Old Gaffer

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  • Rugby and the Surgical Saw

    Rugby Was Certainly A Culture Shock Prior to leaving England for Africa, the only male member of our family whom I had any regular contact with was my grandfather and he was rarely in the house when I was awake. Hence I had never heard of Rugby, as in those days it was mostly a Public School activity. The horizon of women rarely rose above ladylike pursuits, add to this the fact that playing in the street was anathema to our family, for these reasons I was only vaguely aware of the games real people played. My first real run in with life in the raw came about almost as soon as we had arrived in Livingstone, it was a rugby match.
    Most of the civil servants were hand-picked which meant Oxbridge, if not that, then Public School, so the prevalent games were rugby, golf and tennis in that order. Hence, as a matter of course, we attended a rugby match at the first opportunity. I hadn’t a clue what was going on, I recognised the ground was hard because I was standing on it and if I had had any doubts to the fact, when two or three of the players, including the dentist, were carried off with broken bones or concussion, I had ample proof. It was an impressive introduction to Africa.

    The Case Of The Surgical Saw I loved the sensation of the sand under my bare feet and when out of parental gaze I would kick off my shoes and run about barefoot. Totally daft behaviour, there were all sorts of grubs and creatures just waiting for lunch, and, of course, I paid the penalty, I contracted a sore on the instep of my left foot which would not heal. Years later Willie, my mother, told me it was Beri Beri, but I think she must have been mistaken. We had no private medicine, there were doctors provided by our avuncular Colonial Service and they operated from the hospital. If you were sick you went there unless you were too sick, and then they came to you. I had earlier contracted a severe and persistent case of malaria, so I was well versed in the habits of our local medical profession.

    The sore made itself a nuisance at about the time my brother was born, so Willie had her hands full and as I knew most of the medicals socially as well as professionally, she sent me up to the hospital on my own for treatment. As I remember it, there was little to choose between the architectural design of the hospital and our bungalow, just a few extra stabs with the bungalow rubber stamp and hey presto, a drawing for a hospital. Someone or other must have told me to wait because I was seated on the veranda at the back of the hospital kicking my heels and looking round me. People passed and spoke and so time moved on until a doctor stopped, looked at me and said something like ‘I won’t be long’, and disappeared, only to reappear with a bone-saw in his hand. It was similar to the things butchers use, a coarse version of a hacksaw. ‘Won’t be long, Jack,’ he said brandishing the saw and smiling from ear to ear like a pantomime demon, ‘When I’ve finished with this chap you’re next,’ and he gave another flourish with the saw and disappeared.

    Aged seven plus, I was no coward, but I let out a screech and my feet barely touched the ground as I ran crying all the way home. Some joke! The fact that I remember it is not surprising, it is still vivid. What I really wonder is whether it really had any long term affect on me. I probably had nightmares for a day or two, but at that age, I believe there was too much going on for it to be taken seriously and I’m sure my parents were not too bothered. Jung, Adler, Freud and litigation were not on everyone’s lips and in those days, it was probably all treated as a silly prank. Pity! Today I’m sure I’d have been scarred for life and only compensation in six figures could possibly assuage the hurt.

  • The Wichita and the Tuscasa

    I have mentiond the first part of this elsewhere, but this is the full picture. The Wichita and the Tuscaloosa, two American cruisers arrived at Rosyth. The Americans had only recently entered the war and, I suspect, this fact affected the American’s attitude, they were doing us a favour coming over to help. Our Skipper invited a contingent to come aboard as a good-will gesture and we entertained them. They were aghast at the conditions we were living under, conditions we were accustomed to but hated. None the less it made us feel that we were ‘hardy chaps’ which might have done nothing to alleviate the discomfort but helped the ego. With the result we were generous to a fault, giving them a taste of our valuable rum, cigarettes and, in my case, spare badges as  keepsakes, and my response was the norm rather than the exception.

