It Had All Been a Dream!

One of the mixed blessings of living alone - certainly the way I do - is the balance between fitting in all the demands of running the household and satisfying a variety of social commitments and obligations on the one hand, and carving out chunks of time for specific pleasures or necessary 'big jobs' on the other.

Occasionally at work (my voluntary commitment to the hospice warehouse), I come across the odd twin-cassette recording.  These are now quite unusual, having been replaced by talking book CDs and online downloads over the years and, I suppose, must be between twenty and thirty years old ... or more!  Unless the subject is of particular interest, there is no demand for them, and they go for scrap.

I found one the other week; it was a radio broadcast, a dramatisation of a Len Deighton book, called simply 'Bomber'.  Intrigued, I brought it home and converted it to an MP3 file on my computer.  The four sides total over four-and-a-quarter hours of listening, so I imagine that, whenever it was originally broadcast, it would have been as a serial rather than a one-off radio play.

I decided that the ideal time to listen to this would be Boxing Day.  There would be no need to go out at all, no domestic chores that couldn't be deferred and, as it happened, there was a particular job that I wanted to do, which would require a few hours and couldn't really be sub-divided.  What better than to combine the two?

After the limited sleep following the midnight service at church, with the need to be up at a normal time on Christmas Day to ring bells in a similar timescale to a Sunday, it was little surprise that, with the alarm switched off, I was late getting up on Boxing Day.  Once breakfast was over, though, I settled down to the job of filleting the contents of a filing cabinet drawer with 'Bomber' playing in the background.  A brief interval after about three hours to make a snack for lunch was the only break and I really felt at one with the story.

I've never read the book, but it was clearly skilfully written ... or else had been very cleverly dramatised.  It told the story of a Lancaster Bomber's final operation, as part of a 500- or 600-bomber raid on Germany's industrial areas in February, 1943.  It included the intricate personal and professional lives of some of the crew members and others in the squadron and at national level as the target was chosen, the planes prepared, the crews identified and so on.  However, it also explored in the same depth the affairs of the citizens of a small town in Germany, whose lives were about to be curtailed by a disastrous sequence of accidental occurrences.

At times, the excitement was so intense that I had to abandon what was going on on my dining table and just sit mesmerised, until that phase of the action had passed.  As my mother would have said had it been a TV drama in her day, "Don't they play their parts well!"  For all it being sound only, it was as if I were in the plane with them!  At the end, I was glad that my physical task had also been completed, and I was on the point of noting the details of the places involved, in order to research later just how closely, if at all what I'd just heard resembled the actual facts.  I was spared this new challenge, however, as the announcer explained that there was no airfield of that name in England, and the German town that must have been virtually obliterated was also fictitious.

And today ... life is virtually back to normal and I'm wondering what excitements next week will bring!

When the Phone Rings in mid-Anglia

- with thanks and apologies to

Maurice Woods, writer of 'Harbert's News from Dumpton' -

I war sittin' moindin' moi own bisness the other day, hevin'a squint at tha local pearper, when tha phoan went.  Tha woife, she come in all of a lather; she say, "Thass ow Ron Collier.  He want a ward along o' yew."  Now Ron, hi's the editer o' tha pearper what I war a-readin'.  I thawt, whass he got second soight?  "Harbert", he say, "I want yew ter wroite a bit fer tha pearper.  I know yew're suffin ter dew wi' tha learber ..."  I thawt, whass that gotter dew wi' yew? but I din't say nothin an' he went on, "I want you ter wroite a bit abowt tha 'leckshun."

Now, I're writ bits afore fer tha pearper, but nothin' topical-loike, so thet war a bit of a shock.  Afore I gotta chance ter say anythin', he war gorn on agin,  "Moind yew, I doant want nunner yar perlitickal squit.  Jis be informative, fer a chearnge."  Now, I reckon O'm allers informative, but I let that pass, an' all, an' sed O'd dew what I could.

Then I thawt, suffin' 'bowt tha 'leckshun, but nothin' perlitickal ... that sorta cut down what I ken put, dew he i'nt a-gornter print 't.  Thear's nothin much chearnged fr'm tha last toime.  I mean, Lord Twinkle got in agin, loike he allers dew.  We call him lord, but he in't a proper lord y'know.  But he allers act loike he is.  I war there at the cownt, arter all the voatin wor dun, an' he war there as yewshul, along o' 'is woife.  She allers cock har hid back'ards, an' look down har noase as if suffin' nasty ha just crawled underneath 't.  I hint never sin har smoile as long as I're known 'em.  I spoose she must ha' twinkled wunce, dew he woon't ha' marrid har, but yew never see no twinkle about 'r now.

