Category: General

I was on board a corvette in Belfast Harbour; while repairing a set and talking to the wireless operator, an officer stuck his head into the office and said “Williams…” and then he stopped. “I thought you were Williams, ” he said, “You sound just like him.” I smiled, he left and I got on with the job. Then Williams turned up. I discovered I knew him, he had been in my class at school. It was strange meeting him under those circumstances, and later, thinking about what had happened it led me to believe that schools have a stronger moulding influence on their pupils than they are credited with.

In our school, situated as it was in the heartland of the cockney accent, every Friday during a pupil’s first term, all the new entrants were gathered together and taught phonetics and what amounted to elocution. We mimicked the vowels, the consonants, silly phrases about cows, peas and pace which stressed the difference between what was said inside and outside the school. We mimicked the master, Oxbridge to the teeth, so we too were now receiving an Oxbridge slant.

To extend the theme of mass moulding even further, both geographically and educationally, when I started at Queens University Belfast, as a mature, ex-service engineering student, there were only a few English students, most were Northern Irish with just a smattering of foreigners and members of the Commonwealth. Out of forty of us I believe there were something like fifteen of us who were ex-service, many married, some with children, all on grants, all with only one chance, no second bites of the cherry, all ambitious with ground to make up, all studying like mad. For the rest, they were straight from school and within a few weeks they found we were a force to be reckoned with.

From my perspective as an outsider, both from origin and age, I discovered unconsciously that the men and women who had come straight from school seemed to fall into categories conditioned by their schooling. Their attributes and outlooks seemed the same within each group and yet so disparate group by group. Without being specific, there were schools which produced people who were relatively innocent to a point of being almost naive. One group could have been classed as puppyish; another had the insouciance of the English Public School. There were some who had suffered such a strict and rigid regime that now they were out from under the repressive supervision, they did not seem to know quite what to do with their freedom. There was a tough crowd, polite but hardy, nothing would get past them and there were others who seemed so reserved as to be non-existent. To generalise is unfair to the individual, and probably many would not agree with my assessment. However, the fact that I have convinced myself that I discovered this apparent segregation in attitude and approach subconsciously, and that I believed it to be true at the time, must say something for the mass moulding of character and the responsibility the teacher has for the end product of his school.

Sleight of hand. In one place I worked the boss had the theory that everyone made at least one mistake in anything he did. Give the boss a sheaf of drawings to check and approve, he would look at every one of them until he found a mistake, which was not blatant. It could take hours. It was sometime before I was let into the secret of how to combat this, even if it might prove that one was less than perfect – it was the intentional mistake. Subtly, one put one in, not too blatantly and not too difficult to find. Then everyone was satisfied.

The Dolman And The Fairy Tree. Nearly all the sites we developed in those days, were green field sites and almost all were farms which had been in families for generations. Ireland is a country with more than its fair share of myth and legend. Articles, which might have mystical connotations, or could be connected in any way with necromancy, are given a wide berth when it comes to disruption. On one site there was a dolman in the middle of the field. For days the contractor responsible for the site could get no work done on that part of the job because a road was proposed where the dolman stood. The contractor told the Housing Engineer that there was not a man on his payroll who would shift it, could the road not be diverted? The answer to that was an unequivocal ‘No!’ – even if for no other reason than the ridicule he would receive back in the office in Belfast. Stalemate! Then up spoke an Englishman labouring on the site. He would shift it, and he did, on his own. Whether true or inevitably made up to prove a point we never knew, but the story goes, that when the man returned to England he took ill and never worked again.

We always had the same trouble with Fairy Trees, those stumpy hawthorns one finds leading a lonely life somewhere in a field, which have survived because no one has had the temerity to dig them out and make ploughing or hay-cutting so much easier.

