grimaces gripes and plaudits

I’ve ignored athletics for years. I used to watch it now and again but time has seen me adopt a cold, indifferent stance to the comings and goings of traack and field.

I don’t know why, but this week I’ve been hooked on the World Championships from Berlin. Maybe it’s the sense of history – this being the stadium of Hitler’s Olympics in 1936 when Jesse Owens upset his applecart by pinching medals from under the noses of Aryans. He won them fair and square of course and his enduring legacy can only have been augmented this week by the flying antics of Usain Bolt.  What an entirely appropriate name for a man who runs like greased lightening.

Last night’s programme was splendid. Bolt smashed the 200m. world record and the women’s High Jump was  engrossing with two tall, nee statuesque women from Germany and Croatia going at it hammer and tongs. Add a  lanky Russian to the mix and we had a spectacle that held everyone in thrall and brought absolute silence to the huge crowd as the German lass held her finger to her lips. This really was high drama and great theatre.

Highlight for me though was the performance of
British athlete – William Sharman. He didn’t finish in a medal position – he came fourth – in the 110m. hurdle event.  He’s proud of his home nation.A personal best time and winning ways in his post race interview made this young bloke a credit to Britain and a shining example to our youth. I’m almost lookin’ forward to the 2012 Olympics now and hope to see this guy win Gold.

Some welcome sunshine and summer warmth  today, by way of a change. I had a good night’s kip too.
As it happened g/d came to stay last night and all of today. It was a good chance to spend some time with her before she goes away on a weeks holiday to Wales at the weekend.

Last night we watched some athletics together on the telly - unusual for her…she was impressed by the effort of the competitors and even more impressed when I said there was no reason she couldn’t do as well herself. It’s all about ‘effort’ I told her – she’s as lean as Buxton and doesn’t carry any excess weight at this early age. With encouragement she could be sporting – success doesn’t really matter , it’s just  a bonus. I know she runs like a whippet and has outpaced me since she was four – didn’t  take much mind with my inferior hips of bone and gristle – just wait ’til the ceramics are ready for the fray

Anyway we woke this morning at roughly the same time…a lie-in at half seven! - she got breakfast in bed as usual ’cause Grandma spoils her a bit. Then we allowed her to get stuck into ‘baking’ which means just  a mess of various ingredients  spread all over the kitchen table – Eve’s  Cornflake Soggies are my favourite and I’ve even been known to eat them!

I then gave her the first of three ‘treasure maps’ which involve leaving clues all over the house and its environs – she likes this game and it’s encouraging her reading skills. She managed to garner one pound fifty , a chocolate mini-roll and  a bag of Cheese and Onion Crisps…not a bad haul for nowt eh?

The idea obviously lit her imagination and she proceded to set treasure quests for Grandma and I  – my prize was a plastic strawberry I’d hunted high and low for and climbed the stairs. Just what I wanted .

We went for a walk around our estate (no, we’re not landed gentry) the sun was shining and the horses were in their field – we said hello to one particularly photogenic beast. Hard to believe this is on the edge of an urban metropolis.

Mummy called for g/d about four ‘o clock and we gave her some spends for her upcoming holiday. A nice day and it’s good to keep  a record for posterity. I shall keep my plastic strawberry as a memento.

hunting for clues in  a ‘muddy boot’

there must be treasure somewhere in this garage !

gotcha! – a £1 coin

Tmorrows another day and I’m on a sick-note hunt.

I have to admit it’s getting better. Four weeks on from the second op. it’s not before time.

The last twenty four hours have brought a little bit of a healing spurt. The wound is not far off healed now and 90% of it is fine. Another District Nurse came today and put a wee plaster over the remaining bit, which is still ‘oozing’ slightly

I walked to the newsagents for a Daily Mail ! I’ve not been bothering (apart from Saturdays) and to be honest I’ve not really missed it much. The walk was okay – about a half mile round trip. I’ve been using just the one crutch for a while now and next week will try the walking stick.I can put more weight on the right hip and take stairs without support.

