inheritance tax!

A Strange Meeting April 2006 She was looking very apprehensive on the platform at Euston, and peering around as though she was hoping a friend would be coming soon. As I approached, she looked at my face and must have reached a decision.

“Excuse me,” she said tentatively, “is this the train for Manchester? I can’t find a porter anywhere to ask, and the signs are so confusing.” She was a few years older than me and must have thought I looked her sort of person and not in a hurry like most of the men with brief cases rushing past her. Maybe she thought I had a kind face or looked as though I knew my way around the station or something.

“As far as I know it is,” I replied “it’s the one I shall be getting on and I am making for Manchester. Can I help you at all?”

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“Oh, thank you!” she said. “I’m so glad. It is a long time since I used the train and things have changed so much.”

We made our way along the platform to a door about half way up the train and I offered to lift her small suitcase aboard. She seemed relieved that I was ‘looking after her’, as it were, and I realised that we would probably find ourselves becoming travelling companions for the next hour or so. Fortunately, the train was not crowded and a table with four seats was free.

“Shall we sit here,” I asked, presuming we would be travelling together. “Do you like to face forward or with your back to the engine, as we used to say?”

She took the latter as I expected and I put our cases behind the seats. I took the window seat opposite to her and put my newspaper on the table between us.

“Are you just visiting Manchester,” I asked by way of conversation, “or returning home there?” As she had claimed to be travelling by train for the first time for ages I presumed she was going for a visit and it seemed as good an opening as any. If we were to spend some time together I felt that an exchange of personal details was as good a way of any of putting her at ease. She evidently felt the same and by the time the train was a mile or so on its way through the back streets of Camden and Kilburn we were chatting away like old friends.

I told her a bit about my business trip to Manchester, the city I was born in, and learned that she was from Wembley and on her way to see her daughter who had recently married an older man and now lived in Old Trafford. She didn’t know where Old Trafford was although she thought her daughter’s new husband had some connection with the area as a boy. ‘Old Trafford is the place where I grew up’, I told her ‘but I haven’t been back there for years’ and from then on we were soon getting to know one another very well. ‘It would be odd if you and he knew one another’, my companion remarked and I must admit the thought had crossed my mind.

By this time the train was approaching Milton Keynes and the way we were talking would confound any impression that foreigners have of the English of us being cold and unfriendly. She told me that her husband had died a few years ago and that she had a wide circle of long-term friends nearby who she saw quite often. Her story was not unlike my own except that I had travelled all over the country and when our daughter was fifteen we had lived in sixteen different places. Most had been in and around the Manchester area as my wife was also from there and it was where we were married. We had, however, also lived overseas, and for the past fifteen years we had been in Hertfordshire.

The drinks trolley came round somewhere near Daventry bringing very welcome coffee and cakes, which I bought for us both. The English countryside looked absolutely at its best in the late spring sunshine with a pale green haze surrounding 54

the new buds on all the trees. This stretch of the railway runs parallel to the M1 for a few miles near Watford Gap and it always gives me pleasure on a train to visualise the frowns of concentration on the faces of the hundreds of car and truck drivers on this section of England’s road network. How often have I been in their place trying to decide which lane to be in and whether to pull off for a comfort break at the service area. If there is one advantage of rail travel this has to be it; letting the train driver pass all that traffic at about 100 miles an hour whilst its passengers sit quietly by drinking their coffee; each with their own thoughts and resting from any problems they may have until they reach the next stop. Of course, there is always an exception to that rule as a man a few seats away illustrated to everyone’s annoyance by carrying on a loud conversation with his office on his mobile phone. As if it is anyone else’s concern that one of his trucks has been held up in Watford with some mechanical trouble. Why do we all have to listen to it?

My reverie was once more interrupted as Betty, for that was the name of my new companion, broke in to comment on a very colourful narrow boat on the canal alongside the line. The boat-man and his wife indulging in an even more restful mode of transport than ours. Probably doing no more than four or five miles an hour and surrounded by birds singing and the gently chug chug of his diesel engine.

The black Labrador didn’t have a care in the world either, laid out fast asleep on the deck. Wait till they turn the next bend in the canal I thought. There is a lock just round there and I bet he makes his wife get out to deal with the lock gates.

These sights and thoughts went by in a flash as our train thundered northwards and we’ll never know what happened when the boat reached the lock.

Betty and I were enjoying one another’s company like two people who had known each other for years. There was often times when a companionable silence can be more enjoyable than having to make the effort of small talk and Betty and I had reached that stage. Her daughter and mine were both about the same age and both only children married to older men. We had discussed the difficulties that this had brought but concluded that maybe the added security for both girls, had offset the need for excitement and the trauma often associated with couples of similar ages. Many marriages broke up these days because partners of similar age groups hadn’t the tenacity to stick together when things went pear-shaped between them.

These trips into philosophy had for some reason become easy between Betty and me, perhaps because we were just strangers who had met and got on well together without the need for any long lasting feelings getting in the way. We had touched on music and sport without too much enthusiasm and my newspaper still sat unopened on the table between us. We had not had to resort to politics or religion, 55

the two topics that could very easily have caused difficulties. We had talked about our families and the differences between the north and the south of England and the differing attitudes of people from these parts of the country, but these hadn’t created any discord. Maybe because I had lived away from the north for so long the differences didn’t matter. Not like with my sister who was very touchy about being called ‘A Northerner’.

Before we knew it Rugby, Stafford and Stoke on Trent had come and gone and the train was now approaching Manchester. Betty’s daughter was coming to Piccadilly station to meet her mother and change onto the new tram/train system that would get them to Old Trafford. My dismal business meeting in the Midland Hotel would be a very dull affair compared with her family meeting with her new sonin-law. I wonder, I thought, if I shall ever meet this nice homely lady again?

Very soon we were stopping at Manchester Piccadilly and Betty and I were walking down the platform. As we neared the ticket barrier Betty said “Oh there is my Sheila, and it looks as though her husband is with her. Do let me introduce them to you.”

We gave up our tickets, and after the hugs and kisses Betty said “Sheila, this gentleman has been kind enough to look after me from Euston. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten his name,” and to me, “this is my daughter Sheila and her husband Donald Gregory who live in Old Trafford.”

“Hello Donald,” I said lamely. “Remember me? I think we went to Seymour Park Infants School together.”

The Mango (written from a woman’s point of view) May 2006 There is only one real way to eat a mango; at least when you are a little girl between five and eight years old and you have never seen one before. Of course, when you are this age there are many, many things you have never seen before but mangoes are among the more delicious things and the way to eat one is fun.