    In return we were invited aboard their ship. I think in between we had entertained them to a meal in the canteen. Anyway, we went on board their ship and discovered that while everyone in the world is born equal, that is where it stops. We had to eat, sleep and rest in our tiny Mess. These colonial cousins, each, mark you, had the choice of a hammock place or a proper bunk running fore and aft, not seat lockers from which one could roll on to the deck in a calm sea. They then took us to the canteen where they had a choice of food placed in sectioned, stainless steel trays and a separate place to eat, Not only that, they had a recreation area.

    The Royal Navy, in its wisdom, used to decide on the size of a ship, put in all the armament, ammunition, then all the gubbins like Asdic, Wireless, Radar, and only then did they remember they had to squeeze the men round the bits and pieces. The Americans apparently put the men in, made them happy and then, as an afterthought put in the essentials. Jealous? You’ve no idea! The final straw came when we left their bloody ships with our hands empty, no souvenirs, no badges, no tobacco, no nothing!

    The following night we were up the Noo – Edinburgh and found the Yanks cuddling the girls, in all the pubs, and, you’ve guessed it, war broke out. I was on the periphery and saw little but I was told later of the main engagement which took place on Prince’s Street. Apparently a number of our chaps, with some from other ships in our flotilla, were walking along peaceably when they were confronted by Yanks. A few pleasantries were exchanged and then our chaps carefully stacked their rain coats and hats against the pavement wall and waded in. The battle was fierce and short, broken up by the appearance in wailing jeeps of the US Naval Police who were entirely selective. They would grab a body, if it was American they would cosh it with a club, if it was one of ours they would shove it back into the brawl and grab another body. It was all over in seconds once the MP’s arrived. Our chaps brushed themselves off, carefully collected their caps and coats once again and went looking for a pub. The tales after that were long, tall, tedious and kept the Mess decks alive for weeks.

  • Evacuation 2

    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.

  • Dog Crazy 2

    My relations are all slightly dotty about dogs. I wrote Dog Crazy 1, so boringly, I fell asleep myself. This made me think about pets, and dogs especially. If you look at Crufts’ on TV, do you ever wonder how people could possibly love some of those ugly crossbreeds, and even more, stress that some of the uglier features are essential to win the class? I used to fancy Red Setters; a vet told me they were very stupid and had the tiniest brains of all – who cares! They are not going to be much help with the Times crossword anyway.

    When we had dogs, they were allowed to walk off the lead, and if trained to be obedient, and obey the Kerb Code, a walk was a pleasure. Today I am not sure why people still own dogs; walking on a lead is traumatic enough for man and beast, and picking up the droppings, while being hygienic and logical, must put many off. Our dogs would walk sedately, acknowledged the territory markings and contributed a vast number themselves, but they didn’t try to trip you up, or look up ladies skirts, like those in the arena at Crufts – their performance is bizarre, to say the least and totally unnatural.

    Dogs are a lot brighter, and obsequious, than we give them credit for, and can call us to heel if the mood takes them. My daughter is a camper and if the trip is protracted puts her dog in kennels. While packing is going on, the dog lies right across the front door as a barrier, and on return sulks for days – guess who has a fit of conscience. Generations of pets now have guile in their make-up. That slightly soppy grin, the tongue nearly lolling, the moist, large and appealing eyes, and the head cocked, – you are hooked, if generations of dog lovers have put the response in your genes also.

    In the Navy, teaching, I found the most beautiful hound, tied to a door handle. The Wren said the dog was to be shot for sheep worrying. It looked at me, I patted – I lost! That night ‘Josie’ was on the train to my recalcitrant mother in London. She was a one off, – the dog, not my mother, – on second thoughts – mother too! The dog could scale a seven to eight foot, creeper covered wall, walk along the top, and along tree branches, and turn – chasing very surprised cats. She was never happier than when riding pick-a-back with her face looking over the besotted human’s shoulder – control? They have us licked!

    The Fleas Josie was inquisitive. At Christmas ’44 my new wife Sophie, came over from Belfast to stay with me on leave, at the Dutch Resistance School my mother managed. Our temporary bed was a mattress on a floor. Josie, on a walk, in the moonlight, saw a hedgehog.. The little animal rolled into a ball as the dog barked fruitlessly. I picked it up with my Naval cap and took it to show Soph. She was in bed, on the floor, reading. I set the hedgehog down and immediately the floor, the sheet and part of Soph were all infested in fleas. We used a Hoover and DDT, but Sophie never really got over it. The following morning, when I woke, there in the middle of Soph’s forehead was a single flea – I didn’t tell her, it went. We let the hedgehog free in the garden.

