Sheep in the road 1 by Hand Over Fist Press

Sheep in the Road vol.1

Alan Rutherford

Sheep in the Road vol. 1

Living to work? Or preferably, working to live! We are all sheep in the road

Sheep in the Road vol. 1 Alan Rutherford

HAND OVER FIST PRESS

2 0 1 4

HAND OVER FIST PRESS

This volume published by Hand Over Fist Press, 2014 email: alan.rutherford@blueyonder.co.uk website: www.handoverďŹ stpress.com Design, photographs, all text and additional artwork by Alan Rutherford (from 1986 to 2014) This volume published 14 September 2014 Dedicated to Ann, on our 46th anniversary

... some people cannot understand ideas like equality and freedom because their livlihood is based on them not understanding ... FFS!

Dedicated to Ann, Joanna, Tanya, Callum, Cameron and Oscar ... My family For Anne, my sister, and her family And in memory of my mom and dad, and brother Brian

Contents Introduction 1 1

Smiths Strike 1977

2 People 3

Religion, capital and ...

5 9 27

4 Socialism

On the Avon

Intellectual Candifloss

Sheep in the road

Cheltenham lines

Apples, cheese and a red wedge

Bishops Cleeve

11 Brian

JDK Printers

103

A kevin, a louise ...

113

High School

117

Tree Mist Obscurist

121

16 Funeral

129

Annâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mum, ...

135

Music club

139

Falling over in public

143

Gloucester Docks

147

Epilogue 165

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Introduction A first volume of a set of sorts containing all sorts ... from the mumblings, imaginings, wanderings and ramblings of one of the sheep in the the road, to the hiding and skulking rebel in the margins of a page, to outrage ... but, how to introduce? Ideals, principles and deeply held convictions about a better society for all might seem so pointless in the face of increasing vandalism by world powers and those that control our lives. Neoliberalism is increasingly the dominant world narrative since Thatcher and Reagan, with its rampant market economy privatisation of anything public that is useful ... and then its cutting of any public services left to make a nonsense of them ... Entrepreneurial gangsters claim that unrestricted competition, driven by self-interest, leads to innovation and economic growth, enhancing the welfare of all – an unhealthy dose of bullshit by those with the wealth to feed us, the ‘have-nots’. Religious bigots and venture capitalists have long used an imagined God-given ‘authority’ to recklessly and ruthlessly push through their agendas – in their attempt to both dominate and plunder our planet for their own short-term gain. A special planet, I would argue, that rather requires the so-called intelligent species to act as

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guardians of the earth’s precious sliver of atmosphere. An atmosphere so fragile that our robust pollution of it must surely be the height of incredible stupidity – this 18km envelope of life supporting gases supports the only life that we know of in an infinite universe. Precariously clinging to the crust of this spinning molten ball an ape with half a brain might have developed the chaos we now find ourselves in – on the brink of catastrophe. The point then, is to engage the brain’s other half, cooperate in the planet’s maintenance and, in the words of someone or other, truly make this a ‘heaven on earth’. So a first volume of a set of probably no consistency, no real aim, no proper intention, many ideas pointlessly popping ... much like real life ... sheep in the road indeed!

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Smiths Strike 1977

During my time at Smiths Industries where I was employed in the Machine Shop as a setter-operator on a number of machines, from capstan lathes, drill section, grinders and finally put out to pasture on the grinders’ deburr and polishing bench, I managed to become healthily and positively politicised from around about the 1977 strike. Management at Smiths engineered an 8 week strike over pay in the summer of 1977. They were an amorphous bunch of suits who rarely made any appearance to us shopfloor plebs, rather dealing with our elected negotiators, the JSSC. Perhaps order books were down, or management had all booked a two month cruise that year, we don’t know, but for whatever reason they took on the might of the united trades unions on site, eventually knuckling under and coming up with an acceptable pay offer after a long 8 weeks … but, I reckon, probably achieving their aim, whatever it was. The trades unions on site were quite solid for most of the strike under the leadership of the JSSC. Now, if you have read any other pieces by me you will know my annoyance at abbreviations, so it was under the leadership of the Joint Shop Stewards

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Committee … and at the helm of that local soviet were the holy trinity as far as militant activity at Smiths was concerned. Rocky Hazzlenut (chairman), Bob Gaylord (convenor) and Dave Wishbone (deputy convenor) were my idols, even though almost every action they proposed was just a reaction to a guileful management playing with the lives of its workforce … with no other goal than profit. Just an aside, but why is it that after all these years our trades unions, our shop steward representatives in the workplace, already hampered in their negotiating by only seemingly responding to management dictates and gameplay, can only come up with ‘work to rule’ or ’withdrawing ones labour by striking’? I’m not sure this still gets results, especially now with a smaller overall union membership split by devisive union leaders not supporting each other while trying to get a Labour government elected and a knighthood … short-sighted or what? Someone once mentioned to me when French railway workers had a grievance with their employers all workers continued to provide a service but refused to charge commuters … so taking their employers on and keeping the public on their side … Anyway around about week 4 of the Smiths strike as strikers struggled to get by without their wage, you know, pay their way: some scrounging, others working cash-in-hand, but lots just going into debt … it became obvious something grand had to be pulled by the Joint Shop Stewards Committee to keep the strike solid. In the snug at the King’s Head a demoralised group of shop stewards were dragging out their one pint allotment for their regular ‘battle’ meeting. The group were joined by a late arriving, but beaming Rocky,

questioning looks replaced the despondency and all eyes were on this short, portly, balding, experienced negotiator who usually always kept a poker face … he looked so strange grinning, like he had lost it, his smile fit to burst the room. Bob, who was chairing the meeting, looked bewildered but nodded and Rocky exploded … ‘I have just got off the phone … and we have managed to set up a benefit gig to raise funds for the strikers’, he managed to blurt out. Astonishment, quickly followed by different questions from all assembled, all at the same time … and quickly ruled out of order by Bob, who was a stickler for following rules. ‘Order order, one at a time and through the chair’ Bob tried to gain control of the meeting with his booming voice, his London accent being most pronounced when he felt threatened, like now. ‘So exactly what have you arranged on the sly, without going through this committee?’ asked Dave, still seated, with an unlit pipe clenched in a twitching jaw … probably the only shop steward present who wasn’t in awe of Rocky. ‘I’ve only gone and booked John Lennon, he is happy to play for nothing to support the strike … we just have to find a venue, geezus, only John Lennon!’ sparked Rocky, in his mind he was being carried around the room shoulder high by his comrades … and they all looked like they would like to do that but the low ceiling of the snug would have killed Rocky, so it was fortunate that unless they were given the nod they were not that good at following through on any spontaneous thought.

It took a while for Bob to get control of the meeting, but when he did the smiling faces … the smiling faces … it had been a good few weeks since he had seen the Joint Shop Stewards Committee in such good humour. Probably the last time was a couple of months ago when one of the managers had attended one of their meetings in the canteen and had involuntarily, and embarrassingly, farted as he had stood up to address them … took the wind out of his sails, Bob remembered and chuckled at the thought. Days after the meeting and a venue was proving hard to find. Any hall or pub in the vicinity seemed to be rather reticent to take on the show. Suspicions as to Smiths management involvement in spiking this much needed benefit were confirmed, this made the Committee even more determined not to be thwarted by the very intransigent bastards who caused the strike to be called, and the consequent hardship, in the first place. At the next Joint Shop Stewards Committee meeting it was reported that the only venue to be had was Bishops Cleeve Dhobi which could hold about 50 squashed in amongst the machines ... with John set up on the washers. Posters were plastered all over Bishops Cleeve and tickets for inside and out in the road were sold. And so it was that John played the Dhobi. In a conciliatory mood he played only Paul McCartney compositions with a left-handed guitar for around 3 hours, and it was great. A rough draft that needs attention, but is not going to get it!

Dedicated to Pat Rawlings, John Styles and Derick Eyre

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People

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Religion, capital and the man in the moon

Assure, Believe, Convert: religions assure salvation; religions believe in a precise theology; and religions convert nonbelievers … Dan Brown Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. Karl Marx As an atheist, but one who spends much of his life making a living out of typesetting religious tosh for a major publisher I hope this does not read as ‘biting the hand that feeds’ but, dipping into the occasional book as I go along … really, what a load of fudge organised religion is. And, even though I have no objection to those, who in a world of uncertainty, accept this fudge as salvation, or use it as a balm to soothe the troubles when struggling with life … we don’t all have to swallow it - do we?