The only thing I can’t do for myself now really is put me socks on ! Well, not the right one anyway. Luckily Wallet is at hand and still eager to help – bless her. When it comes to ‘for better or worse’ she’s certainly had more than her fair share of the crap just lately.

Grand-daughter is staying tonight and we had some instructive fun watching the Athletics. Seems she hasn’t seen much…her brain is like a sponge. I’m always asking what I consider to be age related questions but she’s answering them all so regularly and correctly now I’ll have to up the ante.  I’ve been teaching her how to use the index in a Road Atlas looking for simply spelt towns like Wem, and Ely ! Tomorrow we’ll do some ‘treasure maps’ -  having hidden some goodies around the house and I might try  a spot of gentle gardening, with g/d and Wallet’s help o’course. We have a huge Elder bush in the front garden that needs some pruning – g/d will have the kitchen upside down no doubt as she gets to grips with all manner of ingredients in a baking fest.

The word is it’s warming up and summers due for a fleeting return. I need another sick note soon to see me through until Autumn when I really will have to get my backside into gear and go back to work if I can hack it physically. If I can’t there’ll be hell to pay.  Seven months away from  work is a long, long time but I’ve no wish to make it permanent.

Plans are in hand to hire a narrowboat – just for the day…in October perhaps. Watch this space – I also fancy  a few days in Mid-Wales come late September. I’ll be glad when I can drive again in a fortneets time.

The first thing that struck me about Sarah Ferguson was how old she is looking now  and how much she now resembles her late father.  Unlike her Princess pal the deceased  Diana she can’t stay forever youngish. Age will weary her and the years condemn, especially if she continues to indulge in silly t.v. stunts like this one. That said she deserves top marks for resisting that botox stuf.

She arrived in Northern Moor unheralded. The programme planners had found a morbidly obese woman whose face was like the back end of a bus to act as peoples champ – her kids were well on their way to a life of laziness judging by their build at a young age. A tactic no doubt aimed to alienate all but the most balanced and impartial viewer, and persuading the others to believe she was emblematic of local life. No mention of a father for those three kids either, surely another reason to think these were typical? I also wondered who was paying the rent.

The head of Fergie’s favoured family seemed a bit terrified but it was unclear just what she was terrified of. I think every parents nightmares revolve around drugs and bad external influences but these seemed no more prevalent on Northern Moor than anywhere else in Urban Britain. It emerged later that this fearful mother had been convicted of battery a few years ago when confronted with the mother of her Son’s bully. Not much wrong in that I’ll admit, but I reckon some research would soon unearth many other more ‘normal’ advocates with a more rational view to step forward.

We were presented with reasonable looking houses with some open spaces. Bored youth who drink a lot and a few people with rather savage looking dogs. Most of the ‘hoodies’ keep them up to preserve anoymity and to blend in. Yes, they can look intimidating, especially after dark but only a tiny minority would say boo to the proverbial goose.

The worst aspect of the programme, and a blight on the whole area is the Sale Circle shopping area. This DID used to be the vibrant hub of the community. Reams have been written on changing retail trends. The supermarkets have led to a massive decline in this type of development. Frankly though the way the properties have been left to decay – some standing empty – is a disgrace…there should be a levy on supermarket profits to ensure that shops abandoned in their wake are maintained and if possible let at reduced rates to community groups assuming no viable commercial premises can be found.

I’ll not be rushing back to Northern Moor anytime soon. Leaving in 1970 turned out to be a good move by the look of it now. That said it is of course a white working class area so in common with this chunk of the population it’s been overlooked for decades. Morale has slumped. Aspiration plummeted for a myriad of reasons. One statistic quoted though was that one in five young people were out of work. Which to me means that four in five ARE working, which seems a healthy statistic in this age of NEETS and recession.

Fergie’s programme lacked focus – she was off on her way to Blackpool within ten minutes. The editing managed to capture almost every high rise block in the area although it could not erase the well kept bungalows and the neatly painted houses.