    In the 30’s young women were called ‘Flappers’ and had fads like all crazies. My Aunt wore a bangle on her upper arm, held in place by a handkerchief. She lost it, sent a Black Labrador to find it by scent , The dog was jumping on thorns to reach the handkerchief on a wild rose. Another time a replacement bread delivery man, the dog didn’t recognise, was held captive by the same dog in the garden until someone returned to release him – at some cost.

    Spicer our Golden Retriever I have been subjected to ridicule, considered totally besotted, but I do believe that dog had a sense of fun. The children liked to play ‘Lost’. We would go to woods, I would wander off through the trees, and the children would pretend to be distraught. In due course the dog found me, with great praise and much tail wagging. Daft as it may seem, I proved to my own satisfaction she could make up practical jokes. At night we took the dog for a walk so she wouldn’t bark through the night. Often she would walk quietly up the drive, and then, in sight of the front door, suddenly shoot off, out through the hedge and away up the road. She was undoubtedly aware she had to be in at night and would therefore have to be collected. After about three of these occurrences over a period of a month I discovered I could predict when she had it in mind. About a hundred yards from the house she started to oscillate her back hips in a strange manner while similarly shaking her head – I was convinced she was rehearsing in her mind. Once near the house she was nearly off – but I had been warned.

  • Evacuation Part 1

    Encyclopaedia make no mention of Evacuation, which affected 5 million children, in June ’39, disrupted families whose children were dragged off into the depths of the country, but also the poor devils who had to look after them. Evacuation is a sort of two way mirror, showing each group how the other lived. Not all of us were small with labels tied to our lapels, some were in their last year at school and had to go because the school went. In Sussex I lived in four different homes, three far outside my own experience. We were taken to a Sussex village, assembled in the church hall where we camped out until fixed up with digs. My first home was in a children’s orphanage where I was very happy helping the older children look after the little ones, but that was only temporary until an ordinary billet was found. Next I joined the Assistant Headmaster and his wife at the home of a senior member of the Stock Exchange and life really did change. The house, was mock-Tudor, standing in vast grounds, with a ‘shoot’ attached. The owner, Tate, had the sort of life-style common today, but one I had only seen at the cinema. It was a two car family, with a gardener-chauffeur and live-in maid. We dined off polished mahogany with lace mats, silver of the highest quality, each with his own napkin-ring and linen napkin. Brought up to protect the wood of our dining table under all circumstances, passing glasses, salt cellars and dishes, one to another on this highly polished surface, was like scraping an open wound but I soon acclimatised and decided I liked the life. I was treated as one of the family, but I had to earn my place by helping the maid, cleaning the car when the chauffeur was off and acting as a sort of gilly when Tate went shooting in his private shoot, which was a fair size. We hunted pheasant, partridge, rabbit and hare

    I was beater, gun carrier, and clack when Tate managed to hit anything, which was not too often. In search for rabbit, Tate saw one; I saw a flutter of grasses and suggested he shoot between the rabbit and the grasses, which he did and killed three rabbits. At length he explained to me how he did it – several times, never once mentioning my part in the operation. He told the tale to everyone in the house, including the maid, finally telephoning all his friends with news of the carnage. Generally, however, he was a poor shot and maimed more than he killed, with the result I mostly had to dispatch the poor things.

    We were evacuated prior to when Chamberlain was doing his diplomacy and the rest of us waited with baited breath. I remember the day war was declared, it was a beautiful sunny day in August, we listened to the fateful words spoken on the radio and then, those like the Assistant Head and Tate, who had seen it all before, looked meaningfully at one another and no one spoke for a while. On an errand for Mrs Tate, emptying the cigarette machines in the district of cigarettes – she expected the cost of tobacco to rocket – I heard air raid sirens for the first time, it was eerie, but an air raid in that beautiful countryside on that beautiful day was really unimaginable.