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In July 2003, at the time of my father’s death, I wrote, Death, a concept of sweet taboo, not to be talked about too openly, but can be written about surely – Anne [my sister], who claims to be a born again christian, will believe dad is in heaven, with mom and Brian, and all his brothers and sisters, and so on, and thats fine... whereas I find it very difficult, with all the inconsistencies thrown up by humans trying to explain the unexplainable, to believe in a higher being so cruel and merciless and consequently believe you live and then you die, in between you procreate like all species, giving encouragement to your offspring and making a mark in the history of some – and in that way you live on... I think dad thought the same way, but we never discussed it. I also think in life, because we humans have an ability– however feeble and narrow – to imagine and also reason methodically and intellectually, we will use whatever we need to get through this life, and if you need a crutch because you cannot face the fact that we are just a minute, and probably insignificant, part of the 4,600 million year evolution of the gaseous third planet of a minor sun in an infinite universe... then go for it! Reel me in, I’m done. from ‘Wee Timerous Beastie’ in Writing Some Wrongs, 2007

It is still my explanation for life, for how I reason that although my father is dead … he lives on in mine and others’ memories, and it is still my explanation for the series of similar mystical and unproven belief systems which exist and pervade human societies the world over. It is this series of similar belief systems that have their set texts repeatedly quoted and mis-quoted to give comfort to those with ‘faith’, or to silence disbelievers. So-called holy texts are interpreted to suit and used to authorise superstition, slavery, racial segregation, racial subjugation, oppression of women, homophobia, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, selfsacrifice and suicide, war, rape, slaughter, genocide and holocaust, pogroms … and man’s dominion over all else on this planet … when, in a parody of blinkered ignorance, most religious people would argue their religion promotes caring and tolerance, love thy neighbour and a moral code. Almost without question, core elements of a country’s adopted religion are accepted as part of that country’s culture and employed as a form of social control. On the one hand, a religious dogma, pomp and ceremony is used to shore up a corrupt system of ‘don’t do as I do – do as I say’, sometimes to be exercised by a ruling elite as the final and ultimate boot at the throat of a questioning population, but more often wheeled out occasionally to give a moral authority to some ruling class dictate in the guise of binding a nation. But then on the other hand, also, in a bizarre twist, it is often openly ridiculed and were anyone to follow the plot and ever dare to say out loud ‘God has told me to do this’ - they could be declared insane if it does not fit with the dominant ideology. Yet, this is what a lot of organised religion is based on – long gone ‘mad’ people pronouncing on this or that after hearing ‘voices’ or seeing ‘visions’.

That there are similar (but slightly different) organised religions and that they have grown up in different countries, or regions of the world, is purely the result of small groups of people (almost exclusively men) who seek either personal power, or to suggest a code for living usually beneficial to a dominant class of society. They do this by hijacking those ‘mad people’ and claiming them to be the conduits for remarks credited to an all seeing and knowing, powerful god (or gods). Certainly these remarks, when imbued with some canny timing, logic and mysticism, can, in a world of confusion, give those who believe them feelings of security, a sense of purpose and a reason for being … when in reality there is no security, purpose or reason that we actually know of. One of the consequences of slightly different religious leaders claiming a hegemony in different parts of the world and looking to increase their influence and power for their brand of organised religion is a friction which has led to some of the most pointless horrors perpetrated by human beings on other human beings. This competition for hearts and minds is now mirrored in human relations living under capitalism – a religion of sorts – where the fetishism of money, property and more wars are the result, and where different nations compete and jostle for markets, land and control of raw materials such as oil, water and minerals to appease their profit-god. Under this system, the savage immediacy of the fist when dealing with a group of people, a nation, or a country when they fall foul of the world’s ruling elite is contrasted in the darkest, cruel irony by the awfully slow hand of assistance to any natural tragedy by the rich and powerful nations. The red tape and logistical complications that seem to hinder any relief effort to human suffering is noticeably missing in the speedy dispatch of troops or high grade munitions to bludgeon an erring nation bucking the system.

Back with the more spiritual, the kerfuffle caused by Charles Darwin and his book ‘Origin of the Species’ which developed the theory of evolution is ignored by most organised religion, or can, with some trickery be incorporated into their belief systems … well, they have to try to explain where dinosaurs, etc fit into the scheme of things. Various theologists either dismissed evolution when it came to discussing the ‘creation’ and ‘Adam and Eve’, or cleverly fudged and misdirected their flocks by saying the early Bible texts are merely moral tales. However, central within the evolution theory is the idea of all species evolving, including humans, and this is the hard pill to swallow for organised religion. By saying humans are also just a momentary blip on a constantly adapting and changing earth, who will eventually, over years, either destroy themselves or evolve into other species, challenges and undermines that very security, purpose and reason religion promises when it says we humans are ‘God’s chosen’, created in his image and put here to exploit all else on this planet, and given the authority to do this by God. Religious bigots and venture capitalists have long used this God-given ‘authority’ to recklessly and ruthlessly push through their agendas – in their attempt to both dominate and plunder our planet for their own short-term gain. A special planet, I would argue, that rather requires the socalled intelligent species to act as guardians of the earth’s precious sliver of atmosphere. An atmosphere so fragile that our robust pollution of it must surely be the height of incredible stupidity – this 18km envelope of life supporting gases supports the only life that we know of in an infinite universe. Precariously clinging to the crust of this spinning molten ball an ape with half a brain might have developed the chaos we now find ourselves in – on the brink of catastrophe. The point then, is to engage the brain’s other half, cooperate in the planet’s maintenance and, in the words of someone or other, truly make this a ‘heaven on earth’.

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For a number of years now there has been a trend where human beings seem to be backing away from progressive ideas, regressing to a ‘safe for some’ world where ‘thought’ is overwhelmed by feeling and ‘logic’ is trumped by faith. Those that help to engineer this mood are attuned to another agenda – that is, to enslave humankind to base animal instincts, a blinkered worldview and unquestioning acceptance of the status quo. Wake up! there is another way to organise humanity in fairness, equality and harmony, its called Socialism ... its a truism not made any the easier by being so, but come on, we have to start somewhere...

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Socialism

This chapter instigated by the previous one and a need to focus. Often I am stifled in discussion by a clever-arsed ‘Of course socialism is a wonderful idea but with human nature (wrongly labelled as greed) its just unattainable…’ I am then deflected into arguing that human nature (if there is such a thing) is a very changeable commodity, and what is true of today’s fetishism with individualism and private wealth amongst a minority of the world’s population was and will not always be the case. The dynamics of capitalism have developed the means to meet the needs of every person on the planet – but because it is rooted in the anarchy of the market, it fails millions of people with its accompanying waste, wars and unfulfilled promises. Because capitalism is geared to profit it has a tendency to over-production and product placement where the money is and not where its needed, resulting in a glut of products and services in the rich wasteful west and a paucity in so-called destitute third world countries. Violence and wars developed in feudal times for the acquisition of lands and peoples for a monarch and/or landed gentry, are now much more sophisticated and an integral part of capitalism. Violence and economic sanctions are used by nations with the clout to pacify, dictate, acquire … and generally speaking, the threat of violence is developed, glorified and paraded, much as any playground bully would, to dominate and/ or preserve the status quo.

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FA D I N G EMPIRE 32

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Under capitalism key decisions over what is produced, how much is produced, how it is done and what happens to it after, are made by a small group of people commonly referred to as the ruling class. Those excluded from this elite group, that is, most people, the working class, feel alienated from the process of provision – like cogs in a machine. Capitalism, by suggesting that everyone has their place in the scheme of things and important decisions should be left to experts, trounces its own promise that everyone has an equal chance in life, that anyone can make it to the top. Of course then, if or when you fail – then its quite obviously your own fault. The point is, with a variety of inducements, threats and mind games, capitalism presents its main plank of competition (from cradle to grave) as a completely natural, useful and healthy ideal, when, in reality, it is a nurtured instinct based on a primitive pre-history survivalism which benefits only the few (the winners), it is wasteful, destructive and … decidedly unhealthy for anyone living outside the rich nations. And, insofar as it being natural, I suggest the Earth needs humans – an evolved social animal with the capability of controlling its environment, the first ‘intelligent’ species (probably) to exist on this planet – to develop their more natural caring instincts of helping, supporting and cooperation. Flagrantly flying in the face of this base, selfish and pointless competition promoted by capitalism, truly inspiring examples of working people helping, supporting and co-operating with each other abound in abundance. Because workers produce everything under capitalism, socialists want workers to plan and control the things they produce and democratically plan society to meet the needs of everyone. Socialists want a world that isn’t racked by war, poverty and oppression. Wonderful ideals, but how to achieve that situation.

