Old Gaffer

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  • Music Of Another Form

    I have never understood why Art afficionados condemn members of the general public when they are standing in front of a picture, saying ‘I know nothing about art but I know what I like’. To me this is a fair enough comment, they don’t need to know that chrome yellow with flake white in years to come will go black, that the subject of the picture should have been at the one third point on the diagonal, and that that highlight on the edge is a distraction to the eye. The fact that they like the picture is adequate.

    Music of most sorts can affect me, but unfortunately I have a very bad memory for names and so I can’t reel off all the pieces that I know that I like, and get into erudite discussions on this composer or that. I have a large, catholic collection of music gathered since I was a young man, and I find the music can often smooth away some of the rough bits of life. Once in a while one comes across something so superior, so unusual that one never forgets it. Many many years ago I watched a film set in one of those states on the eastern seaboard of America, where the main industry is making moonshine in the backwoods. In this film, two people who I believe didn’t like one another very much, initially, started to play a conversation on two banjos, and every nuance of their association became readily apparent in the music.

    Some years ago, my grandson, Steve Jones, together with some friends, including Leo Abrahams, put on a gig in The Old Museum in Belfast. Needless to say we all turned up and were well rewarded. As a final encore, Steve and Leo came on stage, sat down, each with a guitar, and started to play. They played and extemporised a conversation in music which was mind blowing, there were the nuances one has in conversation, the highs and lows, the colour and contrast. It was totally memorable., but unfortunately never recorded. I know that from time to time Leo dips into this blog, I just want to say thank you to him and Steve, for a wonderful experience of a musical art form which needs repetition.

  • Pre WW2, 1930 to ’39, in order, Schooling In Britain 1930

    Returning to a British school in 1930 seemed totally alien from what I had experienced in Africa. The hours were different, I had to walk over a mile each way to school, morning and afternoon and the classes were bigger. When I arrived we worked with rooms lighted by gaslight in winter afternoons and, worst of all, I was out of my depth through losing two whole years of schooling. I sat next to a boy who constantly wet himself and there was a permanent aroma. We were not allowed to change seats because it saved the teacher calling the roll twice a day, as we sat in alphabetical order – unfortunately. I remember one teacher who had come from New Zealand and who seemed only to teach Maori customs. She had us making endless native huts and constantly drawing maps of the place.

    There was a strong amateur dramatic interest in the school with end of term plays and it was about this time that I learned sword dancing. The swords were made in the school woodwork shop, where the woodwork master was not averse to throwing bad work at the head of the poor incompetent who had made it, and he rarely missed. The dance called for eight participants and as we danced round we put the swords to our shoulders, and with a good deal of pushing and wrestling, twisting and turning, we managed to get the swords locked together to form an octagon, rather like a large Jewish Star. The whole shape was held in the air by one sword, by the team leader; when it was lowered the swords were withdrawn with a flourish, clashed together high in the centre, like the thin spire of a church and then the dance continued. We gave exhibitions, why I never quite understood, because it was a very dull dance, every bit as dull as Morris Dancing, especially as we were too young to get well oiled before we started. I suppose that was the main difference. I also became re-acquainted with discipline. (See Sex & Child Abuse) Nowadays young people seem to think for themselves more than we did, they are more cynical and less malleable, or do I imagine that?

    Believe it or not, it was an honour to be ink monitor. Can one think of any greater example of brain washing than to make a child actually want to go to school earlier on Monday morning and stay later on Friday afternoon than his compatriots, get his hands filthy dirty with an almost permanent stain and perhaps ruin a perfectly good shirt into the bargain, while he washes out a whole boxful of grungy, chipped, china inkwells of their coagulated mess, then mixes the astringent smelling powder and finally refills them. Not content with that he has to carry the trayful up several flights of stairs and place two in each desk with the inevitable spillage and further chore of cleaning up, all the time worried should this honour be taken from him.