My problem is I have too good a memory. Frankly to see my old neighbourhood portrayed in this way depresses me and I’m unsure who to blame. I do know that what’s happened there is replicated hundreds of times up and down the country and there are far worse areas to examine – might Fergie not be welcome in Tower Hamlets or Hackney….perhaps too many ethnics to upset. Sale Circle itself looks like a sink estate but Northern Moor is a long way from sliding down the plug-hole. I shall watch next week and see what they manage to do with the big house identifued as empty and doing nowt.
The fact that it has taken an ex-Royal to get that project moving is a sorry testimony to a Socialist Town Hall.

I let an old  man get under my skin.

I’ve nothing against old men, even wealthy Jewish ones but this one left me feeling impotently enraged.
So – time to depart methinks. I’ve been contributing to that forum for a long time and there was a time I’d gladly have locked horns with the auld twit but I’ve run out of steam – it’s exited via my ears of late !

Having been ‘banned for life’ from another favoured haunt it’s a good job I have other places to go to vent me spleen and blather on. Including here of  course. I’ve found it doesn’t really matter if anyone reads the stuff, it’s just theraputic to get it out.

I can be as mean spirited foul mouthed and acerbic as most but that’s not a game I want to play much anymore – especially not with a   gob-shite ex-pat who made his pile and scarpered bemoaning all that is Britain with broadbrush vitriol and bile. Life’s too short.

She’s done it now !

Sarah Ferguson, that red headed royal liability who burst upon the public stage in the nineteen eighties has put her name to a character assassination of my home town.

Well, it’s not actually a town. I was born in a small corner of a huge council estate in South Manchester. Wythenshawe – the vision of planners and architects who didn’t do a bad job. Not much high rise and decent homes for folk from inner city Manchester and Salford where the early days of industrial revolution had been consolidated into a powerhouse propelling the British economy forward on cotton and coal. By the nineteen thirties the housing stock was not doing justice to the people domiciled therein.

The suburb of Wythenshawe lies about six miles south of the city centre. It’s made up of about twelve local areas, Northern Moor to Baguley, Newall Green to Woodhouse Park and Crossacres. All encapsulated under the name ‘Wythenshawe’ which means a wood of willow.

A tree lined boulevard called Princess Parkway brought the early commuters back home after

days in city centre offices and the factories (later to become warehouses) of Trafford Park. Most of the inhabitants worked and contributed to a growing economy, for aside from the crammed red double deckers that rolled to and from ‘town’ there were few passengers. Perhaps my Uncle was one, but struck down at the age of eleven with Muscular Dystrophy he was not destined to live very long and his passing, in 1962 was the most poignant moment of my life until then, I was eleven. The hard right wingers and those who see all benefit claimants as ‘spongers’ will no doubt be relieved to know he died aged just thirty two.

My ‘Nana’ was lucky enough to have allocated a three bedroomed house at the very edge of Wythenshawe – the first to be built in the nineteen thirties (thousands more would follow over the next three decades as the estate mushroomed in size). It was a substantial brick-built dwelling with good sized gardens and of course the plumbing demanded in the twentieth century but by no means taken for granted by the working classes.

As war clouds gathered my Father – a Shropshire Lad – was billeted nearby with his motorbike and his acquaintance with the woman I’d know as Mum grew into love. They married in ’42 and were again lucky to get the house next door to ‘Nana’. Following two daughters, their luck ran out when I turned up in the front bedroom in 1951.

So, on the edge of Wythenshawe, in a cul-de-sac (The Drive) on the edge of Northern Moor and slap bang in the middle of a comfort zone of childhood, secure play, loving hard working parents and the bourgeoning welfare state we kids proceded to grow up at a fairly gentle pace. I could not have asked for much more, perhaps because I didn’t know of much more. We’d visit relations in Shropshire towns and villages but I never yearned for a rural upbringing …besides, City played just up the road and I was loving my early sporting success at school. Perhaps the only blot on the landscape were the ‘Teds’ who might sometimes gather outside the ‘chippy’ after dark….and the weekly fights at the pub at the top of Yew Tree Lane which attracted coachloads of young drinkers from outlying towns like Warrington and Widnes – it had a renowned cabaret lounge – named ‘Yewtopia’ and did good business in the late fifties and early sixties. Nana and her pensioner friends were regulars in the Yew Tree and would walk home close to midnight not a fear for their safety in any shape or form aside from the odd Mackeson induced trip !