Socialists come in many forms, the goal is roughly the same but there are disagreements about how to achieve socialism and ultimately a communist outcome. Valiant attempts so far have resulted in corrupted economies, the best and worst being neither capitalist nor socialist but an unsatisfactory middle-ground. The Labour Party claims a socialist heritage, originally hoping to bring in socialism by reforms of parliament, in practice – and although on occasion making life better for the working class and denying some of the ruling classes’ excesses – when in office the Labour Party is only allowed to tinker with the system. The fact is that a parliament of any hue can only make policies with the nod from a ruling class of wealthy businessmen, industrialists and bankers – they really do hold the power and purse strings in a capitalist society like ours. Unfortunately for us these ‘powerful’ people are corrupted by capitalism’s driving force – greed at any cost – witness the so-called media and banking scandals of late ... top dog criminals looting with impunity while playfully accepting knighthoods and nepotistic accolades ... all with complete disregard for the rest of us plebs. Under capitalism a hard-fought-for element of democracy is allowed to exist in the development and maintenance of the state. The state’s role in all of this, with its police and armed forces, judiciary, its ‘education for work ideals’, social security and healthcare provision for the masses, is biased in capitalism’s favour and really is only allowed to exist to control, maintain and provide a capable, healthy and pliant workforce. I think the State in any civilised society should be for a provision to the whole population, so that all are nurtured, supported and cared for, however a capitalist state shrinks from this obligation. It fails miserably by negating its responsibility for those it sees as lame ducks, leaving it to opportunist ‘charities’ to squabble over this provision. This creates another negative legacy for our capitalist society, in that, along with being unable to provide full employment, it does not provide a means for

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living for us all. This leaves us with ‘charities’ taking on the role of the State, where truly natural human instincts, that is, caring and sharing, has working people donating away chunks of their earnings because they do care passionately about the plight of those less fortunate than themselves. This act of caring calls into question and exposes that so-called greed element inherent in the ‘human nature’ argument as a fabricated nonsense … the greed element more than likely to be an illustration of the values of those who hold and propagate this view. Politicians of all hues happy to enter Parliament under the illusion that they will run the country seem staid, thwarted, ineffective, pompous even, in their inability to seriously consider the effects of global warming, other than to short-sightedly promote unreliable and dangerous nuclear energy technology ... ignoring all the risks and shortfalls ... as a short-term sop to reduce carbon emissions. They also have no strategy for reducing the ever increasing gap between rich and poor, rather they talk glowingly of ‘profit’ as some sort of saving grace for us all, when in reality it is the reason for that gap in the first place. Their narrow corridor of ‘democratic’ activity gives no hope to us for a fairer society, or of ever seeing a world free from war. It becomes increasingly obvious that this country (and all others) are surreptitiously ruled by an undemocratic elite who control the economy and so the government, and have no responsibilty other than to themselves, the fucking ruling class!

Unable to see this trough and its attendant greedy pigs, and still thinking they can make a change by playing to a popularist electorate, the Labour Party has consistently watered down its socialist rhetoric and squandered its’ founders ideals to such an extent, that today its policies are hardly distinguishable from the ruling class Tories and their sycophantic Liberal Democrat buddies. So much have the Labour Party strayed from their red roots that at the behest of besieged ruling class swine whose greed has caused and perpetrated this latest crisis (and every capitalist crisis after crisis in the past) they also want the working class to pay for the failings of their capitalist system. In fact, all parliamentary parties, and almost all governments in the rest of the world ... are in favour of working class people paying for the failure of capitalism … Time for a change?

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On the Avon

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Intellectual Candifloss or, footnotes (and abbreviations) – the farts (and belches) on a page While a very small number of footnotes are useful in unobtrusively directing a reader to the source of a quote, generally they are the reclusive domain of the intellectual, or those looking for intellectual status, trying to prove a point by referencing another, as if by mentioning another source for their information adds some sort of weighty authority or gives credence to their flatulent point. A fart on a page indeed! Are we then to believe that the source of an unexplained point is correct just because it was published elsewhere? This is nonsense, a literary nepotism based on what? This kind of posturing, this elitist ‘ibid.’ nonsense masquerading as researched writing, attempting to bolster the importance of a text littered with superscripted numbers and give it an air of intellect where it is absent, is just in reality lazy writing.

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As one who typeset books that are riddled with footnote intrusions I can see the indolent advantage for an intellectual writer whose time is so important that he/she needs to enhance, strangle or smother a throw-away mention of something trivial or otherwise by referring to some giant tome which attempts to explain the universe and is only available in some specialist library. Then there are those boorish readers who won’t consider any text which is not punctuated with this pygmy fly-away text as intellectual, will decry it as unsubstantiated and will not accept points however well they are made. For fuck sake, do we readers need to be sent on a wild goose chase to verify some smug author’s pandering to their own ego only to find the source unavailable or merely a figment of the author’s imagination in that it does not explain or compliment his/her point. If an author wants or needs to make a point which is made elsewhere by another then this needs to made in the text and, if needs be, explained in the text. Of course, if points are fully explained and credit for them given to another, this may make the author’s assertions look feeble and will definitely give the impression that the work is not entirely, or even vaguely in some cases, their own. It might even be said by some that a book riddled with footnotes is at best an ambiguous bibliography with the veneer of a guiding idea, rather uncharitable, but a view with some merit surely? There will be those, certainly, who can find a reason for the industry and profusion of footnotes in that they allow a text to be read as the argument intended by the author without distraction or tangental flights of fancy, and that the ‘notes’ which congregate about the foot of a page are just there as helpful indicators of reference … more like ‘tosh and camouflage!’ to cover the cracks, in my opinion.

Afterthought Joining that club of exclusive and deliberately obscurest writing techniques are abbreviations. Another feeble mind-fuck tool of the ‘busy/lazy’ intellectual. A nasty belch staining the page, where, unless you are attuned to them, they leave the reader second guessing the flavour-by-whiff … or maintaining a jiggery-pokery library in their head full of trite-useless alphabeti-spaghetti. These manufactured and localised acronyms are then, incredibly, given credence and weight by audiences of similarly challenged people, who accept them as actual words containing nuggets of ‘wisdom’ as they tumble out from platforms, or spread their self-importance on a page, during the inane utterances or dank scribblings of these ‘intellectual charlatans’. If you have a valid point, ‘SPELL IT OUT!’, you lazy fucker

Books are weapons! Hit a tory with a hardback, especially if both are full of footnotes and abbreviations ... 53

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Been stood at a doorway all my life, watching, posing, flexing, but never entering. Instead I’m reaching up the doorframe, until at 65, I get a grip of the lintel – there to hang until I drop. Its a life ... ‘Are you living to work, or working to live?’ a question for those of us fortunate enough to live in an affluent part of the world ... and have a job. Pressures to conform, cooperate and carry on make this a hard maxim to answer correctly and then abide by. Not really sure but in re-reading events so far, of a happy life, I conclude that working class lives are dictated by interacting and reacting to events with the merest hint of inner direction. This seems to sum up my experience, and looking around it seems to appear so for others too. In the midst of all the shuffling this way or that at the whim of chance, coincidence and conspiracy there is the rare headstrong idiot amongst us who bucks the trend, and then ... occassionally, even I make a decision which seems to be mine, free from outside influences, for reasons only I can know – but don’t analyse this too carefully as, on the whole, we proletarians are all floaters ‘living to work’.

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So, as social beings inhabiting this crust of a speck of intergalactic dust, being bounced, bundled and broken together in the chaos of our own limitations we are still ordered in our murmurating flight by a hegemony of our own restricted imagination ... flying on the ground is definitely wrong! You may say this is all very well, but within our small timeline on this planet why aren’t we in a revolutionary situation now? One harsh answer was suggested in 1935 by Upton Sinclair when he said, ‘“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Another less complimentary but more generous conclusion: we are like sheep in the road being pushed, shoved and cajoled to pastures new, shearing sheds and the abattoir by ankle-nipping dogs and know-all shepherds ... the ever more urgent point is, how to change that! Work to live, don’t live to work!