    I was in matriculation year – working in Tate’s house under the eye of the Assistant Headmaster’s wife, it was like a correspondence course because there was nowhere the senior boys could be accommodated. We met occasionally but most of our work was done individually, with the consequent drop in standards. Those days would have formed the summer break under normal circumstances, so when it was time to resume schooling in the proper environment we were all shunted off once again to join the locals in a grammar school. I finished up in Lewes, a lovely part of East Sussex, for a period of my life I’m glad I did not miss.

    The Incident Of The Adder I was almost totally a town boy. I loved the country and found pleasure in walking through the shoot and across the fields. This day I came across a short grass snake, it was light fawn and dark brown with markings in a ‘V’ pattern on its head. Twelve to fifteen inches long it looked positively beautiful and I could not resist it. Apart from those I had seen in Africa I had only seen snakes in glass cases at the Zoo. I picked it up and stroked its head and back and after a while put it in my jacket pocket. In successfully frightening the maid with it, I decided to put the grass snake up my sleeve, and then reaching for the salt; the snake would glide down my arm, slither across the shiny mahogany – Surprise!!

    The grass snake had other ideas. Firstly it mysteriously transformed itself into an adder, next, bored with games, it bit me in the thumb and finally it poisoned me. It must have been a Sunday because Tate was at home. When he saw the snake he realised it was an adder and promptly killed it. Next he telephoned the local doctor, some 5 miles away and then drove me to him at speed. By the time I arrived a lump had formed in the lymph gland under my arm and even though he gave me an antidote I could not use my arm for days after that – serve me right for my ignorance.

  • A Brush With Religion

    To most boys coming from my background, religion was a means to an end rather than an end in itself. It was an entr?e into the Scouting Movement, which, was church affiliated, offered bun fights and picnics’ in lieu of TV On cold wet winter evenings, apart from the Cubs and Scouts, there was the CCC, Children’s Christian Circle. Held in a barren church hall with rows and rows of hard chairs, we sat to be entertained by missionaries, back from all corners of the world, with lantern slides of people in strange landsc with even stranger habits, such as having wooden plates in their lower lips or fingernails which seemed to go on for ever and clearly made life a plague. If we were enticed beyond the attraction of the eccentric, it could only have been by something cheap and innocuous like a glass of orange squash at half-time, Missionary Societies were hard up. Our church had had a change of vicar, the new one hailed from Ireland, that place off Wales where music hall artists came from.

    The night which changed my religious outlook was totally unheralded. It was the usual CCC night, wet, cold and dank, with little heating and the regular crescendo of noise. We were awaiting the arrival of the speaker and the vicar to introduce him. I was cocked up comfortably on the back legs of my chair, my feet on the rails of the one in front, chatting happily,. The new vicar appeared. He looked round, and started to walk down the centre aisle surveying the rabble. I took little notice of him – was just aware of his presence, so did not recognise Nemesis when it arrived. My first intimation was when I disappeared over the back of my chair to hit the floorwith a thump. When he had approached, the vicar had asked, “Would you do that at home?” – indicating the feet on the rails and the tipped up chair. Truthful to the point of being, in the eyes of the vicar, impertinent and unrepentant, I had said I would, which was true, at which instant the vicar’s fist struck and struck hard. What followed that evening was a blur but in spite of the combined efforts of my mother, and Miss Batley, my Sunday school teacher, I ended my association with our church. I was sorry. I loved church on Sunday, listening to the bobs, doubles and trebles being rung by the full peal. I was a bugler, drummer and patrol leader in the Scouts, I would miss the fun of it all.. In spite of the ‘turning the other cheek’ bit, Miss Batley was hammering on about, I believed that Christianity’s preaching of ‘love thy neighbour’ should start at source and not be interpreted as a thump in the chest. “Enough already!” It was worse than I had anticipated. By not attending church parades I was then chucked out of the church Troop, I was a pariah – I was unacceptable, by inference unclean! For a while I mooched about on Sundays with my heathen friends, but Mother finally put her foot down and demanded that I must attend church, any church, so I and the heathens inaugurated the Religious Round.