I had my first mango when I was about five and we had just moved to a tropical island in the West Indies. Even Mummy and Daddy had never seen a mango then and we all had our first one when we were taken to a beach for a picnic.

The beach was only a little way from the road where we had parked our car and although the sun was very hot, we were sitting under some strange trees that I 56

found out much later were called coconut palm trees. They were very tall and had big fan like bunches of leaves high up at the top of smooth round trunks. In these clumps of leaves there were big clusters of funny brown things that we were told were coconuts. Each one was about the size of a football. They are normally smooth and shiny green until they ripen and are ready to drop. The lady we were with said we really shouldn’t sit under the clumps of coconuts at certain times of the year because when they dropped off they could land on your head and hurt you.

The beach we were at had lovely silvery sand and the sea was nice and warm, not like the sea I was once taken to before we left England. There it was quite cold and you had to run about in it to keep warm. But here the sand was very hot and the sea was warm and tickled my toes as the waves broke over my feet. This was when I was called to come and have some mango that had been peeled for me. It was the biggest fruit I think I had ever seen and I needed both hands to hold it. When I bit into it, the soft yellow inside was so nice and sweet and the juice ran all down my chin and dripped on to my tummy. It was a good job I only had on a pair of frilly knickers and was standing in the lovely warm sea otherwise the juice would have made a real mess of any clothes I was wearing. In the middle of this mango was a big hard stone that was covered with the stringy part of the fruit that got in between my teeth. The one I had was a big ‘Julie’ mango that was very nice and soft and tasty and I finished up getting all sticky and with juice running all down my chin. I was able to just sit down on the sand in the sea and rinse it all off. It’s funny that the big coconuts hanging from the palm trees and the mangoes that I had just eaten are so different. They both grow on trees and both are called ‘fruit’.

This is what I meant when I started this story ‘that there is only one way to eat a mango. To have nothing on except your knickers, and be standing in the lovely warm sea in the tropics and letting the juice run all down your chin into the sea.’

So that was my story when I was about five or six having my first mango. Now I am nearly thirty, married with a two- year old upstairs in bed and serving mango to a group of friends as a dessert after a dinner party. Now we have a thinbladed, saw edged, knife in the kitchen and my husband slices each side of the mango off the stone. The fruit side of each half is scored into half inch cubes and the skin then pressed up to present the cubes of mango to be eaten demurely with a spoon. It really is a delicious fruit and an easily prepared dessert.

It isn’t as much fun as standing in a warm sea with only your knickers on, and letting the juice run down your chin. I’m a bit too old for that now but it still would be nice!

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The New People June 2006 I was sitting on the seat outside the Horse and Jockey, when this huge removal van came round the corner nearly demolishing the lamppost in the process. We get many large, some would say too large, lorries in the village these days but this they tell me is the way of progress and we have to keep up with ‘Euro Regs’.

Why our tiny village has to go along with laws made in Brussels, just because the road transport lobby wants to deliver things in 40 tonne, 18 wheeled trucks, defeats me. Why can’t they have motorway transfer points where they can offload into small distribution vans, for village deliveries?

But that pet hate of mine mustn’t get me steamed up on a nice sunny day like this. Anyway, the pub will be opening in a few minutes and a nice cool glass of something and a natter with Nick is something to look forward to. I haven’t seen the old devil for over a week now so he should have something to talk about.

While I mused the day away waiting for the pub to open, the removal van had stopped outside the empty house on the other side of the green and a smart looking new Volvo had pulled in behind. It was only then that I noticed that the truck had the name ‘Marshalls Movers of Chorlton-cum-Hardy’ painted on the side. Good Lord I thought, that’s the same people that moved us here twenty three years ago. I wonder if it’s anyone we knew? A man got out of the Volvo and went round to the removal van driver and they both walked up the short path to the house door of number 34. A well to do lady also got out of the car and stood stretching and looking out at the scene she would be looking at every morning from now on. ‘I bet the view here is a darn sight better than looking across Chorltonville Green’, I said to myself. ‘And this pub is a lot better than that run down Old Kings arms that my Father-in-law used to drink at’. Must have nearly bought the place the time he spent in it.

At that point there was a rattle and bang behind me as the pub door was unlocked and Steve, the landlord, looked out at the day.

“Morning Joe,” he said in his usual friendly fashion “hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

“No,” I replied, “I’m in no hurry to try that expensive brew you serve here.

Anyway I’m waiting for Nick. He said he’d be here soon so you can pour us two pints in a few minutes.”

My neighbour, friend and drinking companion, Nick Overend, came round the corner a minute or two later, bang on cue. He’s very rarely late when there’s a drink to be shared on a warm summers’ day.

“Morning Nick,” I said and received his usual friendly reply as though we 58

hadn’t seen one another for at least a year. “Shall we sit outside? There appears to be someone moving in to thingumy’s old house on the green.” We got our drinks and settled down to watch.

There was something vaguely familiar about the lady I had seen getting out of the Volvo but it was too far away to see her properly. There was a rather large brown leather sofa going up the drive and the two men carrying it made it look quite heavy. Then a sideboard and a number of boxes, dining room chairs and tables followed, and a large double bed.

“Oh good,” said Nick, “at least they sleep together and they don’t look decrepit.” Television set, more boxes and more of the usual paraphernalia of living all went into the house. The activity then seemed to stop for a while and the moving men started shutting the van doors. Out of the house came the driver and we had our last look at the Chorlton-cum-Hardy circus moving away from the green.

“Wonder what they are like?” commented Nick “They looked too old to have kids at home and I didn’t see any bikes coming out of the van,” and with that we got back to our own affairs and started putting the rest of the world to rights.

From time to time we looked over at the house but nothing moved as the new people went about the traumatic business of moving in to a new home.

Suddenly, the front door opened and the man and his wife came out of the house and started walking across the green towards us.

“Looks as though we are about to find out who they are any minute,” said Nick as the couple came nearer, obviously coming for lunch. The man, about 5’-9” tall, slim and slightly balding, had shed his suit in favour of a pair of casual trousers and shirt and his wife, we gave them the benefit of a legitimate relationship, had swapped the skirt and blouse for a pair of trousers, was quite attractive. In fact, many would say very attractive, in a mature sort of way.