    There were the art classes where the inept were cheek-by-jowl with the insouciant, and plagued by the competent who always came just when things were going wrong, with words like ‘Isn’t that nice,’ said with all the insincerity of a street pedlar, hurriedly followed by an entreating ‘Come and see mine’, a plea for praise and perhaps a statement of insecurity. It was strange that in a school where none were undernourished, why the licence to have biscuits and hot Bovril after a swim in the swimming bath of a neighbouring school, was such a great inducement that few, if any, brought notes of excuse. That was the era of cigarette cards. No one failed to collect them, but some collected them for a strange game like a coconut shy. The boys had areas along the playground wall marked out rather like the Oche for darts. Against the wall were propped cigarette cards at intervals and the players would stand at different lines, depending on the distance from the wall, and by flicking a card of their own, from between their fingers, they had to try to fell a cigarette card leaning against the wall. If successful, one received a number of cards equivalent to the offer for each line, say two, three or even ten if it was a back line. There were tricks of course. The stall holders would bend the cards slightly so they arched away from the wall and were thus stiffer to hit. The throwers, – or I suppose, the suckers – would use stiff cards because they flew better and harder and they also adopted a scything technique so they could fell more than one target card at a time, to the annoyance of the stall holder.

    There were no lollipop ladies; policemen were stationed at crossing points and held the hands of the smaller children as they crossed the traffic in flocks. The children vied for the favours of the policeman and most policemen reciprocated by giving the appearance of being interested in their stories.

  • Pre WW2, 1930 to ’39, The Games Children Used T Play

    What sparked this off was the difference between the toys of my grandchildren and great grandchildren. The quantity, the quality of design, the variety of textures made me look back on the past. Not only that, as we needed some toys in the house for when they visited, we were amazed at how cheaply the most beautiful toys can be bought at car boot sales. I was going to a wedding and the kit required was black-tie, and I remarked that ‘I had to get my waiter’s set on’. I then realised that to talk about a ‘set’ was probably a throwback to the 30s when children at Christmas were given every type of set, cowboy, Red Indian, conductor, nurse, it was endless, and irrespective of how cheap or expensive the set was, they all had a hat, – no hat, no fun! I receivefd a tram conductor’s set, with a little spring clip of coloured tickets, a strap to go over the shoulders to carry the puncher, a bag for the toy money, not supplied in the cheaper sets, and an identification badge. My long-suffering family sat, line ahead, on kitchen chairs so I could pretend to be a conductor. I don’t see such sets on sale today at Christmas. Maybe the long suffering parents have put a ban on them for obvious reasons.

    With little traffic we played in the street, and there was one vicious game, that was regularly played in our district. We divided into two teams in competition, a boy from one team stood braced against the gable-end of the house, the next boy put his head between the first ones thighs and his shoulders against the thighs, so his head would not be thrust against the wall. The rest of the team bent down and one after the other copied the second boy, until there was a row of hunched backs. The second team then successively ran and jumped as far up the backs, and as hard as they could in an attempted to collapse the – very dangerous!.

    We learned skills with huge, with a whipping tops and spinning tops, honed, because the pecking order was based upon skill. We learned to do tricks with practically everything that came to hand and in the late 30s America sent us the Yo-Yo, – really tricky. Those who could not afford the real McCoy, were palmed off with an English version, which never attained the heights of invention of the American ones. Earlier, as I had no father, my grandmother taught me boyish arts. She took me to the butcher’s to buy rib-bones of the right thickness and lengths, taught me to boil them until the meat fell free, to probe out the marrow, clean them and shape them to the hand, so they could be used, one set in each hand, one member held loosely between forefinger and thumb, one between second and third fingers, to rattle out rhythms like a music hall artist. She also taught me to play the Jews’ (jaws) Harp, the tin whistle, the mouth organ, to hoot like an owl through my thumbs and boxed hands, and I had sores on each corner of my mouth learning to whistle with four fingers.

    Because life itself was simple and almost preordained, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that my generation must, from grandparents to grandchild, have played games that were very simple and a lot of them naive. Meccano and toy trains are probably the most common sophisticated choice that children enjoyed. Jigsaws, toy soldiers, scale models of cars, dolls and dolls’ houses for girls, were general. One can draw comparisons, and give explanations, but the rate of change in every sphere has been a progressive move to the more automated and sophisticated, and the throwaway society.