I left in 1970 – married a Cheshire lass – true, it was the more industrial bit of Cheshire, no leafy lanes for us, no Prestbury pile…..Hyde, a now notorious mill town (home of Shipman , Brady & Hindley)…we bought a house for fewer than one thousand pounds and settle into married life. As Mum and Dad died prematurely – in their mid-fifties, and Sisters had also flown the nest (for Liverpool and another edge of Wythenshawe) by now I sort of lost touch with the area.

I’d pass through ocassionally, drive down Sale Road past the ‘Circle’ where my Mum worked in a Greengrocer’s shop part-time. I can still see her handy-work on the windows, lovely white writing on the windows advertising the various wares within. They were early pioneers of frozen food retailing in the area – fish fingers were a staple – My Mum’s left hand was famous for it’s flowing legibility and fancy flourishes. Well, it was in our house anyway!

I worked nearby for a time in the eighties. Nothing much had changed by then. No sign of urban decay, no hoodies not even too many steel shutters on the windows like the one my Mum had adorned on a daily basis. No pit-bulls straining on body harnessess again the tattooed arms of muscular morons, intent on basking in the reflected power of their dog’s brutal strength.

‘Nana’ passed away in ‘ 84 so visits down the old cul-de-sac were no more. I assumed life went on in much the same way it always had. By now we had moved into a lovely new house – at first council owned , and later we bought it in what seemed like a good deal (probably because it was)

The nineties came and went – alarmingly quickly looking back at them. I took little notice of Wythenshawe. I’d heard news reports of a decline, but reckoned this would be in the core areas of ‘Woodhouse Park’, and in particular ‘Benchill’ which by all accounts had become a terible hell-hole of drop-outs and drugs. Surprising really because I had many friends in that area in the sixties and played football against a few local sides and they all seemed normal, decent and happy enough.

I pondered the cause of this decline and never really answered my wonderings. It just seemed that for sections of society ‘decline’ was inevitable, as other sections prospered. An innate fecklessness in some would go a way to explain at least part of the malaise but there must be some wider failure on the part of a Government, or Community which allows low aspiration and failure in even the basics to be tolerated. Drugs ! Of course, they had to be a major explanation in what was happening. Apart from some minor mention of marijuana in the mid-sixites at my school no sign of drugs had ever permeated by teenage years. They were American things, or so I thought. They crept up insidiously on places like Wythenshawe….but on the edges? No…surely not. Call me naive.

Now it’s the new Millennium – already ten years old (which seems extraordinary in itself)…what happened all that fuss and all that optimism?

It fizzled out almost as fast as the fireworks. I sensed things were not as well as they were when a trip to ‘Sale Circle’ saw half the shops were now ‘advice centres’ and Solicitiors offices…horrible grey metal shutters , dawbed in graffiti hung down presenting a blank, intimidating and soul-less steely face on what was once an attractive explanade of independent little shops. ‘Carews’ the tobacconists, ‘Land & Sea’ Mum’s big competitor across the road and ‘Elites’ pronounced ‘eeh-lights’ where I’d part with my spending money for Dinky and Corgi models and the latest Superman comics from DC. The small Co-op (Mum’s divi number 126504 yes! I still remember) and the ‘Record Bar’ where I could get three hit singles for a pound vand often did. A young man in sharp suit and a zig-zag hankey in his top pocket. Now though it was a second hand Washing machine shop offering reasonable weekly terms for renting an old Hotpoint. Decay had arrived. Despair seemed not far away. I again pondered, briefly…thought of old times and then left without a look back.

I did return though, three of four more times for a look down the old cul-de-sac. Voices resonated inside my head. The friends, the games, the lads, the girls, the neighbours.