There was something about her that was vaguely familiar, and I again began to wonder if they were people I used to know. My wife and I had been married in St Clements Church in Chorlton-cum-Hardy and she had spent most of her early life growing up there. We had done most of our ‘courting’ (there’s an old fashioned word for you) in the area until we married and moved to Sale in Cheshire.

They reached the door of the pub and smiled as Nick and I said good morning to them, Nick added welcome to North Crawley and they both walked inside. We gave them a few minutes to see the place and chat to Steve and then I couldn’t wait any longer. I followed them in to get some more drinks. Nick followed as I knew he would.

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Nick is the friendly type to make anybody feel welcome and he couldn’t resist getting to know who they were. I, too, was eager to talk to people from my home town.

Steve was busy talking to the man about the lunch menu whilst his wife had found herself a chair at the table in the window and had a glass of white wine in front of her. I walked over to introduce myself.

“Fancy you using the same people to move you here as my wife and I did twenty odd years ago. Not many people down here will have even heard of Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Are you from there?” I asked.

“Almost,” the lady said with a smile. “We lived on Longford Road just outside Chorlton and I’ve just realised that I think I know you! When we were walking across the green I said to my husband, Harry, one of those men on the seat looks just like a boy I used to know back home” “I had a similar feeling myself,” I said. “Did you by any chance grow up in Old Trafford?”

“I certainly did,” she replied “and it has just dawned on me “you’re Joe Wardle, aren’t you? We lived next door to you in Kings Road!” The world stood still for a few hours as realisation sunk in.

“Oh my Lord,” I said lamely. “You must be Alice Needham.”

“That’s right,” she said with a smile. “I never have forgiven you for not marrying me fifty five years ago.”

My head reeled. Questions flashed through my mind. My first girlfriend was going to come and live nearly next door again; and me a widower. What was it going to be like with all the memories it would bring of all the things we did with one another when we were teenagers???

“Does your husband know who his neighbour is going to be?” I asked.

The Hooks July 2006 Fred Baxter, or ‘Freddie’ as he was called at school, was not a happy child at the grammar school in 1939 after the government decided that the school was to be evacuated away from Manchester. He liked where he lived and was able to cycle to school, so the thought of being taken away from home to somewhere called Macclesfield frightened him a bit. They said it was to remove the children away from the threat of being bombed if the Germans decided to attack the big industrial estate of Trafford Park, which was only a mile away from the grammar school.

Fred’s father worked in Trafford Park at one of the big engineering works so why weren’t they evacuating him too? was a question Fred wanted answered.

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Life was simple for ten and eleven year old children in those days and the thought of his father, and maybe his mother too,for that matter, being killed in an air raid was not something that was talked about.

But then, the whole school was going and he would have plenty of his friends around him. ‘Look at it as a big adventure’, the teachers had said. ‘Macclesfield is a lovely town out in the country surrounded by fields and hills’, they said to try and get the children to look forward to the enforced evacuation. That Macclesfield was only about thirty miles away by train was little consolation.

Thirty miles sounded as though it was on the other side of the country.

It was some years later that he discovered that Macclesfield was, in fact, only fifteen miles away from Old Trafford as a plane flies, and a wayward bomb could just as easily land on Macclesfield as on the factories of Manchester. When he was about twenty-five, and had been able to buy a car, Fred found that there was a lovely little pub on the outskirts of Macclesfield where they could drive to for a quiet drink in the evenings. A fat lot of protection that would have been in the event of an air raid!

But evacuated they were in 1939 and Fred, and his friend Harry, found themselves billeted on a family living in a house not unlike the ones they lived in, in Old Trafford. The family they now lived with were very nice and fed them quite well in spite of the rationing. Mr and Mrs Barlow had a three bedroom house and Mrs Barlow’s aged father slept in one of them and the boys shared the third, smaller bedroom. It was a bit of a squeeze but the boys were quite comfortable.

The boys were both in the same class at school and took part in most of the school activities. They went for walks and played in the fields along the river Bollin and even discovered how to smoke cigarettes. Very illegal in those days but all part of growing up.

Life at the Macclesfield Grammar School was not unlike their own school in Stretford but a lot more crowded and some lessons had to be shared or run in other schools nearby. Fred and his friend Harry were, fairly happy, but Fred missed his Mum and Dad and in those days telephones were a rarity so he couldn’t phone them.

Freddie Baxter was only a small child and at the age of ten only three foot five and a half inches tall. He always mentioned the half-inch when asked how tall he was, as it made him feel taller. But one of the things that made him very unhappy in Mrs Barlow’s house was the fact that he couldn’t reach the hooks in the bedroom he shared with his friend Harry. All the hooks that had been put in the room were out of his reach. Harry was very helpful but it was rotten always having to ask him for help to get something out of a pocket or off his shorts. He 61

was always very conscious of his height but not being able to hang his coat up on his own began to get him down. He started to withdraw into himself and become morose. It was quite sometime before Mrs Barlow, began to notice.

Mrs Barlow was a kind person who quite enjoyed having the two boys to look after, as she was unable to have children of her own. Her husband worked at a factory near Stoke-on-Trent so was out quite a lot and not much company for her. The boys gave her a part of life that she missed and after a few days she talked to her doctor about Freddie’s changed behaviour; also to the school secretary. It was, however, quite some time before Fred could be persuaded to tell anybody of the reason for his unhappiness. And even then the real reason was not evident until the school secretary talked to Harry one afternoon.

“Oh, he’s just self conscious that he can’t reach any of the hooks in the bedroom to hang his clothes on, without my help,” said Harry when the secretary asked him. “He’s just upset he’s so small.”

The school secretary passed this on to Mrs Barlow right away and she in turn told her husband. Within days Freddie’s problem was solved. Mr Barlow was able to get a few hooks from near where he worked and the next weekend screwed them up on the wall near Fred’s bed. The effect was miraculous. Being able to reach his own coat without asking Harry to help changed Fred almost overnight and he once more became the bright and happy little boy the Barlow’s had first known. And all because Fred was now independent of help when he needed to get things out of his coat pockets.

In those days child psychology was probably unknown, at least of the sort that would have identified Fred Baxter’s feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. Even today, it could take some time if the child in question was shy and unable to talk about things that bothered him. The evacuation system of 1939/40 created a lot of upset in many families. Some children had happy times and prospered from their experiences. Some were not so fortunate and couldn’t wait to get back home to their parents and the love and affection they were used to. Today there is an Association of Evacuees and they have a place in the Remembrance Day Parades at the Cenotaph in London in November. They have been recognised as being a part of the wartime problems as much as the Women’s Land Army. The AFS and others.