    Boating ponds. For me the thirties were the ‘Golden Age, not necessarily the happiest, nor, the most fulfilling, far from it, but there was security in that nothing much changed and yet there was plenty to do, innocent things, such as a small child, being rowed, round the Boating Pond on Tooting Bec Common by the attendant, paid or bribed, Later we propelled ourselves in a paddle boat, an ugly, blunt ended, green painted bucket, scorned by all. They had paddle handles working independently; one progressed at a stately pace. The next stage was a one-boy or two-boy canoe. At Tooting Bec Common the large pond with its inlets and islands gave scope for imaginative role-play. Later one advanced to the rowing boat, blunt ended to limit speed and damage. Here one learned to spin on a sixpence, hide from the attendant when time was nearly up, ram and splash and to take it when one was rammed or splashed in turn. We also learned when to hire the boat so that we had more than the prescribed time, one only needed to understand the operation of the crude timing system. The Council did a worthwhile job supporting the Boating Ponds; we expended energy, used our imagination and passed many a happy half hour for little cost. I can’t help wondering what affect the Health and Safety Regulations have had on boating ponds today

  • Pre WW2, 1930 to ’39, in order,The Single Parent Family

    Latchkey Children

    As one who was the child of a single parent family and have survived unscathed, I find among commentators, politicians and some of the general public, a level of ignorance and misunderstanding which can malign both the parent and the child

    In the past, with extended families and no artificial insemination, there was a smaller percentage of unsupported mothers – and single parent fathers were few. Today, with housing provision for single mothers, the lack of the extended family, the increase in promiscuity, and the strange phenomenon of single women choosing to become single parents by insemination, the subject has moved to the top of the agenda.

    With personal experience and observation I believe most single mothers are caring, but are overwhelmed by the basic logistics of being the breadwinner and a mother. In my case the result was that from a very early age, 8 or 9, the single child, or the older child becomes the purchaser, the quasi-housemaid, the short-order cook, and if there were more than one child, the baby sitter. If the parent, through stress becomes an intermittent invalid, then the child was nurse, and comforter. Pre-WW2 there were few homes with fridges; the perishables were hoarded in a cool place in a ‘safe’ a wooden cupboard with a perforated-zinc-covered door. Food needed cooked if it was not to be lost, and as economy was paramount, the child soon had to learn to make most meals.

    The parent had to work and the child go to school, but these activities never jelled, with the result the child might have lunch at school or with a relative, but in the afternoon and early evening he or she was alone for long periods. From leaving school until the friends had to go home, the child had some company, but from that point was alone until the harassed and tired parent returned. In a small flat, up flights of stairs, it is easier and more attractive to wander than return home, but wandering only underlines the loneliness.

    Today the children don’t have to learn to cook, with pre-prepared meals. They have no need to wander because there is the TV and the computer, but their world has shrunk even further and I am sure they are just as lonely, – assuming they are not part of a gang made up of other single parent children. With the expanding single parent phenomenon, exercise and stimulation beyond the electronic screen is needed both summer and winter in an irresistible form, but who is to provide it, , and fund it – more to the point stop it being a seven day wonder? Am I right in thinking that if something isn’t achieved soon, the gangs will grow?

  • Pre WW2, 1930 to39, in order,I write You Compare Part 3

    Snobbery & Transport

    In the 30’s the middle class had aspirations of, if perhaps not ‘ectually’ moving up a class; perhaps being accepted as an appendage to the upper classes. This involved display, like a cock pheasant in the spring, only it was even more prevalent among the females who were the prime movers, having nothing else to think about through the day. In ’39 I was evacuated to Sussex along with 500+ other boys and masters from our school, I was 16, impressionable, in a totally strange milieu, amid total chaos. The poor recipients were caught on the hop and so were we. It was then I met everyone from the Lord of the Manor, to gypsy itinerants – country folk.

    At that time, it seemed to me, the boundaries of class were more clearly defined and more stringent than in London – more like the Raj I knew in Africa, and, ignoring the plight of the poor Africans, the rest accepted it and didn’t, as today, rail against it. In Sussex, the gradation ran roughly like – Landed Gentry, Lord of the Manor (LOM) – Gentleman Farmers, the Professionals, the Cloth, and New Rich – Tenant Farmer, Trades People and Craftsmen – Labourers – Itinerants, Seasonal Workers and the Unemployed – the Evacuee. The nouveaux riches wouldn’t even say good morning to us, yet the LOM, with the marvellous name of Sir Amhurst Selby Bigge, not only made our path smoother, he entertained us to tennis parties in summer, on his lawn. The Farmers welcomed us as did the rest, and as we were thrust on all but the LOM, we went to the local secondary school with the locals, we gradually melded, but even then, we knew our place.