It looked okay still. In fact with new roofs and windows the houses (now seventy years old) looked surprisingly good. Many had been bought by their owners, some no doubt sold on to incomers. All seemed lived in and looked after, and the ‘Drive’ was civilised and quiet. As were the surrounding streets – although the lay out of the locale was always more ‘Road’ than ‘Street’…more ‘Avenue’ and ‘Close’…it always seemed so nice and er…’normal’ really.

So it’s with some trepidation I shall be tuning into ‘Sarah & the Estate’ on Channel 4 (I think) this week. Already there has been uproar about her documentary. Local people have been quick to attack her , and the production companies choice of area to traduce, besmirch and drag through the mire. I’ve seen one or two clips that were hard to recognise as being true, or fair . Editing plays a big part in these programmes. In the quest for sensationalism programme makers will distort the truth for their own ends. With this in mind I shall watch with my hands partially covering my eyes. I do not want to believe this part of my England has gone down the pan to such an extent that an opportunist like the Duchess of York can stick her oar in to further her broadcasting career, crinkle up her face in mock despair , do little to improve matters (if they need it) yet make things worse by her very presence.

We shall see.

I’m glad to hear some sections of manufacturing  industry are still busy.
Number One Son has had to scupper his plans to stay overnight here on Saturday, and is just coming up for the day instead.

He has to offload thirteen deliveries in Scotland next week starting on SUNDAY teatime near Berwick-upon-Tweed, and get himself within spitting distance of Edinburgh on Sunday neet! A tidy hike from deepest Leicestershire.

Knowing him he’ll soon ‘knock ‘em off’ and be on his way home by Tuesday  but it’s obviously going to entail Sunday running (I used to quite like that now and again) and a six hour trek up to Berwick – I envy him.…summer running into the evening and that glorious stretch of rugged Northumbrian coastline to ponder…smashin’ I love it all up there esepecially Lindisfarne , the holiest of islands…even if it’s just part-time. You certainly can’t say that about Paul – his commitment and work ethic are first class and I actually think that – unusually –  it’s appreciated by his bosses who pay fairly handsomely for his efforts.

Whenever he talks about his job I cast my mind back  a few years  when I was up and down the country like a trump in a bottle. I sometimes  quite like another shot at it but realise it’s unlikely to happen – though one never knows…thar knorrs!

So..it will be good to see ‘our Lad’ but it’s a pity he can’t linger. Maybe next time.

Both of our ‘kids’ work hard and are enthusiastic in their employ. I was once, it must have been contagious.

The District Nurse has been again – after  a ‘no-show’ yesterday. My flippin’ wound has still not fully healed. A one and a half inch bit at the bottom has been ‘overlapped’ by the stitcher-upper and its still oozing stuff. It’s very itchy and is driving me nuts…it’ll be four weeks next tuesday since my upper thigh was put back together and it’s high time it healed. After all I’m anxious  to get back to work.

Seldom has a film about war moved me so much. Perhaps the ring of authenticity or the time frame alloted to the telling of the story.

‘Band of Brothers’ tells the tale of Easy Company – a collection of men from the 101st. Airborne Regiment out of Camp Toccoa in Georgia.

Wide eyed young men drawn from over forty states  - a varied mix from  tough guys and introverts attracted by an extra fifty dollars a month and the sheer thrill of jumping out of aeroplanes for a living. For many their choice led to death in the fields, forests, and villages of Normandy, Holland and the Ardennes.

Ten episodes of about an hour in length make up this remarkable ‘boxed set’ I’d missed it the first itme around, and the second. Some seemed longer than others. All were difficult to watch. War, even ficitonal war is not easy on the eye for anyone with an ounce of humanity, not when it is portrayed as vividly and faithfully as this. Only recently with time on our hands have I committed to watching it not once, but twice. A third viewing is inevitable unless I too am robbed of a three score and ten existence, like so many of the heroes featured.