Scotch & Turkeys It was Christmas, I worked for the Admiralty and I was deputy on a construction site, we were buying stone by the thousand tons rather than the lorry load. Conforming to convention, two days before we were to pack up, at the end of the day, out of the darkness came a car loaded with good cheer – the contractor who supplied the stone – and he was there that night, to show his appreciation in a material sense. No matter what was stated on our contract of employment, we applauded. There was a turkey and a bottle of Irish whiskey for each man in the office. I told the boss. “Hand it back..’ he said, ‘Say a polite thanks, but no thanks,” was the order and that was how it finished. The whole lot went back where it came from, Next day was that silly day when everyone turns up to work, nothing is done, and near lunch time tongues are hanging out for the ‘heavy’ which is standing, row on row, on the boss’s table, waiting for the twelve o’clock kick off. When all our glasses had been charged, the obligatory ‘thank you for all the good work’ had been said, the boss raised the matter of the turkeys. He had been liberal with the Scotch. “About the turkeys and Irish,” he said while lifting a wash-leather pouch from an inner pocket. “I received this, from the same source, it is etched with my name.” He held in his hand a beautiful gold cigarette case. “This is something I have always coveted, but it too has to go back, engraved name or not.” I like a man who is even handed, even if he would like to cut off his own hand – perhaps especially so.

If the wide screen is to be believed, in the days of the great railroad expansion in the USA, there was a tradition that on the completion of a section of track, a golden spike was ceremoniously driven into the last tie. In the Navy there was a legend that every wooden warship had a golden spike driven into the keel for luck during construction. This yarn was then perpetuated in steel ships as a ruse to inveigle the young, the unsophisticated and the unwary into the darker corners of the hull for nefarious purposes. The cry on the Mess-decks when a new recruit came aboard was often, ‘Take him to see the golden rivet!’

At the end of one convoy we arrived at Rosyth to find cardboard boxes of knitted articles, most of which were in an unsuitable khaki. There were long scarves which seemed to go on for ever, pullovers, roll-necked sweaters and even long-johns, and many were the epitome of clich?s which often accompanies amateur knitting. The articles had been made by the WRACS manning, (if that’s the right word), an Ack Ack battery on the outskirts of Edinburgh. They had asked the Commodore for permission to adopt a ship and we were it. What followed would have made an Oscar Hammerstein musical, it
was that predictable.

An invitation to visit was sent by the Captain to the Commanding Officer and it was arranged that at the end of our next trip the WRACs would come aboard. From that point until we next docked there was only one topic of conversation and one outcome. Every section of the ship spent its off-duty hours preparing The place had never been cleaner and tidier. In my section we had a few advantages and we made good use of them. The screen of the radar display tube was a brilliant blue, while the warning lights throughout the small office were a bright red and green. Overhead was a white light. With our resident artist on hand we made a drawing of a voluptuous woman fully clothed in red, green and blue garments. The effect was that, without the overhead light, when we doused the screen or changed the lights, she lost some of the garments in each transformation. After some trial and error it was a great success, well we thought so and the girls were polite enough to applaud.

The crew had organised a meal in the canteen in the dockyard accompanied by a hogshead of beer (54 gallons). In due course a lorry arrived and the ship was inundated with khaki. It was interesting to see how polite the sailors were in allowing the girls to precede them up ladders. Couples and groups were everywhere, in the engine-room, the boiler-room, our wireless offices. They turned the gun turrets, stood on the bridge and conned the ship from the Coxswain’s wheel. And all the time as one sailor passed another, each guiding his bevy of beauties, the question was always asked, “Have they seen the Golden Rivet yet?” followed by a dirty laugh.

The girls were finally dispatched back to camp and the ship got back to normal until it was time, on the following day, for ‘Liberty Men’ being piped and the ‘Off Watch’ to line up for inspection to go ashore. Then the fun started, lies were bandied about with all the sincerity of a politician on the stump. No one was going anywhere near the gun battery, some were going for a walk, some to the cinema in Dunfermline, but there must have been a considerable change of heart because, when it was time for the WRACS to come off duty, there was half our crew lined up at the gate, looking sheepish.