For Fred Baxter, the effect of his height problems caused him to look the matter square in the face and he finally took a medical degree at Durham University specialising in the psychological disorders of late developers. Should you go to his consulting rooms in Harley St, just inside the door is a row of six hooks on a wooden batten mounted on the wall, four foot three inches above the floor, just to remind him of his problems as a boy!

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Silence August 2006 Silence is Golden or so it would seem But why should it be so?

Why can’t it be Green?

Why can’t it be Silver?

That’s almost as bright According to Carlyle The Swiss said it might The Swiss said that speech was a Silvery thread And Gold was the colour of Silence instead So why cannot ‘no noise’ be the colour of Green The grass makes no sound on its own, without wind Or maybe a nice shade of Yellow would do.

After all, Gold is Yellow But what about Blue?

Yes! What about blue?

As blue as the sky on a bright summers day with the birds flying high Yes! Silence is Blue has quite a nice ring And Gold after all is quite a rare thing Now most of our Silence occurs in the night With the stars in the sky and the moon shining bright 63

But that would of course mean that Silence is Black And no-one at all would put up with that Of course Silence could even be Purple or Red Or a nice shade of Aquamarine instead But whoever heard of silence is Aquamarine?

‘Tis a colour that very few people have seen The one thing that Silence could not be is Brown It is such a drab colour and could get you down So maybe it’s right to say Silence is Gold For there’s not much of either around now we’re old Bullfinch

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About Cats - Puss September 2006 We’ve got a cat! Well that’s not really true. It would perhaps be more true to say that a cat has got us.

Cats, unlike dogs, never really BELONG to anyone. They are individuals that go their own way and are quite capable of taking off on their own and turning up back at the place where their humans live, when they feel like it. This usually coincides with their appetite or hunger pangs or just when they feel that it is time they ate something.

This cat of ours is a nondescript creature with a mottled coat of brown and black that would make an ideal pattern for a military camouflaged pullover. If it lives anywhere it is in a lean-to shed in the garden. This has had the effect of her, for it is a female cat, taking over what used to be a perfectly good gardening shed on the off-chance that one day, or more usually, night she might decide to come and take up residence for a while. This she does, often in the winter, but in the summer she can usually be found under the patio decking or curled up in the garden behind a plant or a water butt until one of us has a need to do something in a flower bed or move some item of garden equipment where she has chosen to lie up; when she will dash madly past with a screech and scaring the living daylights out of us. The effect of these sleeping habits is to make the shed and areas around the water butt off-limits to humans without first looking for the creature, to make sure her high speed appearances don’t cause either of us to bang our head or overbalance. Usually accompanied by various expletives, depending on the occasion.

From this you will gather that the aforesaid beast is a feral creature or, what I was assured it to be when I first met it, ‘an outside cat’. A cat that lived outside and was not allowed, or even wanted to be allowed, inside the house.

To say it was timid would be to put it mildly. To come into the kitchen after a late night out and see its tiny face peering in through the glass panes of the kitchen door is enough to make one swear off drink for good. If I open the door, even to give it some milk, it will be off like a rocket and even if I put milk down, it refuses to come near me. This suits me down to the ground as my liking for it, is probably akin to her liking for me. Maybe this is due to the way I use to go “psshhed” whenever I was around (as long as my partner wasn’t around). As time has gone by I have realised that it has to be fed and watered now and again and human compassion has taken over, so I will feed it. She (the cat) always looks at me with suspicion when I do, as much as to ask how much cyanide I have put in her bowl.

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My partner tells me that our cat must be about ten years old as it was in residence in the garage of her cottage when she first moved into the village. Then it used to curl up on the bonnet of her old Ford Fiesta at night. There were two cats at first but the other one, a nice blue/grey male cat with big yellow eyes, didn’t appear one morning and hasn’t been seen since. Our present cat didn’t pine or anything. Maybe that’s the way with animals. Or maybe he said goodbye to her when he went off somewhere.

When my partner moved house we had a great time trying to take the cat away from the cottage. Getting her into, and then out of, a cat box wasn’t easy and locking her in the shed for a few day seemed cruel. When we let her out she went back to the cottage half a mile away and we had to go through it all over again. I think now that from time to time she goes back to the old garage for a night or two. But the man that lives there now doesn’t seem bothered if she does.

That’s what I mean about never really owning a cat. Our cat, if that is what she is, probably now has two people looking after her – us and the man at the cottage.

You may have noticed that I have not referred to our cat by a name. This is because she has never had one. It doesn’t seem to matter to her or to us. If we want her to come for some food my partner goes out and rattles the bowl and just shouts ‘PUSS’ and nine times out of ten she pleases her b….. self whether she comes or not.

Scintillate, Scintillate, Globule Vivivic How I Conjecture Your Nature Specific Gleaming Aloft in the Ether Capacious Closely Resembling a Gem, Carbonaceous October 2006 Lying on your back on the soft green grass of the South Downs near Beachy Head, or the coarse moorland grass of the Derbyshire Peak District, on a hot summer afternoon; a gentle breeze blowing in what hair you have left, and gazing up into a pure blue sky, with the odd puffy ball of a cloud far, far away, must be one of the most luxurious feelings to be had in this country. Especially when you have nothing else to do except wait for the fingers of your watch to move slowly round to somewhere near the time when you ought to move, and return home, or to a hotel for an evening meal cooked by someone else. But that is just daydreaming and something we can only do when the time and the conditions are just right.

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Of course you could be on a cruise in the Caribbean lying somnolently in a deck chair wondering if the steward over there will spot your upraised arm as you try and order another Rum Punch. Whichever turns you on gazing up into the sky under the right circumstances is mighty enjoyable any day of the week.

But what about the night? There is as much of the night to enjoy as there is of the day if you are in the right place and location. Picture a suburban patio; or better still a farmhouse garden where there is no light pollution in the sky from city street lamps to disturb the absolute blackness. A few friends laughing over a glass of your best Rioja, candles flickering in the trees and flowerbeds. The dog fast asleep on the lawn; an idyllic evening.

Sooner or later when the conversation dies for a moment some one will exclaim “Oh look, is that an aircraft or a satellite? It’s moving too fast for an aircraft.

Bet it’s a satellite. And look over there, there’s another one moving north to south. They must be satellites!”

“There’s the North Star,” exclaims the host, “so the Great Bear must be those few stars there and there.”