    The Religious Round It shows the cohesion we had as a group, told to attend; the others decided to accompany me. We would turn up at a meeting, it might have been Sunday School or a church service. At each new venue, the greetings we got were amazing. To find a small group of boys, aged about eleven, turning up on the doorstep, un-coerced, was probably unheard of. We, in turn, found it amazing, that so many sects could preach the same message in so many different ways. On one occasion, we went up some stairs to a scruffy loft, where the chap in charge was an ex-Canadian Mounted Policeman we all knew. He, as usual, was in the Mounty dress uniform, green-khaki trousers with a yellow stripe down the sides of the legs, polished riding boots and a blue jacket with chain-mail epaulettes but for once no wide-brimmed hat – incongruous, to say the least. We always attended for a few weeks, reading and discussing the handouts on our way home. Whether we learned much I cannot say, but I think many of the protracted arguments with Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses on the front doorstep in later life might show that some of the teaching had been absorbed, along with growing scepticism, agnosticism and general apathy, leading to atheism.

    We went out of our way to sample all we could; the one we liked best was the Salvation Army. They sat us in the front pew, opposite the roaring brass, and it was fantastic. There was an atmosphere almost akin to hysteria that was infectious. Looking back in retrospect, it was the street corner service transferred indoors. Of all the religious groups I have come in contact with, I believe they are among the most selfless, and their contribution to the lot of the stranded serviceman was invaluable in its intrinsic if not religious sense, and I will always be grateful. Presumably now the cardboard-city dwellers are the recipients of their care as we were during the war.

  • I Started Being Very Sorry

    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.

  • Teaching Navy Style

    I have always thought the examination techniques we adopted at the Royal Naval Signal School should have been the norm for the Country’s education system in general. Education is not a case of knowing information, but knowing where to find it and how to apply it. The Leydene examination organisers had obviously taken this theory to heart. We, the students, were a mixed lot. If we qualified we were going to be far from land and advice for weeks on end and solely dependent upon our own resources, so while we were thoroughly taught how to carry out repairs and the basic fundamentals of radio technology, the course was based around the fact that the Mechanic would have a text book at his elbow. The examiners also knew that cheating had to be lived with as, for the students, passing the exam was the aim, how was secondary. To combat cheating, talking during exams was forbidden, but any written matter was allowed in with us to the examination, on the principal that if we had to look anything up it would waste valuable time, compared with those who knew it all. As the students ranged from the school-leaver to the hardened telegraphist, with a few university graduates thrown in to make the life of the instructor that little bit more difficult, they designed the papers with the questions graded, starting easily and then progressing in difficulty with each question. They tried to maintain a fair balance between pure knowledge and a sensible amount of referral. The person who knew the answers would have the advantage while a reasonable referral would not place a person beyond passing.

    The marking system was equally advanced The lecturers had a good idea who would come out on top, and the general quality of his work. Having marked all the papers they examined the top three of four, first to make sure there was no doubt of reaching the standard expected, then they took the highest mark and proportioned it to receive between 90 – 95 percent, depending on the candidate’s ability and the quality of his paper. They then graded all the papers by the same factor. Someone hopeless who spent much time referring to cogs and text books would fail miserably.

    The Vagaries Of Teaching At Leydene It is one thing to sit in a classroom and criticise the poor devil standing in front trying to teach and another thing entirely being that poor devil, especially if it is what the Navy terms a ‘pier-head jump’, being volunteered without a word to say about it. Some of the instructors had been teachers in civvy life, but I was chucked in at the deep end to make the best of it. We had a day’s instruction which I totally forget, but one little jewel did stick. They told us that students learned one third through what they heard, one third through touch and one third through what they saw, and we were to instruct accordingly