    In the 30’s mostly only the pretty rich had a car and an offer of an outing was an occasion. As far as I can remember I only rode about ten times as a guest from 1930 – ’39 In the days of the two seater, with the Dickey seat at the back, the visitors sat cramped in the Dickey seat, open to the elements, and lucky to be there even if they could see little past the hood. Later, with saloon cars we were all together, although ridiculous ritual and absurd display had to play a part. The visitor, to show gratitude brought along a large bar of – would you believe – Motoring Chocolate, fruit and nut, milk chocolate. On the back of the better cars there was a cast iron, hinged carrier on which it was obligatory to display a huge cabin trunk, plastered with hotel labels to demonstrate you were a traveller of wide experience. Inside it there might be nothing, or a wicker picnic hamper. It was de rigueur to hoot when you passed a car of the same make; years later people touring on the Continent hooted when they saw another with a GB plate. There were a lot of other rituals, the most absurd and class ridden was the salute of the AA Man. The AA were dressed in WW1 army cast-offs, rode on a motorcycle/side-car combination and directed the traffic as and where required, or else stood at a crossroads waiting to be called. As you passed with your AA badge displayed, the AA Man jumped to attention and gave a very smart salute. The bit that took me to the fair was that if he failed to, some drivers reported him.

  • Author’s Note and Pre WW2, 30 to 39, I write 2

    Authors Note. I have discovered that it is difficult to find particular posts in the larger categories such as General. I shall publish all material in order in future, whether it is duplicated or not

    Pre WW2, 1930 to ’39, in order, The 30’s. I Write – You Compare! Part 2

    Life and Standards

    I have always believed that until 1939. when Hitler mucked up the world, in Britain it has never been the same, the period from ’35 to ’39, when our economy was steadily improving and we had emerged from the austerity of WW1, was the most equable and relaxed time in our history. It wasn’t Utopia, but nowhere ever will be. We had the iniquitous class structure, but as we knew nothing else – so what? From my experience of education and industry over the years, people in the 30′ were less ambitious, their goals were modest and achievable, a job was mostly for life, your pension like the job was inviolate, and promotion was dead man’s shoes. WW2 changed all that, 1946 brought back a work force which had been replaced in its jobs and there was a period of re assessment – shuffle and re-deal which lasted right into the 70’s and 80’s.

    Since the 50’s standards gradually accelerated in every sphere, industry, leisure, communication, and then, in the 60’s, when we had reached a pinnacle of some sort, the wheels came off and it has been down hill ever since. Chaos seems the order of the day, standards in most spheres have dropped – education, business probity, morals, mores, thrift, and above all, trust, have all suffered. Am I right? Can we rise yet again? Do we want to?

    Communication

    We sat round the Christmas luncheon table on Christmas day, with the cat’s whisker adjusted, the 2 volt, lead/acid battery powering a crystal wireless set, and a pair of headphones talking to us with the King’s voice, and those memorable words – ‘London Calling!’ all from the bottom of a baking bowl in the centre of the table. We never thought that one day we would communicate instantly with pictures, words and music, in every sphere. Now, unlike then, censorship, voluntary and enforced, is more relaxed, we are presented almost daily with scenes of alleged sexual orgasm, speech incrusted with four letter words, guns that fire unlimited bullets so inaccurately, the recipient of the onslaught walks away unscathed. We are told we can switch off if we don’t like what we see or hear, but is that not infringing our right to be entertained that we have contracted for, should the squeamish not be totally catered for as well as the unshockable? The latter, after all, have a section of the ether referred to as ‘Adult’ – a misnomer?

  • Random Thoughts N0. 4

    We need a solution to the problems of miscreant children and teenagers. If you have read this blog at all you will know that I was a latchkey single-parent child for a number of years, and in consequence have strong views concerning the extended family, latchkey children, and homes with two wage earners. .Everyone today seems to be on a time schedule, they are rushing, to virtually get a quart into a pint pot, with the result so many people today are not taking the time to enjoy their lives, they are too busy rushing for the next appointment, be it shopping, work or housework. Mostly, from their expression, I’m certain it’s not entertainment.