“Oh, and look over there,” says someone else “there’s Orion’s Belt, and that must be his sword hanging down.”

“How d’you know it’s a sword?”

“It could be!”

“That’ll do Bob,” his wife chips in “we’re all trying to be intelligent.”

And so on whilst everyone does what they used to do as children – gaze up into the night sky and wonder what it is all about. The distances involved are beyond imagination and here we are on a tiny little planet rotating once every day and taking a whole year to orbit around the sun.

No wonder someone a long time ago devised a nursery rhyme, to say to their children.

This goes: Twinkle, twinkle little star, How I wonder what you are, Up above the world so high Like a diamond in the sky.

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The Escalators of Life - A Philosophical Muse January 2007 We had just been into the shops for a quick visit on the way to some friends and agreed to meet at the escalators on the ground floor of Marks and Spencer. It was quite a convenient place to wait as there are a few seats, used mainly by husbands, as the ladies dresses (and some undresses) area is quite near. Men can idly watch their wives aimlessly wander from skirts to coats and other ladies apparel and exchange the odd comment with other abandoned men folk. If one looks the other way they can see the rest of the world approaching the escalator to go up to the first floor. One can also muse as to why the next floor up is called the ‘first’ floor when the first floor is in fact the one that one is sitting on. For some reason in England that one is called the ‘ground’ floor. That is the English for you. Looking up the escalator can also be interesting as the sight of people’s legs rising skywards can be fascinating; a sort of child’s-eye view of people.

Children must wonder from time to time why, when in a crowd, all they can see is legs and shoes and socks and such like. What they must see if they look up is anybody’s guess but then it doesn’t matter because they’re only children.

You see what I mean when I say that an escalator is a good place to sit and muse.

So there I was sitting at the bottom of an escalator in Marks and Spencer having a good muse. There was nobody else sitting down, none I knew in the ladies dress wear section, and I got to thinking how escalators sometimes control our actions. Did all the people going up this one know where they were going or had they stepped on to it just to see what was up there? When they got to the top they would be faced with two decisions, to go left into menswear or right to the bedding department or a third was to go right round the stairwell and go up to see what was on the next floor, or even back down, where they started. Life had suddenly become a matter of decisions.

Decisions, decisions. Life is always a matter of making decisions. As I sat I realised that I had always looked back on life; my life particularly and thought of it as if looking at a road map. Every now and again there had been the odd fork in the road when I could have gone left or right - done one thing or another.

Depending how wide the fork had been, determined how easy it would have been to change my mind, retrace my steps to the fork and go the other way.

Sometimes the junctions in my road of life presented a cross road or even a Tjunction. T-junctions were very difficult and once taken were not easy, or even impossible to reverse. As I got older the distance between the junctions became more frequent. In childhood a decision could be whether to sneak off school or not. Later on it became ‘shall I buy this bike or that one?’ (I shall always remember my first REAL bicycle). ‘Shall I take Alice or Betty to the dance?’ (I also 68

remember when I asked both of them to the same dance. They found out and I finished up going on my own). As an Apprentice Engineer, ‘Shall I go camping with Scouts in June or to London with other workmates’? Big decisions came later ‘Shall I marry Alice . . . or Betty’ and so on. My life looked like a Road Atlas.

Escalators have the same effect. Having taken an escalator to the floor above or below the result could influence whether you and or your wife bought a new bed or a new carpet. Which could be disastrous if you only set out to buy a new radio set? The only difference between the road map approach and the escalator effect was the speed that it happened. Escalators move fast and the electrical shop could be only a few yards from the carpets. I was having a very good muse.

By definition, an escalator is a ‘conveyor for passengers having a series of steps for ascending or descending with facilities for mounting or leaving at either end’. I like that last bit! Without those facilities at either end one would presumably have to jump on at one end and when at the other end either be flung out into space, or fall flat on your face when the step you are standing on disappears down a crack in the floor. The modern escalator is very much taken for granted these days like trains and planes and automobiles but way back in Roman, or maybe even Egyptian times, they were used for lifting large chunks of stone or quantities of materials for Pyramids and major buildings. That of course was before electricity came and did away with the need for hundreds of slaves to haul whatever it was up long slopes with ropes. Oh yes, escalators have come a long way since that first idea. But the engineering aspects are boring except to engineers. An escalator is, however, still mainly considered to be for conveying people and is, in fact, just a moving staircase.

Having recently returned from Mallorca, I must say how impressed we were with the refurbished airport facilities that have now got miles and miles (it seems) of moving walkways. From leaving your plane you can now step onto a flat escalator to move you from one end of the building to the other. Every now and again there are off-shoots to ‘gates 56, 47, toilets, restaurants etc., and finally baggage claim, where you are once more forced back on to your own legs. All very nice and impressive and no doubt being replicated in many other new and busy airports and terminals throughout the world. (But not yet at Luton!)

By far the most picturesque escalator I can recall was created for a film depicting a World War One fighter pilot being shot down into the English Channel.

Somehow he was not killed and was found lying injured on an English beach.

He became the subject of an argument between the spiritual authorities of the World then (c.c. 1941), and the authorities of the next world (dates unknown).

Finally, it was decided that the resolution by some Ethereal council was required 69

to decide his future. Was he alive or dead? The film maker did a magnificent job of creating an escalator from earth to heaven (there didn’t seem to be one going the other way). The details are well known (if you saw the film) because the escalator started from an English garden and traversing clouds and space, many time-zones and places of myth and legend, finally depositing the pilot, his advocates and a few earthly friends, to argue his future at the highest of courts.

It was an escalator to end all escalators and it would be nice to know what they did with it after the film.

This film will stay with me forever, even though I have seen it many times.

When I finally have to leave this life it would be the nicest way I can imagine of going, instead of by way of some crematorium or other.

“Hello!” said a voice that was familiar. “Have you had a good snooze? Sorry I have been a long time.”

“Oh, Hello dear!” I quickly came back to reality. “No, I’ve just been having a quiet muse. Did you get what you wanted? Can we go and look at that car now?”

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What’s in a Name?