When I left the ship some of the men were still making pilgrimages to Edinburgh and the gun battery. It is amazing what can result from the kind act of presenting sailors with badly knitted woollens in the wrong colour.

Recently there have been a number of changes in national policy which seem to have neither rhyme nor reason, but the most arrogant of them all, apart from the wars, is the proposal to extend the school leaving age across the board. In the 30s, some of my friends matriculated, and others left at 14 to take up apprenticeships in various trades. One joined the Daily Express as a trainee press photographer, the job he was very successful in, until he retired. Another went into a butcher’s shop and finally owned one. In those days there was no stigma at leaving at 14, as the majority did so. In engineering of every type, as in printing, shop-keeping, and many other trades, starting at 14 enabled one, with the right guidance, to become professional in one’s chosen trade, during a period in life when personal responsibilities are generally at a minimum. As one who has had to study for 4 years, while maintaining a growing family, the latter would clearly have had some advantageous aspects.

There is no shadow of doubt that this proposal has more to do with teenage criminal behaviour than concern for their educational capabilities. In consequence the schoolteachers are to become surrogate parents, as the chiid’s parents have to work to maintain the standard of living which is considered the norm. I am convinced a youth, either not wishing, or not able to take advantage of higher education, should have the opportunity to start at around 15 years of age as an apprentice. He or she should be apprenticed to a recognised journeyman-tradesman, who has the breadth of experience, and all related standards set by, and approved by an appropriate authority, for the required period – not kept on at school at great national cost, in order to keep him or her off the streets, possibly with little to show for the added years. The men I worked with, started as apprentices and became gangers, foreman, and general foreman, with good wages and prospects. It was my experience in the later years of my working life that the quality of the tradesman who were available for short-term working, not part of an organised company, were not of the standard I was used to, their training had been shortened for convenience.

I changed my job on six occasions and each time it took time to find my feet and understand the routine of the new company. This period was tiring for me and I was not providing the productivity that I was capable of. From this, one can draw the conclusion that change is inevitably unproductive for a period of time until the new system has bedded down. Untried change, for a whim, and the wrong reasons, is letting down those involved in the implementation, probably going to have to be countermanded, and those promoting it will not bear the brunt.

Lewes – A Place Apart In retrospect there was something almost magical about the months I spent there. I was not aware of this at the time, I was often unhappy, but who is sublimely happy all the time, contrast gives colour. Lewes, the Town, was the hub, but it was really the district which was wonderfully anachronistic, such a revelation to the Town boy, contrasting to all he knew yet a living encapsulation of all he had read in novels, heard on the radio and imagined – it was pure Noel Coward and Ivor Novello

Incorporated into Lewes Grammar we resumed our education,. I was billeted in a village nestling against the South Downs in the Ouse Valley with a married couple, the Baileys. At first I didn’t like the idea of cycling 3 miles each way, every day, but later I realised I had been presented with a unique experience, one I would never have had if I had been billeted in the town. The village, just a collection of houses bordering the main street, itself a cul-de-sac, culminated in a path leading up into the Downs. There was a church hall for whist drives, the annual Christmas festival, the local drama group, in time the LDV; in fact, everything a village hall is expected to sustain. Opposite was the post office cum village shop, the hub of village gossip. In warm weather the village street acted as a funnel. Sitting high up on the hill studying, I found I could hear a conversation taking place below. Understanding what was said, I looked round and the only people in sight were women, half a mile below me, talking at the gate of the post office – they were gossiping. When they stopped and left, the sound stopped.