    Right up until the 60s, most wives looked after the house, the children and the husband. Everyone then had time to relax, enjoy simple pleasures, and if their lifestyle wasn’t all that they would have liked, they settled for what they had, and made the very best of it. When I moved house, three years ago, our furniture from the old house was too large and to augment what we had I went to auctions. I was staggered at the quality, and the quantity of what was on sale and shocked at the prices which were so low. My daughter told me that it was common for people to change their decoration and their furniture every few years. As someone who had lived in a house for 42 years with very little change, except when necessary, I found this astounding and one of the reasons I assume people are running up debts. It isn’t as though the articles that they are buying won’t last, some fall into that category but the greater proportion, if looked after, would still last a long time. It therefore seems that the problem is basically trying to maintain a higher standard of living than one can really afford, and this means that everyone has to put their shoulder to the wheel, come what may, and devil take the hindmost. The ones to suffer from this philosophy can be the children, not from material neglect, but intellectual and psychological.

    I believe the real problem for miscreant children is that they are left too much to their own devices, irrespective of how many parents they have, they behave in many cases as latchkey children. The solution therefore is for people to resist the urge for ever greater spending, relax more and spend more time with their children.. The fact the young girls become pregnant in order to leave home to have a home of their own, irrespective of the fact that this is not a solution but a step into drudgery, causes one to wonder why they were so keen to leave home in the first place and whether this was because home was only somewhere where you ate and slept, there was no companionship and no fun. Parents under stress can be irascible, and not understanding.

    The Gang Culture from one who knows. If a young person needs company, it does not necessarily mean that he could choose the company that he really likes, but only the company that is available. These young people are not so much confused as bewildered, they want something but haven’t the reasoning power, nor the opportunity to obtain it, they want love and companionship, interest and entertainment. The gang culture is the only option on the block. Enter a gang and you immediately find you are at the bottom of the pecking order, it is you that keeps watch, is not included in the secrets, doesn’t enjoy the jokes because you have not the background, or you are the joke, and until you have risen in the ranks you are just as lonely in the gang as you were on your own. Later, when you have risen a little, you have to make a choice of whether you will continue doing as you are told, becoming involved in actions that go against the grain, or leave and go back to being alone. The gang is made up of people from school, so leaving the gang is not a severance, but a separation, and you are now a pariah day in and day out.

    I guess it costs anything from 12 million to 18 million a year to hold the 12,000 plus ‘under 21’ prison population. Let us assume it is correct. In view of the age range, I assume that the 12,000 contains a high proportion of first-time offenders. Surely it would be preferable as well as economical to give these young people a short taste of prison life, and then put them back home under some supervision, take the money saved and put in some sensible project to help these young people, particularly the young girls likely to want to set up home – they must be costing the exchequer a bundle too.. To me standing on the sidelines, the deterioration of the situation seems exponential, and solutions seem thin on the ground.

  • Transport In The 30s

    The 30s was the era of comprehensive transport for the first time. There was everything from roller skates to the tube trains. Public transport was cheap, the railways ran on time, were comfortable and well organised. After all, there was no alternative as only the wealthy could afford to run cars. .The main mode of transport in the cities was the tram, while there were Bus Lines connecting the cities with the towns and the countryside. Post-war, cities began to get rid of the trams because there operation was so rigid, the tracks were a nuisance and they did not offer the flexibility the bus did. I find it interesting therefore, that some cities are bringing back the trams, There was a period in the 40s when trolley buses were tried, but the authorities reverted to buses.