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Cheltenham Lines

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Apples, Cheese and a Red Wedge

Friends, you probably never choose them, they come with school, a job, your social networking, a chance encounter. Most come and go in their own time, sometimes leaving you with ‘a wonder what’s happened to him or her?’ as they slip under a hedge. Usually its a two-way thing until something is said … There are some who stay the course, accepting your fluctuations and flatulance because they actually like you, and you them, but these associations are rare. I have had a few ‘friends’ who are no longer ‘friends’. Their flaws made obvious by that unique defence mechanism we all have, the one that reasons it out for us in our favour so that we don’t get hurt ... just thinking about them with this filter in place makes me question my judgement in these matters … am I that naive? One was a school friend who I managed to relocate with the help of the internet, remembering and pleased to be in contact with ‘Apples’ again I forgot what almost 40 years of conditioning can do, and the fact that I only knew him for 6 months in 1964. It soon became apparent that other than our friendship all those years ago we now had nothing in common. After a couple of friendlies he then took liberties and sent me emails edged with sexism and racism. On

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being alerted to this he took umbrage and his final vicious email before he blocked my emails told me I was a sanctimonious shit while, in a seemingly contrite attempt to prove he was no racist, he outlined all the wonderful things he had done for black people in Africa – as if this gave him some kind of licence. As an attempt at a concluding barb he also, with sniper-accuracy shot his whole foot off, by sneeringly alluding to the fact that I had left South Africa just before being called up to the army as if this might have meant something to me? Armed forces around the world are generally involved in some murderous hokeypokery at the behest of some shady politician or other, and should be avoided for that reason anyway, but the South African army at that time was outrageously indulging in an unjustified defence of white priviledge. I do sort of understand those ‘other’ reasons why some may have reluctantly abided by this conscription, or why some may have just gone along with it in all innocence ... subscribing to some jingoistic mantra, putting humanity on hold and leaving the thinking to the generals ... But, for fuck sake Apples, who but a racist would suggest anyone would voluntarily want to be involved in that ... or feel guilty at having missed the experience?

Thinking about this, I’m not mentioning all friends who come and go, just the ones where there was a hurt felt by their inexplicable and sometime unexplained exit. I was going to write a bit about another friend who just stopped and then moved, and well, just got lost. I read up some notes in a diary from the 1980s and thought they would explain it but then thought, hey, what am I doing ... it can probably be said in a few sentences. Paul became a good friend of ours during our political activity stage, he lived alone in a bedsit in Cheltenham, wrote poetry and was a fanatical, but tolerably so, member of the Socialist Workers Party at the same time we were. He was unemployed all the time we knew him, which was for a number of years in the early 1980s. We sold Socialist Worker quite regularly on Boots Corner, but it was an issue over branch discipline where we took different sides that festered ... and eventually he just faded away for reasons only partially explained or just hurtfully unknown. I think he now lives in Gloucester (?) and well, he knows where we live ...

Paul

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A recent ‘friend’, who upon reflection may not deserve that title, just up and fizzed away in front of us, and something just needs to be put on record before this saga fades away into oblivion. I’m usually quite easy going but this event and its unsatisfactory conclusion keeps gnawing away and so here it is. Over a number of years Ann and I got quite friendly with one of her work colleagues, G: a bit stocky looking; hair that never seemed to grow or show the signs of a barber; all year round he always seemed to be wearing a check shirt and corduroy trousers; he was always slightly sweaty with a damp handshake; he walked a lot; lived alone; spoke in disjointed toffiness, ‘Ruthers, play some chess, what’; was a bit sulky at times, but had a good sense of humour and was good company despite himself. In all the years we knew him we never got past his front door. He was always interested in our gripes and chit-chat about this or that but he told us hardly anything about himself. For instance, we didn’t know his age, his birthday, his politics, the things that got him down, his other relationships … and this not for the want of asking … he was a mystery which perversely he seemed to enjoy. Perhaps he thought it cool to be so enigmatic but it was a strange situation to have someone whom we thought of as a good friend who was so reluctant to give up anything in a conversation. However, during these five or six years his guard did slip and a few things did come to light.

Well, things that just don’t quite add up … we know he had been a border at Cheltenham College (for gentlemen) although his parents lived in Cheltenham, we know he went to Durham University where he did music, but he ended up working in finance? He told us he had a girlfriend who lived in California and on a 2-3 day visit by this girlfriend he introduced us to a very beautiful American blonde but, we wondered, how on earth such a relationship worked? … with him here in England and her in California. One of our social events of the week was to go as a team to a quiz night at a local pub with an assorted group of acquaintances where G, AW and Ann and I were the permanent nucleus. Odd evenings this group met at one another’s houses (never G’s) to socialise. One particular evening was set aside for the male team members to eat cheese whilst the women went off to some sale in a pub.

Sheep in the road

Preparation and table setting, anticipation, AW and G arrive, both live on their own, and as AW was itching for an audience he dominated the opening conversation (G and I participated by nodding, it was all good banter): AW’s car, now a boat, sailing … G nothing, me – a book I’m working on. Evening set to cruise.

-----Original Message----From: Alan Rutherford Sent: 09 July 2011 12:44 To: G; AW Cc: Ann Rutherford Subject: Spit out the pips

AW threw in a joke: An old man takes viagra in quarters, why? So as not to piss on his slippers … its the way you tell ‘em so this abbreviated version does not do anything to lift it to the heights of wine enhanced jollity that greeted its punch-line. (sorry, it was funny beyond its humour on that evening, at that time, with the three of us ...)

Life is just a bowl of cherries... if you come across pips ... spit them out!

More chit-chat as the cheese is whittled away … AW is going to write a book made up of essays about his life – sound familiar? I look at him and wonder if he is taking advantage of his joke’s victory to gently take the piss …. has anyone read my prevoius book, I wonder? Anyway, the evening did sort of cruise but an incident of minor irritation which caused me to have no enthusiasm for the planned evening’s end – the wee dram of malt whiskey – developed an impetus of its own and escalated into its own corrupted sensibility resulting in another ‘friend’ floating away to where no words could ever make it as it was … see the following emails and weep for the logic that decided to abandon us.

good advice, so here goes... Thanks guys it was a very pleasant thursday evening, only slightly marred by the sight of two grown men licking the table’s only 2 communal cheese knives. I wouldn’t have minded if you had both licked the same one but to put both knives out of commission and under your individual spell, left me speechless and only able to eye up the last of the cheese with the thought, ‘I could go and get another knife ... but it wouldn’t be a cheese knife’ - so I just sat there slightly disappointed. If it was your intention to commandeer the final morsels, then your strategy was a success. Otherwise lets do it again, and if you can resist that childish urge ... I might reward you with the wee dram in cameraderie as was planned. Alan

Friends under the bridge

Sheep in the road

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On 9 Jul 2011, at 17:08, AW wrote:

From: G Date: 11 July 2011 09:23:21 GMT+01:00 To: alan rutherford; AW Subject: RE: Spit out the pips

Get more knives would be the best strategy! _____________________________________________ From: Alan Rutherford To: AW Subject: Re: Spit out the pips Sent: 9 Jul 2011 19:23 Ahhh... A your response was just so predictable, I won the bet with Ann. _____________________________________________ From: AW Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2011 20:25:33 To: Alan Rutherford Subject: Re: Spit out the pips Damn

Hi Ruthers, no no....I’ll avoid the rules of the house....see you Tuesday perhaps. G _____________________________________________ -----Original Message----From: Alan Rutherford Sent: 19 July 2011 11:53 To: G Subject: Quiz? Hi G Quizzing tonight? Is everything OK, just wondered as you seem to have gone quiet lately? All are quite concerned... Alan

_____________________________________________ On 25 Jul 2011, at 18:50, G wrote: Hello Ruthers, no, possibly not, there again: “Herein lies the answer to reader jeffzelli’s question: ... We’ve discussed how to taste cheese, but how does one eat it? Especially in a formal setting? ... Don’t underestimate the service a knife provides. Dinner knives are perfect for delving into the creamiest of cheeses, and since they aren’t sharp, eat the cheese directly off of the knife itself. It’s one of the best ways to eat cheese like a pro. It also eases the voyage from plate to nose to mouth. Always smell your cheese before eating: you taste more with your nose than with your taste buds, actually. ... It probably goes without saying, but take into consideration your setting. A dip of the finger into an oozing triple creme may be better suited for a gastropub than a four star, once in a lifetime dining experience. But in either situation, do what makes you feel comfortable-- the most important rules in the world of cheese are in regards to enjoyment rather than etiquette!

It is considered impolite in the extreme to put a knife in or near the mouth when dining. (There are ancient and psychological reasons for this rule.) I don’t mean ‘eating’: whatever you do in the privacy of your own kitchen or in a very informal setting among consenting adults is your business. But if dining in a fine white table cloth restaurant or dinner party, the formal place setting and usage is preferred. Correct ‘cutlery’ for cheese service is a small (appetiser/ salad) knife and fork and sometimes, if a very runny cheese is served, a small dessert spoon. The fork, tines down pointing right; above that, the knife, blade facing toward the diner, pointing to the left and spoon, if any, bowl down, pointing left, above the knife. Also ‘do what you feel comfortable’ is weasely advice to give someone looking for the socially accepteble (sic) way of doing anything. The basis of etiquette is not one’s own comfort, but the comfort and consideration of others. And once someone is comfortable and confident as to the expected behaviour, then enjoyment will inevitably ensue.” G

Sheep in the road

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From: Alan Rutherford Date: 26 July 2011 09:41:32 BST To: G Subject: Re: Quiz?