The Charm Of The Ouse Valley. On a map of the area between Lewes and Newhaven, you will see the Ouse valley with such lovely village names as North Ease, South Ease, Rodmel, and on the other side, Glynde with Glyndebourne. In 1939-40 it was an area given over to agriculture. There was a poet called Pound, who lived in Rodmel. Not Ezra Pound, but a local focus of interest. He had named all his children with Christian names beginning with ‘P’, so everyone opened the mail. This was typical of eccentricities I found in the Ouse Valley. There were marked social differences in the Valley. There were the farm labourers, maids and their families. Then there were the traders, the post mistress and shopkeepers in Lewes and also some of the farmers. Then there were the professional classes, the Baileys fell into this category, maybe the vicar, next came the gentlemen farmers, the inherited wealth and finally the dignitaries such as the MP and the squire. By association I was part of the professional group, but though I was never truly comfortable, I learned much through socialising. The general air of the whole area was ‘County’ with a capital ‘C’. In our own village was the local Squire. Whether he really was, I never knew, but with the name of Sir Amhurst Selby-Bigge he had every right to be. He and his wife would give out prizes at do’s and in the summer he generously threw his personal tennis court open to the village and we had tournaments there with breaks for Robinson’s Barley Water. There were wealthy farmers who were sociable and as we went to school with their children we had an ‘in’ to the higher echelons of farm life. We went to market with them, helped with the harvest and generally mucked in, but these were not the farmers we had helped prior to coming to Lewes, these were ‘gentlemen farmers’.

The winter of ’39-’40 was particularly severe, to the extent that when cycling to school the only way of turning the corner at the bottom of a particularly steep hill was to ride straight into a six foot high drift, extract oneself and then head off on the next leg. Later there was a sudden thaw followed by an equally quick freeze which left the roads coated in about an inch of ice. We evacuees made slides and the locals had ice skates and were to be seen pirouetting and twirling past us. We slowly integrated.
Even though the war had gone badly and there was the threat of invasion hanging over us, one cannot live in a state of frightened paralysis. Slowly our lives became normal as we entered into a routine and with the routine, helped by the friendship of the people of the Valley, came a wonderful period of my life which was totally foreign to what I had known before. While I was rubbing shoulders with the English class system at its most rigid, what I found there probably knocked any snobbery I might have had out of my outlook for all time. I think I must have seen it for what it was and eschewed it because instinctively, from a social aspect, I became classless.

I was very sorry, because this morning, Sunday, December 31, at 3 am I could not sleep. I woke and started to compose, in my head, a happy New Year message, and then realised what an incredible number of people will not have a chance of one, for long to come. So, I started to write this on the last day of 2006, instead. Being a misery on the last day of the year is excusable, not on the first. I looked back to’37, I was 14 years old, poor, and each year was getting better and with it I too was successively happier.

So I went to a history book and looked up 1937- and got a hell of a shock. While I was trotting about getting happier, in fact ’37 was pretty awful. In Moscow the Show Trials for the Stalin purges started; the Spanish Civil War was in full swing, and Italy and Germany were having a practice run; The Basque town of Gueranica was annihilated, prompting that painting by Picasso; Japan invaded China; Buchenwald concentration camp was opened and German Jews were required to wear the cross of David on display; and to crown it all, nuclear fusion was discovered in Italy. I suppose one should say ‘It was ever thus’.

Instead of going back to bed, I then tried to analyse why these massive horrors occur. We, in Northern Ireland, have had over 30 years of mayhem and I don’t seriously think we are better off than we were in ’69, on the contrary, and we are still being bombed. Some blame religion, quoting the Crusades, the Conquistadors, Islam, and Northern Ireland, but they are only cover for greed, personal self aggrandisement and desires to expand. Killing never solved anything, 1914 to 18 saw one of the greatest carnages ever, but what followed from ’37 onward, in Europe and Russia dwarfed it.

Perhaps, after all, I can hope we, the custodians of the world, will see a little more sense in 2007 and each of us will get closer to attaining what we would wish for ourselves.

About This Blog It will soon be coming to an end, for a number of reasons. Firstly, at 84, I have had only one life and not all of it has been as ridiculous and risky as reported. Secondly I found a fair proportion of you out there are not interested in my political and social rants, or if you are you don’t comment, and the purpose of ranting is to change things and my audience is not large enough for it to be a reasonable expectation.