    Trams. in London in the 30s were cheap. My grandmother, during holiday times, would give me a packed lunch, six pence to buy sweets, sixpence for an all day transferable ticket, and sent me off on the trams to find my way about London, see the sights and generally acquaint myself with the city. I would ride so far on one tram, walk a bit, look around a bit, and then take another tram somewhere else. So in this way I learned London, but I think in many ways she was unique. For those who don’t remember the trams, they generally had wooden seats, some were padded, and when they arrived at the terminus, which virtually meant a stop at the end of the line, in the middle of a street, the conductor would remove the contact, spring loaded onto the overhead electricity wire, dragging down on the rope and walk the full length of the tram, with the contact following in an arc, high in the air, and re-attach it by the spring to the electric wire at the other end of the tram. Then he would walk up the tram flicking the backs of the seats downstairs and up, so that the seats faced in the opposite direction. He and the driver would exchange ends of the tram, and set off back down the route by which they had arrived. The trams were noisy, swayed quite a bit, and none too speedy. Their advantage was that they could carry a lot of people, and were plentiful. I remember sitting in school one day and heard the most incredible bang. On the way home I discovered that a tram going down Balham Hill had left the tracks, swivelled somehow and was lying on its side in the High Road, diagonally, with one end on one footpath and the other on the other footpath. Apparently no one was hurt because it happened at a time when there were few passengers.

    Cars. The majority of the cars in the 30s were strongly constructied, ,not always dependable, but one stepped up into them, using a running board as a step. I was always sorry the day the running board was abandoned, because this then allowed cars to be lower to the ground, and in some instances their floor was and is, level with the footpath, making getting out a contortion. That was the era of the more sporty cars, which were basically two seaters but had two seats in the boot, which used the lid of the boot as the back rest – not to be recommended.

    Trains By the 30s the trains had been in service long enough for most of the wrinkles to be ironed out, with the result train travel was comfortable, relaxed reliable, pleasurable, speedy and cheap. Luxury was beyond the imagination of most, and Third Class was the norm. There were fast trains, and stopping trains on suburban routes. The dining cars were a pleasure and the quality of service was high. For a child I found it exciting when the stewards came past, ringing the luncheon bell,, and we would wander down the long corridors, over the connecting passages between the carriages which rocked under your feet, to arrive at the splendour of the restaurant car, with all the clatter and bustle that was there. I find eating on trains today sordid. In those days gaps were left between each length of rail to allow for expansion due to sun heat – a left over from laying tracks in the Raj, giving the ride that dot dot – dot dot sound some of us loved. Round the 60’s the rails were welded together, I wonder what ghastly effects that will have if global warming reaches the levels predicted, and the cost of reverting.

    I remember my first trips on the continent which we naturally took by train, as flying, in the 30s, commercially, was only for the rich. On those trains, as I could not afford a berth, I slept on luggage racks, and if we stopped at a station through the night, someone was bound to open a window to see where we were, and the draught went up the trouser legs and woke me. When I came to live in Ireland, I would travel back to England partly by what today is called a ferry, and in the 40s were cross-channel ships, beautifully equipped, comfortable and one got one’s tea and toast in bed, in a delightful cabin. These little luxuries I believe are no longer available – what a shame!

  • Random Thoughts No. 2

    I am not an accountant, so I am totally confused. I read and hear that our internal debt is the greatest in Europe, caused through overspend, and the escalating cost of house purchase. I gather that the government is worried about this debt, but if that is the case why at every opportunity does it increase our hidden tax burden, and permit the housing situation to be such that it is becoming successively more difficult for the lower paid to obtain a house. Indeed it is now arriving at the point where people, through the rises in the bank rate, are now finding that their mortgages have increased so much that it is placing them in a hazardous financial situation, and they are possibly likely to suffer repossession and bankruptcy.

    This situation is being aggravated because there is no financial security from pensions, and those who are wealthy enough are buying up houses as second homes, holiday homes, and for rent, all as investment, leaving the underclass, as usual, on the wrong side of the fence.

    While I am on the subject of housing, which also has a bearing on the overall housing stocks and cost of housing, I am also seriously confused about the housing of immigrants, and illegal immigrants, which must also be stressing the housing problem. I do not believe that the meagre salaries that these people are being paid, especially the illegal ones, are sufficient for them to be able to afford adequate housing, especially as a rental. I question what conditions these people are living under, in these circumstances, and whether local authorities are looking into the matter and taking the necessary action, or is it all being swept under the carpet?