From: G Sent: 27 July 2011 10:36 To: Alan Rutherford Cc: Rutherford, Ann Subject: Music Round: Quiz?

Dear G Thanks for the cheese dialogue, but I see no mention of what to do if your guests decide to deliberately contaminate the cheese with their spittle and drool, by licking the communal cheese knives from the cheeseboard, thereby affronting their hosts hospitality and spoiling his evening ... should he speak up and be damned ... and almost certainly destroy the conviviality of the occasion? Or should one be a generous host and later write a considered, but pleasantly worded, note to express one’s annoyance at his guests’ laddish and unhygienic behaviour? I suppose neither is the answer if your guests consider this practice OK and a bit ... rebellious (ooooh!). Your curt reply and distant conduct towards us since this hoo-hah has been revealing to me, however, your petulance has mystified and upset Ann very much (this is truly unforgivable) – she actually cares about you. Alan

Hello both, ok, ok...the criticism gets worse....I am forgoing further comment (“The Glorious 12th is just around the corner... Don’t delay, reserve your Grouse today - Game on for R!”). Therefore best count me out of everything, best wishes to you for the future and I’m quite happy talking with to Ann whenever our workload allows.... G _____________________________________________ From: ann rutherford Date: 27 July 2011 10:53:33 GMT+01:00 To: G; alan rutherford Subject: RE: Music Round: Quiz? G, I think that over the last few years we have had a good friendship and we (Alan and myself) have enjoyed your company, and it seems very sad that this has happened. Can’t see why it has happened but have a good life and all the best for the future. Ann ____________________________________________ And it was done ...

AW, portrait of an artist

Sheep in the road

Bishops Cleeve, 1909 Photograph: courtesy The Shitshute Collection

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Bishops Cleeve

Situated under an edge of the cotswolds chalky ring, a village now overgrown with poorly designed ‘mock cotswold’ and twee housing estates that feed the growing conurbation of Cheltenham. There are few records left from the nineteenth century that relate to Bishops Cleeve when it was a major shipbuilding centre and dominated the local area. Some limited photographic evidence exists of the tail-end of this industrious period (see photograph opposite). Stories still persist amongst the ‘old boys’ of the village about Church Road being the keel setting for the record breaking tea clipper, Typhoo. The shipbuilding trade finally ceased when the cost of transporting the ships to the sea grew too great, leaving behind a village of unemployed wheelwrights, chandlers and riveters and ... even today, a phonebook full of surnames like Bolthead, Shortmast, Clawhammer, Frigg, Metalplate ... Amongst locals, crossing Church Road, is still refered to as being keel-hauled. Local pubs, like the Kings Head (originally the Old Bulkhead) and Royal Oak have sadly removed all references to the Typhoo when tea-towel fanatics redesignated Bishops Cleeve a nondescript cotswold village, however some of its past greatness can stll be seen at Shitshute House.

Sheep in the road

The Any O’Clock Cannon: occasionally found outside the Parish Offices. Was traditionally fired randomly at any hour, day or night, as a tribute to the Bishops Cleeve Angry Brigade. It has since, in a grand gesture to political correctness, been fitted with an industrial-strength bubble-blowing machine and is now still ‘fired’ at any o’clock ... the result can have villagers hopping and popping mad all day long!

Opposite: David Cameron House, a wax effigy of a guard dog was successfully installed to deter egg throwers. Overleaf: Bishops Cleeve once again dominates the local area, now with its huge commercial centre ... where ironically Typhoo Tea is a big shipper.

Sheep in the road

Family portrait, 1950 Me; my father, James; my sister, Anne; my mother, Mary; and my brother, Brian

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Brian

I probably do not know enough about Brian to give him a proper account, seems like there are vast chunks of his life either I did not notice much or I was not around to observe. But like all human beings who have been noticed he deserves to be thought about occasionally. I’m talking like I know something but really I found a cache of airmail letters he sent to us around forty years ago and reading them I get a bit tearful and the bits I do remember start to crackle and spark and I suppose writing it out and maybe putting it in a book will mean he lives on (?) Brian was my younger brother, three years younger and in popular legend, you know the sort that clings to old photographs and if you say it enough times … well, thats the way it was, well … I used to tease him a lot, until he cried the story goes. Sadly this is also my memory now, maybe this wee spot at the keyboard will open up other more pleasant ones? Brian David Rutherford was born on 28 June 1950, I don’t know any details although at almost three years old I was about then and have some memories of that period, trying to compliment the few surviving photographs. My sister Anne had just had her first birthday on the 25th, I don’t remember that either. As a family we had been living with my mother’s parents in Pretoria, but it was around the time Brian was born that we moved to Durban. The house we lived in, 31 Manor View Road, Hillary, was a solid brick

Sheep in the road

detached house with a corrugated tin roof. The yard was on a slope and terraced with mango trees out back and a guava tree in the front. I must have noticed Brian crawling, walking, saying his first words … as I must have also observed Anne, but none of this is in my memory. Although, I do remember our first nights at the house in Manor view Road where we slept on mattresses on the floor as no furniture had arrived. Brian was always small for his age, my mother doted on him and called him ‘Binky’ making a fuss of his curly hair. We kids had our childhood illnesses and even spent time in Wentworth Hospital with scarlet fever, but Brian seemed to suffer illness more than either Anne or I … he also had polio and meningitis. With his slight build, sorry … I think I enjoyed teasing him as when he got fighting mad I laughed as he pummelled me, making him madder. I was just another cruel child. This is not going to be some weighty account, but as befits the limited information its going to be a bit flighty with things I remember, things I have been told and bits from his letters, but maybe thats enough? I am trying to fathom why I don’t have any sharp memories of Brian. When I left home proper he was 14, he went to Glenwood High School where he played snare drum in the school’s marching band. As children, he accompanied me in our forages into the bush around the houses we lived in, he was a party to the collection of crabs, he never did have a pet (Anne and I both had dogs at some point) … he just seemed to be there. Other than the teasing, memories of which I have been forced to admit so they do come to mind, he was just my brother – we shared a bedroom, sometimes we were dressed identically for special occasions by my mother, we played together. Every summer we kids were packed off to

Umkomaas to stay with my mother’s sister, our aunt Ivy. She had 2 sons and a daughter too … anyway, rather than have family versus family in the games we would play, I partnered up with Guy, Brian with Clive and Anne with Janet … I’ve never wondered about this until now, but was this engineered by adults or did we so egalitarianly choose this arrangement? After leaving school, where he matriculated, he drifted a bit, seemed to have a couple of dodgy jobs, was in the SA army for compulsory service, went to Tech but left without diploma. He seemed to have good politics. He liked music by Jethro Tull, CSNY, James Taylor, King Crimson, Traffic, Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Band, Jimi Hendrix amongst others, and read books by authors like Ken Kessey, Herman Hesse, Charles Reich, J.D. Salinger, Norman Mailer, Scott-Fitzgerald … He worked in a graphic studio, had an exhibition of his art along with our cousin Guy, lived in a flat with others including Guy, never made the visit to us that he often talked of … and died on 29 May 1977, probably due to all those childhood illnesses.

On the Beach, 1953

As I mentioned, I recently found some letters from him, rereading them makes me quite sad as I think, were he alive now, it would be the most wonderful thing and we would chat and chat â&#x20AC;Ś I miss him.

Sheep in the road

_____________________________________________ From 1967/68 Dear Alan and Ann How are you, Alan I think you had better get an alarm clock or if you have one you better have a haircut so that you can hear it. Well I seem to be popular with the Government, I’ve been getting lots of letters from them and tomorrow I have to go for a medical and in ‘69 I’ll be a soldier. S’pose you’ve heard we’re leaving this dump soon, its really dead around here now so I’ll be glad. Hope Ann’s back is OK and the GOLD dress? The last time he was here the only thing he gave me was some gum, still not to complain he didn’t tease me. I suppose he hasn’t told you that in his younger years his favourite sort was me. Bought some new shoes today for school and dad blew his top, says they’ll kick me out of school if I wear them to school. I think the chances are good for me for getting a buzz bike for christmas my birthday, but don’t put that in your letters home ‘cause dad doesn’t know yet. Dad’s just said I’ve got a chance if he wins a raffle on at the MOTHS. I’ve got a nice pair of hipsters, with a wide belt but I s’pose thats gone out of fashion in England. SA seems to be miles behind.