Starting in May, or there abouts, I will re-publish some of the Golden Oldies, one at a time for those who joined late, pieces which you seemed to find entertaining. When that. and the last of my stuff has been aired I shall find something else to do at 5 am., and probably bid you all farewell, gratefully and with dignity.

I told you, my Grandson, Steve, gave me the Blog as a present. I had no idea how it worked or what to expect in responses, but it has been a fascinating experience. I am too cynical and have had too many bumps, to be big headed. I know I am still only a miniscule reporter in a vast industry. However, the reactions have been illuminating and stimulating, gathered purely by the stats, not comments. In the 60’s I had an Artie phase when I had photographs, a picture and a sculpture accepted in national exhibitions, and like now, what I thought was my best work was rejected, and what I entered as a chance was accepted. It is, of course, all subjective and time and chance. Running a Blog is a bit like shouting down a well, all you get back is the sound of your own voice. I think it would pall after a bit if it were not for the Stats, the numbers of pages read, after submissions. These, turned into graphs, tell an amazing story, but what it means intrinsically is still a mystery.

Art For Art’s Sake! Returning to the subject of Art – At one time I was prepared to accept the opinion of experts as gospel, in spite of knowing that artistic criticism is inevitably subjective, but that is all a thing of the past! Take the case of the daffodil picture. On evening I found a decorated Spanish basket on the kitchen table, with a bunch of daffodils. The whole collection gave me an idea. I pulled a hearth rug up against the fireplace to provide a neutral base and background and then, with some flowers in the basket and others on the floor, I made an elliptical composition completing the shape by tossing a pair of scissors on the rug so they fell casually. The idea was to give the impression that the back-lit flowers had just been cut, brought in casually in the basket, some had spilled and were all yet to be arranged. I was delighted with the final enlargements and Sophie gave her Good Housekeeping Stamp as well.

I showed it to a professional who was part of the leadership of the Camera Club. He looked at it casually and then handed it back with only one comment, ‘I would not give that many marks, I’m right handed and I couldn’t pick up the scissors, they are the wrong way round.’ A few weeks later I was at a meeting where we all submitted two mounted half-plate photos for criticism. One of the beginners who was terribly new fangled with his little daughter of about a year and a half, had put in a photo of his little girl, hunkered down among the flowers she was picking, in the way all small children do. I have some of our own girls in that pose. The genius picked it up to talk about it and I could see the look of expectancy on the beginner’s face, which suddenly turned to horror. It was not the criticism of the picture, all beginners are used to that. and might crumple a bit from time to time if the comments are a bit harsh, but they can generally take it on the chin. No! The bastard had said that the picture looked as though the child was having a pee. I could not believe that one could be so crass, I had looked at my photos of Linda in exactly that pose, smelling the flowers, and that interpretation had never crossed my mind – until then!.

If one is offering art for exhibition, or for critical help, remember, it is a subjective business and be prepared to be disappointed, it is inevitable most of the time. If you are asked for your opinion, the same applies, so be generous with praise and sparing with the truth – in your view!

Rulers are often conjurers; they distract the eye, while performing sleight of hand. For example, the Games of ancient Rome; it has been said that Bush’s precipitate launch into Iraq was to distract from a parlous financial situation – yet how much more it has cost in lives and cash. Some gave the same reason for Maggie Thatcher’s war in the Falklands.

The current Government is focussing, at considerable advertising outlay on Obesity as being a life-shortening evil, which it is. However, at the same time it is altering its approach to pensions on the basis of the population in 20 years being predominantly in its eighties. A dichotomy! Rubbish??

I, in my mid eighties, have outlived most of my friends and expect to snuff it at any time. Thinking about why I am still alive, I have come up with a theory I later found had been promulgated in the Lancet. Born post WW1, a time of austerity, when personal transport was for the wealthy, I ate home cooked meals, nourishing and of fresh produce. We mostly walked everywhere. Exercise was therefore inevitable in work and play and we played on open Commons or in clubs. In about 1936 we were turning the corner, there were luxuries, but we exercised as much, or even more, because there were now more facilities, swimming baths, schools had pitches and courts. There was little stress by today’s standards, but at that point WW2 set us right back to basics and we didn’t recover until the ’50s. Excess was not embraced until the ‘Free ’60s’.