January 2007 Oh to be in England, now that April’s there I always did love April, she had lovely yellow hair We were both at school together and grew up right next door We rode our bikes and went on hikes and thought we knew the score I learned a lot from April, and she learned a lot from me Our parents thought we’d wed one day but that wasn’t meant to be We were friends into our teenage years and learned to dance together But then we went our separate ways as growing up came nearer After April there came May, a brunette from nearby We had a lot in common and she such deep blue eyes Our relationship grew serious as we studied life together And did things that we shouldn’t do, which made for stormy weather And then one day she jilted me and I did love her so But a major in the Royal Marines told me the way to go I went ‘cos he was bigger and a few years older too And then one day, who should I meet? She said her name was, Jo! But that’s a boys name I replied as we snogged beneath the moon Oh sheer delight as she held me tight and whispered “call me June” It seemed that thirty years before when she was just a glimmer Her father knew a girl called June and thought she was a winner Jo’s mother never liked the name nor did she like the lady So they both agreed on ‘Josephine’ for their much adored new baby But Jo grew up, a ‘June’ at heart, and became my hearts desire We started on a mad romance that set our world on fire We got engaged in autumn and were married in the Spring Joanne Elizabeth then came next as Christmas bells did ring We thought that name would give our lass a chance to make a choice Of ‘Jo or Ann or Liz or Betty even, when she found her voice And so from April, May and June, and Jo or Ann or Betty There could be others in my past; it’s so easy to forget, eh?

Brunette or blonde, blue eyes or brown in the end it’s all the same If you’re happy with the one you’ve got, when you’re old What’s in a name?

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Meet the Other Half February 2007 The annual Christmas Party for the children of the Embassy staff in Sofia was always a very popular and elaborate affair, and was looked forward to by young and old alike. Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, was one of the more interesting of Eastern Europe’s capital cities. It had good shops and theatres with the centre dominated by the golden dome of the magnificent St Sofia mosque. For British diplomats and foreign office civil servants it was considered to be a popular posting. There were over 120 staff at the embassy, so with wives and children, and visiting dignitaries, the Christmas party needed to be as well organised, and publicised, as any international function hosted by Britain. The date and time of the function was anything but secret and a high degree of security was always necessary.

The Party held in December 1997 was no exception and as my family and I were in the city for a combined business/vacation visit it was something of an honour for my wife, myself and our daughter Rachel, to be invited. The Commercial Counsellor and I had been friends for many years so it was not difficult for him to pull the odd string to get my family an invitation.

During the festivities I had noticed a tall striking lady in a smart grey suit, about my own age and seemingly well acquainted with many of the Embassy staff.

My wife was happily talking to a few of the other parents she knew from previous visits to Sofia so I was able to put myself near enough to the tall lady during one of the games laid on for the children. It wasn’t long before our eyes met and with a brief smile, we were able to say “Hello”. It seemed that her husband was on a temporary assignment to Bulgaria and she was in Sofia with her daughter on a shopping trip and to be at this Christmas Party. There were many things that were considerably cheaper than in England so they were making the most of their visit. I wondered if our paths would cross again under less formal circumstances before we had to return home.

It wasn’t long before we were all called to another room where an elegant buffet had been set out and we all became mixed with others in the party. The tall lady was never far away and her daughter and our Rachel appeared to have made contact.

The party livened up once the drinks began to circulate and a good atmosphere of happy international friendship took over. A Father Christmas was soon surrounded in one corner by a group of the younger children, while the older ones came together and tried to look as though they were quite used to adult cocktail type parties. As of course some were, being on the Embassy circuit.

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After a while however families began to reform and start saying goodbye to their hosts. My family was staying in a hotel a few buildings down the road from the Embassy so we set off to walk the few hundred yards together. The tall lady and her daughter walked in the same direction and we came together after a few yards.

Suddenly, there was a screech of brakes and a large black Volvo screamed alongside us. Startled, we all stood back as the rear doors flew open and two large men wearing balaclavas leapt out. The front one gave me a shove into the people behind me and made a grab for my daughter Rachel. The other assailant pushed the tall woman and reached for her daughter. The two men started dragging the girls screaming towards the car. The tall lady’s reactions were a lot quicker than mine and she reached forward for the head of the first assailant and grabbed the top of his balaclava, which lifted over his eyes. With her right hand she gave him a massive stiff fingered punch in the kidneys and he arched backwards with a howl of pain. In a quick streamlined movement she chopped him across the throat with her left hand and he dropped like a stone to the pavement gagging for breath. His companion, holding Rachel, turned round to see and enabled me to grab hold of my daughter and pull her towards me. The tall lady seemed to move with the speed of a striking cobra and got hold of the man’s free arm and pulled. As his head came forward she lowered her head and butted him across the nose. The car driver, deciding that things had gone pear shaped, and his associates were having a bad time, instead of trying to get out of the car and come to their aid, let out the clutch and screamed away with wheels spinning and smoke pouring from the tyres. With one of the potential kidnappers groaning and gasping for breath on the ground, and the other unable to see as his eyes and nose poured a mixture of blood and mucous, the tall lady calmly altered her grip on the man’s arm and twisted it up his back.

Whilst all this had been going on, the Sofian guards on the gates of the Embassy, who had seen some of the activity, had alerted the police and two car-loads appeared with wailing sirens adding to the general excitement. My wife was clutching Rachel protectively and the tall lady’s daughter was in the arms of some others from the Embassy party. Gradually things quietened down.

We learned that kidnapping was becoming endemic in Sofia and taking children for hostages was proving quite lucrative due to the number of foreign tourists visiting Bulgaria. Very few children had been harmed and the police were gradually getting the problem under control. But it was something that the Bulgarian authorities obviously did not want given too much publicity.

Particularly with a foreign Embassy involved.

Naturally the police needed to take statements. Our two assailants had been removed to some police station, and after what seemed an age we were free to carry on to our hotel for a much needed drink.

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We were all sitting in the lounge of the hotel when I realised that my wife and I did not know the name of our rescuer. After all that is what she was, for without her quick reactions and obvious self defence abilities, the episode could have had devastating results. When the gabble of conversation died down I said as much.

“With all that had been going on,” I said “I have just realised that we have never introduced ourselves. My name is Ken Wilson and this is my wife Elaine.

Rachel I think you know. What is your name?”

“Bond” she replied. “Jane Bond. My brother James is working with the Bulgarian Government on this kidnapping business. Quite exciting wasn’t it?”

Music. Is it Essential to Life?

April 2007 To write about Music is to write about Life. Music has been around for longer, much, much longer than any of us around today and has had an influence on all people in every country of the world: And many other worlds. Who knows?

So where to start?