I’m beginning to think the hit parade on Springbok here is rigged, some records stay on for 20 weeks and some of those are terrible. Anyway top here is ‘I’m a Believer’, by the Monkees, 4th week at top. the ban on the Beatles is still on Springbok – Government controlled radio, but L.M. has never had a ban. Craze here is signs on T-shirts like, ‘DURBAN PRISON – 276431’ and lots of surfing signs. Have you ever been to the beach there? Wonder what size waves you’ve got, can you beat 10’–15’? I am now a staff sgt. in the school band (HERO) finally getting somewhere. Sorry about the last effort but I hardly started it when somebody sent it, excuse the handwriting I’m in bed at the moment – Happy Easter. Love Brian Regards to Ann

_____________________________________________ From 1970 Dear Joanna, Alan and Ann, I hope Joanna was pleased with dad’s present. And I’m sorry that I could not send one myself as I’m still jobless and moneyless. Anne has a card she forgot to send because of Noel’s accident. He cut a finger off at work. He is alright now and will be out of hospital in a few days. I don’t know what I’m going to do for a job, I’ve tried nearly everything I can think of that even vaguely appeals to me with no luck but I suppose something will come along. I’ll have to get one soon ‘cause dads breathing down my neck. It is Friday the 13th today but nothing happened to me. Noel is out of hospital and he seems OK, he will be off work for about 2–3 months the doctor says. He lost half a thumb, his index finger and they had to patch up his middle finger. He had a skin graft on it and if that doesn’t take they’ll have to take it off, or part of it. Percy (cockatoo) died on the same day as the accident. You know dad bought Percy thinking he was a male but it laid 4 eggs a couple of days before it died. No wonder Percy never talked. Would you believe it, dad’s on at me to get a haircut already. Anne has the proofs of her wedding photo’s and dad has some colour ones, so some of both should be on their way soon. The wedding itself was quite something. Noel battled a bit to get the ring on Anne’s finger and in the end they carried on with it about halfway on. When it came to Anne’s turn to put the ring on Noel’s finger she just rammed it on.

I’ve got a job, I don’t really know what you could call it, I’m going to sell nuts and bolts, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, washers, screws, drill bits, oxygen welding equipment and so on. So I suppose I’ll be a sort of shop assistant. I will be going to Tech to do courses on Metallurgy and so on. Everything to do with metal stresses – that is, if my employer finds me satisfactory. Dad doesn’t seem enthusiastic as you can imagine, he says he sent his sons to academic schools to keep them out of engineering and then they both go into it. He says he’s going to check up on the job to see if its good enough for me. I don’t really know myself whether its for me, you know how its like, I thought Matric would be out of this world till I got it and realised it was nothing really. Oh well, its taken me quite a while to do this letter I better finish off or it will never get to you. I went to see Anne and Noel tonight and Noel might have to have that other finger off, the middle one, because the doctor is not sure whether its taking. Lots of Love

Sheep in the road

Brian, picture taken just after I had left home, around 1967.

_____________________________________________ August 1972 Dear Alan, Ann, Joanna and Tanya Thank you for the letter, I hope the birthday card has reached you by now. I had to send it surface mail ‘cause the cost for air mail was too much. Nobody calls me binky anymore, I’m ‘curly’ now. I’m so worried about this thing of leaving Tech I can hardly think of anything else. If it was just me I would leave, at the latest year-end – but dad has been paying for it and supporting me, I don’t want to hurt him. But its such a farce there, everyone thinks almost exclusively in terms of the diploma, most of the third year is spent preparing work for the diploma show – art history is taught in such a way that you will know enough to pass the exam. Radical views are suppressed ‘cause the examiners may not understand. The thing that makes the farce complete is that the diploma is worthless, nobody employs you on the strength of a fine art diploma, though ‘they’ say it helps. Enough moaning, you’ve probably got enough troubles of your own. But I must say that I don’t want a commercial art job. Paul is growing and smiling, he’s got a devilish smile. I think Joanna is really beautiful, she looks very intelligent, somehow I get the feeling that she’s a little suspicious of the camera.

My latest buy is ‘The Low Spark of High Heel Boys’ Traffic, I think its very good. A friend has a very good theory in support of religion, he says there must be a god otherwise how come we are all exactly the right size for our feet to reach the ground. I’ve heard about OZ and seen a few of the early issues, what happened about that issue put out by school kids, I know they were bust but I’de like to know why and what happened? What is ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust’? I’ve decided definitely to leave I will just have to harden heart and mind to try and explain it to dad before the end of the year. Counting everything in the good old money orientated way he must have laid out at least a thousand for those two years. He’s a good person, I say this because until fairly recently I just took him for granted and perhaps you did too – and its the thing I hate most – to upset or worry anybody. At least leaving is a positive action. Nancy says you can’t see what you look like cause of all the hair. Dad says he hopes you don’t wear those shoes (I said why not? and he said its no use talking to you.) Thank you again for the photos and letter. Love Brian

Sheep in the road

_____________________________________________ September 1972: Dear Alan, Ann, Joanna and Tanya, Anne, dad, grandma, etc, etc are all up in arms, I get funny looks, they’re asking what did you (me) write in your letter to get a reply (Anne’s upset because she sent you all those photo’s and you haven’t said how good Paul looks, the second letter crowned it). Its great getting letters but I don’t like writing them much and I’ve noticed that our airletters are bigger than yours. You know I’m 22 now and I’m only just starting to assert myself, I really appreciate your advice and know its probably the best thing to do - stay for a diploma I mean. BUT. Being dependent on dad scraping around for money etc are bad for me. We call most of our lecturers by first names and vice versa, this has come to the notice of the director of the college and he says, stop, most of them are friends but now its MR. so-and-so etc. Its just too childish? Its really an obvious attempt to get more authority. When a guys your friend? you can question what he says, what rules he makes, etc. This is harder with the school type system. It doesn’t matter to them that their strict system creates friction, frustration for students who naturally come off worst. The administration knows you can work much easier with numbers than with people and they want us to be like numbers not individuals. So Tech is out, I might have been able to take it if I was happy at home but I’m not. There are lots of hang ups there as well and naturally I come off worst there as well, or I think so.

There’s nothing wrong with dad really, I don’t like Nancy, but thats got little to do with it , we just have nothing in common, we agree on nothing. Anyway I can’t stay in this country much longer without blowing something up anyway. The politicians here are rottener than most, I think history will look back on them as monsters (or I hope so). If you do send me an ‘OZ’ wrap it well and try to make it look like something else because its banned here and I think they open parcels that look magazine because so many of them are banned (more reasons censorship & police). Another thing is if ever theres more internal strife here they will call up the army (as they did for the Cato Manor thing) and how can I go, what will I do then, I’m not brave or I’d have done something by now, I’d just drift along with the army when my sympathy is with them all, the way they’ve been treated so badly that I can’t blame them. I think if I was black in S.A. I would be for anything that would get the whites out. LOVE Brian

Sheep in the road

_____________________________________________ October 1972: Another letter, I’m working again, so you get another letter, lucky you? Its Sunday afternoon and the lunch rush is over. That was written about a week ago, since then I’ve given up the job, the owner closed for a holiday and didn’t tell me about it, in fact I was told they’d be open – so I got the shits. I don’t know how it happens but people are always hurting me. I don’t think I’m a super-sensitive person but its always happening. Thats the real reason for the letters, you know this way its safer. I hate to be always ‘wallowing in self-pity’ but thats how I always end up. Its obviously unintentional because when or if its noticed people (the ones who do it) are extra nice, but I still have this feeling of being stabbed in the back sort of. I think its perhaps because my ‘friendship’ is sort of total and theirs isn’t – its a continuous cycle. Every now and then I withdraw completely, not talking to anyone, the basic thing is sort of if you don’t have any friends you can’t get hurt. Unfortunately that wears off and it starts all over again. The only good point is that I’m aware of it so I don’t think I hurt other people very often, or I really hope I don’t. Dad’s put me down quite often lately, I understand it all but that doesn’t help much, he really hates long hair (won’t admit it though) and its rather disappointing when you see the clay feet so clearly.