‘Hero’ is not a term I use much , if ever. I do not use it here in recognition of any particular valiant act, or beyond the call bravery. I’m thinking more of a collective heroism which crept up gradually upon Easy Company as they found their way in battle and tested their endurance over many months of deprivation, leading to desperation duting ‘The Battle of the Bulge’ – almost Hitler’s last stand.

Once training was complete and the still happy band of brothers embarked for eNgland the sepia tone of the filming transported me back to the nineteen forties with lovingly created set-pieces and locations. An invasion postponed due to bad weather which improved sufficiently twenty four hours later to get the men away. The awful, horrifying reception their aircraft met over Normandy as some were blasted from the sky before their assault teams could get anywhere near a green light. The chaos of landing miles from drop zones as desperate pilots jettisoned their human cargoes fearing disaster imminent…engines ablaze and almost certain death looming in the blackness, a blackness punctuated by fireflash and explosion. The noises of oblivion. Graphic horror : hypnotic in its sheer, terribly gripping way.

The survivors found themselves dis-organised on the ground and living on their wits until daylight when some semblance of a plan began to emerge. Were they the lucky ones? The batallions of compatriots streaming onto ‘Omaha’ and ‘Utah’ beaches might well have thought so. The number of dead paratroopers hanging from trees and buildings or trapped inside the still burning wreckage of doomed aircraft suggested otherwise.

As the last twelve months of war progresses the story eventually takes us into character development and the individual nature of each of the surviving company unfolds a little.

Each episode is preceded by real life stories from veterans who we realise are actually represented in the on screen action. A definite bond of brotherhood , loyalty and affection shines through the decades as the life defining events that made these men what they became unfold before the viewers eyes.

As time passes and possible defeat turns steadily into assured victory more and more of the ‘brothers’ are killed or grievously wounded. In the heat of battle this toll of young lives is hard enough to accept but as the fighting subsides we have accidental death and run of the mill casualties from seemingly innocuous situations to deprive battle hardened soldiers of the peaceful existence they so deserve. The ‘Last Patrol’ where fear of death was perhaps at its height as thoughts of victory and a troopship home beckoned so tantalisingly it could almost become reality. With triumph in their grasp the remains of the company plunders Hitler’s ‘Eagles Nest’ lair high in the glorious mountains of Bavaria…to the victor the spoils.

This is an American production. There is little regard paid to the contribution of the British Armed Forces, although unlike ‘Saving Private Ryan’ there are a few scenes where British soldiers are portrayed as somewhat stiff upper lip types – surely a stereotypical representaion is better than none at all. British authority and command is generally jeered and resented whenever the plot requires its mention. I can rise above jingoism in ‘enjoyment’ of ‘Band of Brothers’. I enclose the word in inverted commas becaus ‘enjoy’ is not the right choice of word, but neither would be ‘endure’ . It is an earnest attempt to portray war and the effect of war upon ordinary men in extra-ordinary circumstances. A rounded , warts and all study of confusion, cock-up, valour, stamina under duress and ultimately withering hardship. That people came through it intact is remarkable, that so many of  their heads remained steady enough to replace all this with domesticity and the routine of ordinary lives is a tribute to the human spirit.

We had the ‘Longest Day’ with its stellar nineteen sixties cast that read like a ‘whose who’ of Hollywood and the panoply British acting talent ‘…’Saving Private Ryan’ was probably the war film to end all war films but what we have here is its extension into a complete chronicle of conflict the scale and destructive force of which the world had never known and if we’ve learned anything as a species will never know again. If you’re anything like me the cast of relatively unknown actors will, if you give them the chance capture your sympathy, your admiration, your loyalty and your conscience and any vestige of empathy as you thank God you were born twenty five years or more  too late.

Band of Brothers…a fraternity forged in blood, fear and ultimate victory which made me weep.

I’ve just duplicated a post because frankly the original contained half a dozen typos which the system here will not let me correct. A keener eye for detail needed before hitting ‘publish’.  I’m reluctant to move servers ’cause I have a fair bit of stuff on here now.  Will try harder.