    Music trends. The other day I watched a film on TV, produced in America, in which the lead in, and ending music took me back to Africa 80 years ago. Then we had a small kraal at the bottom of the garden, a collection of mud and reed huts which housed our servants and their families. At nights, and on other occasions, presumably having some African significance, the Africans would sing in that rhythmic way, without a great range but a lot of repetition. It may have been coincidence, or it may be, like Picasso, the musicians are drawing inspiration from African traditions. Even when I was young, while I found it interesting, my subconscious was not ready to accept the African idiom. When I listened to the film I found the rhythm like a heartbeat, but the repetition and the monotony spoiled the effect.

    My grandson Steve Jones, is a professional musician who has played with a number of bands including Roland Keating and is now playing with Air, the famous French band. As a result it has given me an insight into the Music Industry,. from which I have formed a number of theories. Having been brought up with classical music in my youth, the big band era in the 30s and 40s, jazz and dance music, I find it difficult to latch onto the current idiom, especially rap. I get the impression some young people with an ability to play an instrument, but not necessarily a real talent, helped by synthesisers and computer programs, create their form of music and are taken up by entrepreneurs, as ‘new faces’, milked and then discarded , with the result that they make little contribution to the overall music scene, sufficiently original to induce progress. For this reason I have to admit
    that while I understand and like the music of Air and some others,, much that I hear I don’t understand and don’t care for. Whatever happened to melody?

    More on the new industry, global warming. One could hardly turn on the television or lift a newspaper but be exhorted to adopt some system which is going to save the world. A few days ago we were shown on TV news a series of the most ugly houses, architecturally designed, with scientific input that was the last thing in energy-saving. The problem was they were as ugly as sin and would stand out like a sore thumb in any environment. One of my neighbours has had solar panels installed on his roof, not integrated with the roof, just lying on top, and we are told that it would take him 15 years to recoup the cost. From what I could see inside two years, if my gutters are anything to go by, the area above and down the sides, and possibly underneath the unit, will be clogged with bird droppings, aerial detritus, and anything else such as leaves which are floating by. I’m sure that he had that erected for all the right reasons, but whoever guided him did him no favours. I believe the government should just slow down on the exhorting and speed up on design.

  • Pre WW2, 1930 to ’39, The 30s, I write, You Compare, Part 1

    Through the 30’s habits started to change at a snail’s pace, but it was so smooth one wasn’t aware of it. In the bigger shops they had those lovely wooden balls containing money or receipts, rising the full height of the shop at a twitch of a string, then rolling gently along metal tracks, with points and stations, one of which was the cashier in a bird cage half way up the building. As a kid I hated shopping, but made an exception if we were going there. Progress spoilt it all, the vacuum pipe system was introduced and your cash set off for the cashier with a thump and a hurstle like an asthmatic. As for cards – where’s the glamour?

    This was a period when the man in the street hadn’t discovered germs to any extent and not in the millions which are allegedly battering us today. We had carbolic soap which was an attractive red, and women wasted their money on scented stuff. We carried hot water upstairs to have a standing wash, went to the Public Baths for a swim or a bath as we chose, and the WC was either attached to the back of the house or down the garden, thankfully open to the breeze. Of course we were risking all sorts when we ate, we had bought food from Coster stalls, thoroughly handled, bread unwrapped and no tongs to lift it, and Sainsbury’s, in most high streets, handled everything, and to my endless joy, took butter out of a box in huge chunks, set it on the counter, cut it with wooden hand moulders, then proceeded to club ounces of water into it as it was moulded into pounds etc. The speed, precision and dedication the counter-hands portrayed with the patter and the water had to be seen to be believed. – how did we ever manage to stay so healthy?

    Of course there was not the same amount of kissing that goes on today. We were the hangover from the stern Victorian era when one showed little emotion. Also we had to risk the odd bout of the trots, we had only a ‘safe’, no fridge, It was a wooden cupboard residing out doors, with a perforated zinc panel in the door, covered with a wet towel in summer in which perishables were stored, and the system was not fool proof, as this fool can testify.

    What with riding like sardines in public transport, eating in unsupervised cafes, ice cream off pedalled carts, put together by the cyclist from a tub, muffins and crumpets carried on the head of a bell-ringing-vendor – they tasted marvellous toasted on a Sunday over a wood fire, and on and on.., I believe we built up an immune system second to none – nature’s way.