I hate illogical prejudices like that anyway. When or if you write to me again write to Anne’s address as I’ve had enough – perhaps they will be the same in another way? I sometimes wonder if everybody is the same. I hope these letters full of profound bullshit aren’t too much of a drag. If they are tear them up, but it helps me to write at times like this …

_____________________________________________ June 1973 Dear Alan, Ann, Jo and Tanya I am fine. Since you last heard from me I’ve been to Cape Town (hitched there, took 3 days) and back (2 days). Its nice there. I am now an Art Director for a shitty advertising agency. Its shit, I do all the work while the boss farts around. Sometimes he tells me something is urgent and I work overtime (unpaid) to finish it then he sits on it for a week. He’s a real prick. He pays me shit too (when I re-read this all I see is shit). I don’t think the job will last. I am living with Guy in a flat near Greyville (remember?). Its good. We are vegetarians and do our own housework (ha!) I won’t be able to get out of here until I get some money (I’ve only worked half a month). With what I get here I’ll never leave but I’m looking around for more money. We are having an exhibition in September, maybe that will bring some in but I doubt it. I’m at work at the moment, not doing much as you will no doubt notice. Hope you’re all well, more soon, Brian

Sheep in the road

_____________________________________________ And another one, also June 1973… Hello folks, its me back again Well its the day after I posted the other letter (if you got it) and here I am writing again, whats wrong with me? I’m supposed to be working out an ad now but I don’t know what to do, I know nothing about advertising and the boss thinks I’m clued up, he knows less than me!! I’m sure to get fired or lose my temper and leave soon and I don’t know where I will get another job. Nobody helps much either. I don’t know what to say about dad, I don’t know what to think, he’s been very good to me in some ways, but then I don’t know him either. I think you should be careful about what you say though cause he hurts easily and worries a lot. Have you ever thought what there is for him to write about, bowls, Nancy? I know its the same for you but he doesn’t. Treat him with care he has had a harder life than I think you realise. I suspect we were all disappointments for him as far as careers go and I think he thought that important. I want to repeat that dad is soft, he can’t take whatever it is you wrote. When he told Anne about the letter he was very upset. Your moans are legitimate but there are two sides to the story I’m sure (even though I don’t know the other). Working is making me a cynic. The agency I work for has absolutely no standards. Its so shit doing crummy work. I’m amazed at the lousy drawings he accepts, but I wonder if I will ever be satisfied. Maybe its the country, maybe its me?

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I hope all my platitudes don’t bring you down, like the two sides of a story, and things - thats bullshit. But dad really is the softest guy I know, he really trusts people and thats something. I’m at the flat now and Jeffrey (another cousin remember?) is here. Just left home, I think he’s just spoilt, but then I’m not infallible. I hope its not serious. I never know whats the right thing to do in (these) situations, like I can’t give anybody advice. So that brings us back to dad. I really can’t say anything about the situation, I’m not inside you or dad, so anything I’ve said about the situation (?) is more comment - uninvolved and mistaken as that can be. Never accept the appearance of things. Write a letter of love and Peace. Brian

Artwork: Brian David Rutherford

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JDK Printers

Oxbutts, Woodmancote

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a Kevin, a louise & Free Range Cocksuckers and Arselickers

A company I worked for had some odd characters to deal with over the 8 or so years I was involved as book designer and pre-press project manager. One way to deal with the turds floating about in your [working] life is to write about them, give them a helping hand around that u-bend. In 2011, an experience with someone who gave us work and then inexplicably, later, brought tears to my eyes as I bit down into my bottom lip trying not to rock the boat ... and keep the work flowing. The man became a Mugabe character and for financial reasons we at Free Range were his captive audience. Well, after an agreeable 20 or so books going through in a timely fashion without too much comment, he just up and made an issue of a late book whose lateness could be laid at any number of doors. It took us by surprise with its unreasonableness … and then after we failed to grovel at his harsh emails, uppercase and peppered with inaccuracies and exclamation marks, he became awkward, irrational, intransigent ... his emails shrieked and it took over 6 months for him to grudgingly pay us for some considerable work.

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They say time is a healer and I suppose holding back for a year or so ... that is, until we had been paid, before flicking out any vitriol may make this late response seem vindictive … but no! ... here was a man, very pleasant at our introductory meeting who talked enthusiastically about the reverent books he published … who then just turned out to be a bully, a possible meglomaniac, perhaps one who – I can easily imagine – ruled his company of subservient yes-men (sic) by having stamping feet tantrums. You might think, ‘hmmm I have known a few bosses like that Alan’, and, I suppose ... come to think of it, I have too ... Something still weighing on my mind? Well, when entering one of those vacant moments, I sometimes recall with some distaste an occasion which eased me into semi-retirement ... actually it prodded me in the back and then trampled all over any enjoyment I had for my work ... I was persuaded to ‘apologise’ for telling it like it was (for me) working on the books of a certain publisher. I reluctantly said sorry because, well, others whom I care about may have been descriminated against. It is one of those ocassions in my life where I can possibly exorcise that choking phlegm by writing around it, maybe? Aptly I take a religious text to lay siege to this wart on my mind ... I would like my ‘apology’ to be read and understood in the same context and feeling as ... ‘Father Jack Hackett’s apology to Bishop Brennan’ ... and let that be an end to it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgbnWm6nMR4

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Passport 1964

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High School

In the last year at Bellair, before we all went off to our chosen High Schools, standard 6 were witness to my blubbering in answer to Mr Williams’, ‘Which High School have you been accepted in Alan?’ My parents had just not followed procedure and where everyone else in class had been accepted at the high school of their choice, I was left to wonder my future, head in hands, tears of embarrassment. ‘On my first day at high school I accompanied my mother to DHS where she made some arrangement (freemasonry jiggery-pokery?) with the headmaster, Wrinkles McIver – the result being me accepted in at this prestigious speckledboater-school. Rules whose reason can only have been to catch someone breaking them, bully-sixth formers with fagging rights, prefects using the cane, a journey through the prefects room, the school song by rote (which I still can recite), names of the first fifteen and first eleven and all that shit was actually the least of my worries. Happily (or sadly) for me my stint at DHS was flawed from the start when, after passing well at Bellair, I was inexplicably put in 3GC where my new peers included colours and honours blazers and some doing the third form for the 3rd year - where most classes were bait the teacher affairs (English with Colepepper was open warfare). I enjoyed maths but have since had this happy memory rubbished by the recently acquired knowledge that the teacher may not have been a nice man, ffs!

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Consequently, lacking the character or confidence to overcome this situation, my time at DHS was set. I became a lack-lustre student and left in 1964 to become a deckboy on a Norwegian ship, MV Thorscarrier, while half way through my second stab at the fifth form. One of my better decisions!

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My brother Brian went to Glenwood High School â&#x20AC;&#x201C; presumably to escape my long shadow.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

I am in both photographs, for the curious ... on page 118 I am third from right, third row down, amongst my fourth form chums (1962) ... and above is my fifth form appearance, second row down, second from the right (1963)

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Tree Mist Obscurist

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See ya!

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Funeral?

As you get older you end up going to more funerals as people you know die. I cannot say I have been to many of these events and then recognised the deceased by the summation given ... and those few that had a flicker resembling the existence the dead had led were blighted by a religious element you know was never part of that person’s life. With this in mind, and the fear that my own funeral may be hijacked by some dog collared nutter, I thought I’d write it out myself, for myself ... and as I won’t be around for the event this short piece should dispell my concerns (in fact I should not be bothered anyway, but while you can still think these practicalities need dealing with ...). My father’s service and that of Norrie Keir were the closest I got to feeling ‘this is it!’ so I hope my turn at the crematorium will follow those short and dignified examples. Someone who knows me reads my last statement: ‘As I am really long gone and you are now just dealing with my carcass ... here are some thoughts and observations. Mine was mainly a happy life, surrounded by a tight loving family, Ann, Joanna, Tanya, Callum, Cameron and Oscar, and in disignating the source of happiness in my life – it is definitely down to the people I came into contact with, so thank you. My one true love was Ann whom I adored. I was a staunch Socialist ranter who probably didn’t speak

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out as much as I should have, and who, like most socialists, had his red flag holed and peppered with inconsistencies and errors of judgement, but who still argued there is a better way to live than under this shit capitalist system right to the end. I believe you live on in the memory of those who knew you ... and more permantly, by entering into new arrangements of life, as the atoms of carbon we all constitute. Thank you for coming, if no-one has anything else to say here is some music that makes me happy to think would be played at my funeral.’ The Parting Glass - The Voice Squad – When you were sweet sixteen - The Fureys – for Ann, although she is not particularly fond of it, it reminds me of our first meeting. The Highway Man - The Highwaymen – for the atoms of carbon that help make us physical, not reincarnation, more a mechanical rebirth. You Can Close Your Eyes - James Taylor – You can sing this song when I’m gone

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A FAMILY IN T

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Ann’s mum, Catherine Maria Byk A life of servitude, hunched by spondylitis and cursed with the onset of dementia and a dose of Parkinson’s in later years, alone and afraid of the world, she is the daughter refused an education and singled out by a mother, brothers and sisters to skivvy for them, and later expected to keep her bullying mother company in her dotage. Denied respite and pressured by her mother, a dominant matriarch, into a compulsive cleaning disorder, Catherine Maria, now past eighty contemplates her life and finds it wanting. Without so much as a by-your-leave, nieces and nephews were left in Catherine’s care – this was one of the more enjoyable indignities handed to her during her life – whilst their parents (her brothers and sisters) went off and did exciting things. Young nephew Lloyd, whilst sat on the toilet, truly summed it all up with, ‘Kit! Come and wipe my bottom, I don’t want to dirty my hands’.