    I was teaching people to be practical technicians, not theorists and if truth be known, when I started, my theoretical knowledge was a lot more sketchy than my grasp of the innards of the great many sets I was teaching. Initially this left me open to attack from men who had just come down from university with bright shiny degrees and who proposed to run rings round me for the aggrandisement of their own egos and the delectation of the rest of the class, a not uncommon syndrome, especially among university students. That I was at a disadvantage was patent, what I was to do about it was more difficult and gave me hours of discomfort in the beginning. I had two aspects in my favour, the classes ran only for a matter of weeks, or a couple of months at the most, and then my tormentors would have left and any reputation I had created left with them and I started with a clean slate. The other plus was that I am a quick study and with every encounter I learned – oh how I bloody well learned! The one stance I had to avoid was the Uriah Heap affliction, the ‘I’m not as well educated as you’ ploy, seeking sympathy. I soon discovered that the best method of defence is attack and I also learned how to dig a hole and then lead the charging bull elephants into it. I had the advantage of knowing the sets inside out and soon discovered the difficulties the students were finding. Sympathy with the difficulties the class was encountering and a feigned amusement when I might be tripped up by a brain-box, tended to balance the class attitude in my favour and as time elapsed I was very often able to impart what these university graduates had taught me as if I had known it all along. One situation did frighten me, though. We were not supplied with duplicated notes, we spent hours dictating. The routine was such, we could predict what we’d be teaching at any time weeks or months ahead and the same was true of the dictation. It was so repetitive I was able to talk and think of something entirely different, my brain on auto-pilot. So that I had to lift an exercise book from time to time to see exactly what I had been saying. I never remember having to alter a word, but, it says something about the loss of spontaneity short repetitive courses can produce in the teaching staff if it is not watched.

  • About This Blog and Art

    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!

  • The Boredom Of The Watch Aboard

    The watch aboard on our destroyer consisted of those men who would normally be on watch at sea. In harbour the rigorous discipline was relaxed and there were hours when one could go ashore; the rest being on leave. Most of the time life was very routine and monotonous. In the first week or so after I had recovered from the seasickness which had put everything else out of my mind, I was a little apprehensive when they battened us down in the bowels of the ship as we sailed through mine- fields, or closed up for Action Stations, but that too became routine, one cannot be apprehensive forever, the stress would be too much to bear.

    In harbour, it was a relief to lose about two thirds of the crew and breath once again, with the ship silent and still, one could sleep peacefully on a locker instead of a hammock and the canteen in the dockyard saved any cooking. The monotony though was increased. I was never terribly gregarious so I spent these periods of calm, quietly doing chores which I had no time to do at sea and this included washing the hammock, the bed cover, two blankets and a pillow case, apart from the clothes which were done at the same time. Washing clothes at sea , a necessary evil, was put off as long as supplies of spare garments lasted and then calculations were made to find the minimum requirement to reach harbour.

    In contrast, the system in harbour, was most enjoyable, provided no one else wanted to use the shower. There was only one shower tray in each bathroom, or ‘heads’ as they were called, made of fawn ceramic tiles and supporting two or three shower heads.. Needless to say as the toilets had no doors it was unlikely the shower would have a curtain. Privacy was something that simply did not exist, probably for a number of very good reasons. With a bung in the shower plug-hole I would turn on the shower heads until the tray was almost over flowing. Then I would chuck in all the washing at once, copious soap, flaked from the long yellow bars we were issued with every month along with the tobacco. It was the only washing powder available then. With book in hand, I tramped round and round for ages on the washing, reading the while, or with an ear to the BBC forces programme coming over the Tannoy system. Half way through I would rub any dirty bits like the collars and cuffs of shirts, with the remainder of the yellow soap and then tramp again, finally rinsing several times in the same way. I can’t describe how therapeutic that exercise was, even if the soles of my feet were wrinkled with the long immersion. The only ironing I ever did, other than pressing the crease in the trousers, was the collar of my white shirts which were reserved for shore leave, and an area of about six inches round the collar which would be seen below the jacket. Drying took almost no time as the heat of the Boiler Room took care of that.

    Another way of remaining sane in that maelstrom of humanity was to take a fish box, set it on deck behind the funnel so I was sheltered from the wind and, with my back absorbing the warmth of the steel heated by the exhaust from the oil burners, I would sit there in the late evening glow as the sun set, and long after, watching the florescence of the bow-waves rush past the ship in their rippling ‘V’ formation and the sluggish merchant men silhouetted in the dying embers of the day. Those minutes and hours were very precious.