It is always useful to start with a definition of a subject to write about, and the dictionary definition of ‘Music’ is: - “The art of combining vocal and instrumental tones in a rhythmic form for the expression of emotion under the laws of beauty” Another is “any pleasant combination of sounds” It’s a pretty wide subject then. From these definitions we can see that music is an art. It can be vocal or instrumental. It can be, or even MUST be, rhythmic.

That means have rhythm. (Like a stick being beaten on a tree) and it must be pleasant. Pleasant that is to the person, listening, or being made to listen, to what another person thinks is music. This latter aspect is perhaps one of the most controversial of all. Having to listen to the sounds emanating from the loudspeakers in a lift, or the hairdressers, for example, my not be pleasant to a lot of people but it could be considered as soothing and peaceful to others. This, one supposes, is the intention of the people responsible for imposing the sounds being provided.

Take ones first sounds of the day. Waking up after a peaceful, or even a fitful, nights sleep. What could be nicer than the distant sounds of the dawn chorus provided by the birds of the countryside. Hard luck if the passing traffic on the High Street or the nearby M1 drowns out the birdsong, but never mind there is 74

always a radio to welcome you to the day, CLICK ‘… minister for education is reporting to the commons today on the recent outbreak of knife crime among under fifteen . . .’ means that your radio is either tuned to Radio 4, or the time is just past the hour and what you have got is the news on one station or another.

To many, that excerpt can be a way of waking up to the demands of the day to come or it could invoke a reaction of ‘Oh no. Not politics at six o’clock in the morning.’ Just how many households start with this sort of reaction?

Alternatively, the dulcet tones of Terry Wogan on Radio 2 can tell you what particular line of drivel he, or his producer, has chosen for him. Sooner or later though even if his topic for the morning is trivial or earth shattering, the one thing you can be sure of is that sooner or later he will play some sort of music. I say some sort of music because Terry Wogan has been known to promote musicians that, whilst meeting one or more of the definitions of ‘music’, could also be described as: “A cacophony of tonal sounds produced by high pitched vocalists and instrumental players whose intentions appear to be to cause the maximum decibels put out from a minimum of intelligent thought processes. The result in most of these cases can usually be said to be ‘rhythmic’ even if perhaps the rhythms are very repetitious and vaguely hypnotic.”

Sometimes the renditions are quite musical and even tuneful and could therefore qualify to be called ‘music’. Once upon a time such tuneful output would be said to be of the sort that paperboys could be heard whistling as they cycled along the streets. This, for want of better terminology, is what we know today as ‘Pop’, or popular music, in order to differentiate it from the older and more ponderous and studious writings of the composers of the last, and even the last but one, centuries and know as ‘Classical Music’.

We have now boiled the all embracing term ‘Music’ form something larger than life into two types of music, Pop and Classical. How arrogant and simplistic can you get? And just by turning on the radio at 6.30 in the morning.

To quote from Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ ‘If music be the food of love, play on; and give me excess of it . . .’ the sexy beast. (He could get away with comments like that in 1620 which no doubt gave the writers of today’s Pop music the idea that if Shakespeare could get away with talking about sex why can’t they) the trouble is that sex seems to be the main topic of most Pop music today.

So what about Classical music! Well, how long have we got?

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Pick up any encyclopaedia you happen to have lying around and I’ll bet two groats to four pence ha’penny that there will be a section entitled ‘The World of Music’ or something like it. Starting at the beginning of the section it is bound to suggest that Music as we know it started with the Churches, to provide accompaniment for the services. From there to Gregorian Chant is but a sentence away. But the earliest references to anything like the classical music of today jumps along by centuries. Mixing drama and music gave rise to opera and any reference to composers we are still listening to today, such as Monteverdi, Purcell, and Vivaldi and on to Bach and Handel don’t get a mention until the sixteen hundreds. It says a lot therefore to think that much of the Classical music we now enjoy, and can play at home, was actually written around 1650. And bear in mind that most composers were foreigners from many different European countries. Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Hungary: and yet they all wrote music that musicians could play on different instruments.

So music is the only world-wide language. A Dane can play music written by a Pole or someone from Finland.

Another sobering thought is that many of our leading concert orchestras and philharmonia today sometimes feature tunes, for that is what we are talking about, tunes, that were written in the 1960’s by non other than a pop group from Liverpool, The Beatles.

The Damsel in Distress May 2007 If only I hadn’t hit the policeman with my walking stick, I wouldn’t be in this predicament now.

It wasn’t a walking stick really. It was an old golf club that I used as a walking stick because it was just the right length and the number 7 iron blade was nice and comfortable in my hand. And it had a rubber ball collector on the handle end to stop it slipping.

It was a walking stick to me perhaps; but as far as the policeman was concerned it was a club, and as such it was a weapon when used in the street. And old men of my age should know better than to carry a club in the street. And certainly should not use them on policemen.

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So here I am in a cell in Milton Keynes police station waiting for my lawyer (I believe they are called ‘briefs’) to arrive to get me out of here. (I wonder why lawyers are called ‘briefs’? As far as I am concerned, briefs are something I wear under my trousers). I’m obviously not up to modern parlance except on television.

It all happened at ten-o-clock this morning as I was walking back from my bank to my car. Suddenly this girl, well she was a young woman really, rushed past me from the bank without even as much as a “scuse me Sir”, hotly followed by a yob of about her own age. I call him a yob because he was roughly dressed, in tatty jeans and a black windcheater, long hair down to his shoulders, and, well, he looked like a yob. The girl was no match for the yob who caught up with her a few yards in front of me and dragged her off to a car parked nearby. The car’s engine was running and the door was open. The couple reached the cars and the yob tried to bundle the girl into the back seat.

My reactions are not what they were a few years ago; well perhaps twenty or so years ago, but I was not too old to see that the yob was trying to kidnap the girl or at least stop her from running away.

Without thinking I ran (that’s a laugh!) as quickly as I could the few yards to the car and clouted the yob across the shoulders with my walking stick. It was a good job I used the handle end, if I had reversed it and hit him with a proper seven iron shot, I would probably have done his head no good at all. Naturally the yob let the girl go and turned to face me. The girl ran away as fast as she could. Before I could ask the yob what the hell he thought he was doing, he hit me straight in the chest and I fell to the pavement gasping for breath. I obviously had not thought what I was going to do after stopping what I thought was a kidnap, because I was now lying on the floor with the yob about to do Lord knows what to me.

“What the hell do you think you are doing you silly old ……?” It sounded like ‘josser’. “You’ve let her get away now.”

“Well I’ve stopped you kidnapping her” I replied, “I hope I didn’t hurt you!”