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It would appear her only abiding sources of happiness came with her marriage to Pawel Byk (who died recently after a brief battle with cancer), and the birth of their daughter, Ann. Happy memories needed to be cultivated and re-introduced for them to counter her reminiscences which dwell almost exclusively on the sad aspects of her life. Catherine and Pawel, called Kitty and John by family and friends, pass (and passed) through life leaving, it seems, only their humanity to remember them by. They are held with great affection by Ann, who, as their only daughter, is their one true, supportive, committed, constant and staunchest ally against anything that gave them reason for concern. In any other situation Catherine would have been noones’ fool, but unable to break from the years of enduring psychological mischief, her circumstances dictated her life, leaving her with a house-proud fetish – and a duster in her hand. Sadly, as time went by, only her Welshness, those friends gained at the Spiritualist Church and her immediate family, where she was a great-grandmother, offered her any solace in what she saw as an increasingly wicked and alien world. The final insult awarded to one whose life seemed so full of life’s back-handers is to suffer the paranoia of an ever advancing dementia, have to move into a Home, not know where she is or remember people or conversations … and have to endure all the resulting corrupted flights of bewilderment and thought that that implies.

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Music club 2012-2013

For just over a year I have been involved with a group of musicoes, there is no common denominator to describe this group really and musicoes is a fittingly loose description. The original premise for an evening meeting of around 3 hours was to play a classic album and other contributions, but this evolved into an exciting ‘favourite tracks’ milieux … and, in my case, also went into introducing discovered musicians and favourites via a freebie CD. I don’t think I need to give the other musicoes each an identity as I’m sure my observations would only provoke and provide ammunition for some sort of vendetta or long drawn out correspondence. But I would say, up close they were diverse in character, musical taste and background, but from a distance we were a group of middling white men steeped in 60′s–70′s blues rock, dabbling in jazz, americana and folk … and I consciously restricted my contributions to meet this criteria. Categories used here are accepted from High Street music outlets and probably do not do justice to the actual music played … which, personally, I believe defies all classifications … you like it or you don’t! I was intrigued by the narrow, but occasionally surprisingly leftfield, choices included in selections, and spent very enjoyable hours analysing and following up the tracks played by the others, and often purchased albums based on this investigative adventure. All in all, despite my slightly duff hearing and the denying of my more eclectic musical tastes slipping into my selections, I greatly enjoyed the

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evenings and the music played during those monthly meetings. We met in each other’s houses where clues and markers gave further indications as to my musical comrades’ life affiliations and tastes … it was comforting and revelatory to be in the company of other musicoes like this, see their musical collections, watch them grow older and seem to appreciate each others’ selections … but, over the year a culture developed, a small group which never exceeded 6 began to develop a hierarchy … and one guy resigned … Hello, gentlemen! After a fair bit of agonising, I’ve decided to quit the record club. It’s a shame I feel I have to do it (and I know I may come to regret my decision), but I’ve been acutely aware from the start that my knowledge of and enthusiasm for the subject has lagged far behind the rest of the group’s. Which was not a problem to begin with because the exposure to new (to me) artists and styles was exciting and enriching, but over time you all brought so much stuff to the evenings, plus all the freebies, that it became quite overwhelming and, sadly, it has upset the comfortable niche that music occupies in my life. It simply isn’t as important to me as it is to you. I wish you all much happy listening and chatter in the future. Rob And then, nothing to do with music at all, the next meeting opened with an attack on the host for talking over contributions and a proposal to retreat to the ‘classic album’ format was accepted by the others present … and my journey with them ends.

Hi And another leaves the band quoting irrelevant differences … “Talking over each others’ contributions” … almost laughed out loud at that, as I think all of you have been guilty of that. I say ‘all’, but I exclude myself because while music is playing I can’t make out what anyone is saying … a combination of duff hearing and actually trying to listen to the music … so figure out the ‘all’ amongst yourselves. More serious to me was the proposal that the group revert to its singular founding idea: to flop and fawn over a ‘classic’ album and to later waffle, namedrop and claim it as the greatest … an exercise for regurgitating Mojo and Q articles and probably nothing to do with the actual music. In this change of direction my opinion was not sought. Sadly gone, it seems to me, the evolved and exciting idea of bringing along your tastes and finds (which could include ‘classic albums’) to play and share with the group, along with the exchange of home burnt CDs of thoughtfully mined golden treasures. Probably too much commitment required, I suppose? To support the singular ‘classic album’ proposal words like ‘there has been too much music’ and ‘I don’t have time to listen to all the (freebie) CDs’ were used … I get the message. I came each month because of that ‘too much music’ element, not for any of the chat which, because of my duff hearing, I found hard to follow. From freebie CDs and the wide variety of music played I have made some very enjoyable discoveries and additions to my iTunes library, and for this I thank you all. Anyway, for quite the opposite reason Rob quit, I also take leave of your company … maybe see you in Rise. Alan

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Falling over in public Falling over in public, really! Falling over in public continues to keep my feet on the ground, so to speak, stopping me from ever taking myself seriously. Generally these falls take place in the metaphysical episodes that frequent us all, an assumed position defended, or argued for, way past its correctness … the ‘egg on the face’ syndrome where our cognitive ceilings are tested and found wanting. Then there is the physical falter – embarrassing, slapstick, farce … A recent tumble made me realise I have not physically fallen over that much in my life, and when I have I seem to instinctively roll with it, the only injury being to any pride I have managed to accrue! I think I’m right in concluding falling over in public is a necessary humbler ... and its a shame that some people don’t experience it more often. While working at Smiths in the 1970s I had a couple of falls from the bike, one, in narrow alleyway where I was too lazy to get off and push, had me over the handlebars and helplessly sprawling, bike on top of me, unable to get up for what seemed a really long

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time, all in front of an astounded young girl who was walking up the other way. Another time heavy virgin snow on early morning roads had me wrongly guessing where pavement curbs were … the thud of the front wheel and my flight from the saddle would have been excruciatingly funny to any curtain twitchers … I would have laughed too. Early 1980’s, when a political animal, I remember meetings going on and on so that we had to run for the last bus home. Running and falling, not seeming to notice the hard road, just tucking in my right shoulder and rolling … making it all look so contrived – it wasn’t, but we had a bus to catch. Carrying some books down the narrow twisting staircase at Thoemmes Press my footing failed noisily, a signal to those in the production department below that something worth gawping at was happening, and as I slithered to the bottom jolt, my concern to save the books and look cool relaxed my sphincter just enough to trumpet my arrival which did not disappoint, the fart being more embarrassing than the fall … ‘much deeped joy of a full moon fundermold dangly in the heavenly bode’ as Stanley might have said. Not so long ago with friends, instead of going around I thought I could climb a low wall and jump down the other side. There is a problem when your mind has refused to grow up, you feel 18 but your body is 60odd … I landed with the realisation that my legs, my knees, just would not take the weight, of yes, I forgot that bit … also a bit overweight, damn! Over I went, subconsciously rolling and up again as if I had meant to be that melodramatically agile … and then, sheesh, if only I had the quick mind to claim the acrobatic manoeuvre that my friends tried vainly to congratulate me on, but no, I had ashamidly admitted my goof before I saw their faces of fading admiration. Maybe

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next time … Just the other day, after having shuffled a good way around the Meadow Hall shopping centre and negotiating our way back to the car I fell again, schizzen! Coming out of some covered stairs upon a road crossing, blinded by the beckoning green light I missed the last 2 steps down to the pavement. Holding an empty coffee cup in one hand I cartwheeled into the road, my eyes following my right shoe leaving my foot to make that elegant slow-motion arc, unable to stop myself, fortunately rolling with the fall again but still ending up on my back, my eyes caught Ann’s shock as I lay in the road, the lights changed with cars waiting to go, others waiting now to cross the road looked on, stupified. Collecting my shoe from the middle of the road, my elbow hurt but somehow not my pride as I joined Ann back on the pavement. ‘Oh shit!’, another opportunity missed I thought, damn! Such a wonderful leveller as falling over in public deserves the credit for keeping us/me sane and true … the next time I fall over in public (and maybe, if you are there to witness it you will see) … I promise to take a low and flourish embellished bow!

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Gloucester Docks

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A LUTTA CONTINUA 162

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EPILOGUE: DON’T CROSS PICKET LINES

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The first issue Sheep in the Road magazine has writing, photography, cartoons and odd assemblages of ideas, rants and reviews ... eminating from a socialist and thoughtful core. Available to view/read at: www.handoverfistpress.com

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