Hence the post WW2 baby boom, now in their 50’s and 60s could well live nearly as long as their parents, but I firmly believe, with holidays in the sun, greater alcohol consumption, fast food and much, much more stress, lack of job security, lack of exercise, one man one car, pollution, the longevity trend will abate rapidly. The people in the Government are clevee than I, so is all this concern really about longevity and obesity, or a ploy to justify the pension proposals?

I have previously written about watching a clever, hardworking, strict boss, at sixty, steadily degenerate physically between sixty and sixty five, retire and die at sixty eight. It determined me to retire at sixty. In my view, there is a point where doing the same or similar things repeatedly can become so boring it affects the psyche and the health. I have also written that lack of stimulation is the greatest reason for the mental deterioration of the elderly. Take these two propositions together, and my own case, where after a year’s retirement I obtained another job, and the solution is to retire early on a reasonable pension, and get another, different, job for a few years.

Be in no doubt, being retired on a basic pension is not fun, stress-less, nor something to look forward to. Generally a worker looks forward to the weekend, to relax, do something different. On an extended scale, retirement is the same and should be looked forward to. The whole pension problem, as we all know, is the theft of pension funds by unscrupulous companies and Government overspend. To make the Public responsible for managing their individual pension plans is pie in the sky, a lot can’t manage their day to day expenditure. By the same token, they would be open to the greatest shark infested financial waters in all time, Watchdog on TV tells us that every week. The Stock exchange can’t be relied upon, some pension providers likewise. What is needed is a government backed, compulsory, saving scheme with profits, from day one to retirement, subsidised by the national purse, I lost 8 pension years through working in non contributory government jobs, this included my war service. Movement between jobs increases experience and interest, so is to be welcomed, it also keeps the employers on their toes. Hence a pension system must be for life and independent of the employer. What do you think?

A little history gives a slant on what people say. We thought we were Middle Class, we had the social graces, the accent, the interests, but not the cash. We, my mother, brother and I, had just returned from Africa under the British Raj, where we had lived and, I suppose, acted like landed gentry, with a fleet of servants. We were part of an extended family, and from time to time, through difficult circumstances, farmed out round the family for periods ranging from months to years. So, we had no airs and graces, no strong drives, living took up most of our attention, but we did not feel deprived, we, the children, accepted and mostly enjoyed life. Those circumstances alone are rare today, with two bread-winners per household and few extended families.

At Christmas we all had fixed routines and protocols which seem to have gone, mostly through affluence and expediency. Then, indeed in our case up to 20 years ago, the children and often everyone hung up a stocking, either over the fireplace, on the end of the bed, or were given one on Christmas morning, even grannies. We knew we would get nuts, an orange of some sort, a piece of coal, carefully wrapped, sweets and three or four items. Today, the children have entirely different tastes and expectations. We have watched great grandchildren growing up and never cease to wonder, not only at the presents they receive from friends and relatives, from the moment they hatch, but the number, size and quality. They would never fit into a stocking now.

Granted we were married in wartime, but we thought our wedding was super and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Now there are hen parties in foreign countries and the men, not to be out done get drunk in another country as well. The wedding is in a remote romantic spot, and, what with the travelling and the presents, over recent years the exponential rise in these standards, because that is what they are – standards, has left me amazed – and that is only for the relatives and close friends. The honeymoons are also unbelievably lavish at a time when the young people are only starting out. I’m not being a Scrooge, nor a party poppa, although I sometimes can be, what people do with their lives is their business. I have just watched, and wondered where it will finish. Those Joneses, everyone seems to feel they have to keep up with, have a lot to answer for! With the rising cost of housing, weddings and life generally, one cannot be surprised the younger folk are cohabiting, if they can even afford that, and unlike our generation – not many of us left – marriage itself can be tenuous.