That was when I noticed I had a pair of handcuffs on my wrists and there was a policeman in uniform standing behind me.

So here I am. Sitting in a cell. Waiting to find out what is going to happen next.

At that moment the cell door opened and a policeman showed a man in a dark grey suit into my cell.

“David” I cried, as my lawyer friend from the golf club was ushered in “Thank heavens you’ve arrived. I hope you are going to be able to get me out of here.”

David Griffiths, my friend for many years and opponent on many games of golf, smiled hesitantly.

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“I’ll do my best old son,” he said, “but you’ve certainly got yourself in the fertiliser this time, have you not? What on earth were you doing hitting a policeman with a seven iron of all things? You’ve ruined one of their long running cases and let someone get away that they have been after for months.”

“Don’t tell me that yob I clobbered was a policeman,” I said. “He looked a right ruffian to me.”

“Well,” said David. “He was a copper alright and he’d been working under cover for months trying to catch a team of bank robbers operating High Street fraud scams. The girl you tried to rescue was the first real lead they had had in weeks, and now you’ve blown it for them. You had better tell me your side of the story or you are in here for the night, at least.”

I told him. It took about an hour. I told him that if under cover policemen will go around dressed like teen age yobs, how do they expect the public not to get involved when they see young ladies being manhandled into unmarked police cars. Dammit I said he wore tatty old jeans with holes in the knees and a black anorak thing that would have done credit to Hells Angels. He looked like a yob.

David said something about Richard Branson and Bob Geldof wearing tatty old jeans and went to talk to the Chief Inspector.

David was able to convince the DCI that I had acted with the best of intentions and if I left my passport with them I could go home, but they advised me to buy a proper walking stick instead of using a golf club. Golf clubs in the wrong place can be seen to be offensive weapons. They also suggested that I choose the ladies I went to the aid of more carefully and put my white charger into retirement.

So ended my last attempt to come to the aid of a damsel in distress. It was quite an exciting experience.

But... if only I hadn’t hit that policeman with my walking stick, it wouldn’t have happened!

Every Picture Tells a Story April 2008 This one tells of a business trip I made with my wife in 1986 to New York State in the USA. It also tells a lot about the man that painted it, Stan Sharvell, a great friend of mine who died in 2000 at the age of 91. Stan spent most of his later years doing watercolours of scenes around Buckinghamshire and Norfolk and one of his best and recognisable features was always his ‘skies’. For Stan the sky was always blue, with white cotton-wool clouds and if a caption was needed his sense of humour would always come through in the caption.

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The picture is of a building that has no doubt been painted and photographed millions of times, by Americans and foreign tourist alike, and depicts the White House in Washington DC, USA. With an unusual approach for my friend he has omitted to show any signs of the hundreds of people that visit the White House every day of the year. Stan normally shows every detail of a scene even to putting electric cables along a house if they are there when he paints it. Artistic licence was never his forte. On this occasion however the only people he has shown are a man and a woman walking up the hill to the front door. The man has a brief case in his hand and the lady a hand-bag over one shoulder. These two look reasonably like my wife and me.

We had arrived in New York about four days before and whilst I did a number of business visits, my wife did what ladies do in strange towns, she looked around the shops and museums and such like. In Washington we had more time together so we were able to do some obvious sightseeing, including of course the Washington monument and the White House. Perhaps the postcards we sent home inspired Stan to paint this picture, which awaited us on our return home.

Stan’s sense of humour is not in the picture but in the caption. It reads “Tell him the Vice-Chairman of the North Crawley Parish Council wants to see him!”

I remember my old friend every time I look at this picture and I am sure I always will.

Day Dreaming May 2008 It was one of those idyllic days in late Spring that occur all too infrequently in England. The temperature around 18 degrees C, a gentle breeze from over the fields and a scent of some flower whose name too difficult to recall; the sky a beautiful azure blue and puffy cotton wool clouds over to the west; altogether a perfectly peaceful day. George had wandered round the garden before lunch and snipped a few dead flowers off the bushes that had survived the tidying up he and his wife had done the previous weekend, and thought how happy he was to be retired on a day like today.

He had, in fact, been retired for about eight years so it was no new experience for them to be able to do what they liked on rare days like today. Mary was preparing lunch and would soon be calling for him to set the table under the plum tree 79

where there was plenty of shade. This was a favourite spot of theirs and today the breeze was just nice for comfort. He went indoors to collect the cutlery and two glasses.

After they had eaten, and drunk a glass or two of their favourite white wine, George adjusted his garden chair into the ‘lounge’ position and thought about, well, not very much really. It was far too nice for serious contemplation. Slowly he dozed off into his usual afternoon nap. Wouldn’t it be nice he thought if………

The inside of his eyelids had just started to slowly disappear when he became aware of some activity nearby. Couldn’t possibly be anything to do with him.

He slept on.

Something interrupted the writing of this story so this would be a good place to use to start me writing again. To be continued………….

All stories are © Copyright Bill Leicester, 2012. All rights reserved Typeset and Published for Bill Leicester

by BMG - 222b, Wolverton Road, Milton Keynes, MK14 5AB Tel: 07785 398271 Printed and bound in England.

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This collection of short stories was written between 2004 and 2009 after I joined a creative writing group which met in an old peoples home in Neath Hill, Milton Keynes.

At each meeting we would read a story based on a theme agreed at the previous meeting. At the end of a meeting a theme for the following meeting, in two weeks time would be suggested and agreed.

Bill Leicester (Bullfinch)

When I attended my first meeting, and had not written a story, I just listened to the other member’s stories. Some of them were very good indeed and I felt that my writing experience was nowhere near up to their standard.

The agreed theme for my first story was ‘A Second Chance’. My No.1 story started as a letter to the group leader, Anne Thompson, with the intention of thanking her for the opportunity to join them and making an excuse for not continuing with them.

I did, in fact stay with them for a number of years and enjoyed their company and the feed back I received from them These stories indicate how my writing styles moved from being factual, first person accounts to more imaginative stories. Most of them, however, are based on my life but with the names changed at one of the members’ suggestions. A few, though are pure fiction e.g. ‘The Hooks’ or a mixture of fact and fiction such as ‘The Bet’. Some of the later ones are just wishful thinking.

I hope you enjoy reading the first end result of an enjoyable few years.

And finally, my sincere thanks to my drinking friend, Barry, for his help and enthusiasm, without which these stories would never have been published.

Bullfinch February 2012

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