Yew dew see s'm rum soights at tha 'leckshun, thow.  I war settin' owtsoide, loike I allers dew - tellin', thay call't, Oi dunnow whoy - so I're sin 't all down tha years.  Wun ow woman come in, she say, "Ken I bring moi dawg in here?  I doan't wanta leave him owtsoide, dew hi'll cetch cowd.  Thass roight parkey owt there terday."  Then this yung cupple come in, hin't bin marrid long, Oi doan't think.  Little Flossie Kemp, as were.  Oi dunnow whar she got him from, but hi's half as hoigh agin as what she is.  A long streak of nuthin, if ever tha war.  Oi dunnow what he dew fer a livin', noither.  He look as gormless as Oi dunnow what.

Anyway, thay come in, thinkin' more abowt each uther than what thay wore a-dewin' on, an' nearly tripped over tha dawg.  Coos, Missus thing warn't lookin' arter him noither, what wi' puttin har crorse aginst wun o' tha nearmes on tha pearper.  Flossie say ter har man, "Oi doan't know hooter voate for, now O' come here!"  An' that din't look as thow har man war gornta be much help noither.  Anyway, thay got tharsilves untangled fr'm tha dawg an' did thar bizness, an' thay skipped orf loike a cupple o' lambs owt fer a frolick on tha medder, smoilin' an' larfin' wunce the'd dun thar civic dewty.

Now all that voats ha' bin cownted, that doan't look loike tha'll be much chearge at tha top, noither.  We're still got a guvunment what doan't hev a clew whass gorn on at grarss roots, so Oi doan't reckon wi'll be much better orf than we war afore.

Loife's allers a struggle, in't 't?

Farewell, Feisty Lady

"Things go in threes" they say.  I'm beginning to wonder whether that axiom also applies to death.  A few weeks ago, I reported the demise of someone with whom my friendship of many years had declined to an annual Christmas card and the occasional letter.  On Tuesday morning while I was at work, I received a phone call.  The caller said she was someone's sister ... I didn't catch the name and had to ask her to repeat it.  She had just found my Christmas card - accompanied by the ubiquitous 'round robin' newsletter - and was ringing to let me know that her sister had died on Dec. 1st.  This was another friend in the same category as the one mentioned above.

Ada came into my life - or rather I into hers - as the friend of a friend.  She had met another lady, Sheila, who was already my friend, on a tour to Israel and they discovered that they lived not far apart.  Ada owned a small cottage in France and, in the course of conversation, had invited my friend to visit her there later in the year.  Sheila did some research and found that she could get a coach from London's Victoria Coach Station to Brive, only a few kilometres from the cottage, and Ada had offered to collect her from there.  But Sheila didn't like the idea of a long solo coach journey; I don't think she spoke any French, either.  Consequently, I received a phone call, inviting me to a week in France!

Ada (L) and Sheila, at the Orientation
Table overlooking the cottage

The cottage was tiny indeed.  Ada already had another friend staying with her; they shared the only bedroom, while I made myself comfy on the sofa, and Sheila - anxious to experience 'camping' for the first time - utilised my tent on the back lawn.  Over the passage of nearly 30 years, memories become confused, but I recall my enjoyment one evening, playing some kind of word game with Ada, while Sheila was reading a book.  We seemed to share the same sense of humour, as well as a knowledge of the local language and culture.  The week was over all too quickly, and we were driven back to get the return bus home.

I think I only met Ada once after that, when my new wife and I paid her a visit a few years later.  We've always exchanged the annual Christmas greeting, though, and usually a newsletter too.  Ada made regular trips to her second home in France using an 'old faithful' camper-van that she named 'Duchess'.  It was older than any I've owned since, and was in frequent need of engineering attention.  One of Ada's letters that I've just been re-reading told of a hazardous return journey, plagued by garage delays, ill-health and the problems of coordinating medication, insurance cover, accommodation and a brief stay in a French hospital.  A two-week break seems to have lasted a couple of months!

Such experiences seem to have been characteristic of this adventurous spinster.  Some years ago she moved from her home in the east Midlands to a flat in a wardened complex on the south coast, but she would always travel each spring to Nottingham for a choir weekend ... as nothing, of course, compared to the regular trips to France, sometimes with one of her many siblings, often alone!  She finally decided to sell the cottage only three years or so ago, when a fall left her reliant on a wheeled walker frame and thus unable to drive.

RIP

Ada Hollands (1931-2019)

Au Revoir!

Hello, Come on in!

Someone suggested to me the other evening that it must be two years now, since I retired.  When I told him it was actually four years ago this week, he was staggered.  He quickly invoked the now familiar, 'I suppose you're keeping busy?' to which I responded that, after a couple of years during which I had found time heavy on my hands, this was now indeed the case. 

In fact, after decades when the number of places where I could be considered 'part of the scenery' could be counted on one hand, followed by a number of years when I was recognised in many factories, shops and business premises by both uniform and purpose, life has now settled to a mid-range, 'double-handful' of such locations. 

Apart from church activities - bell-ringing in one direction; and worship and a whole lot of other things in the other - the place where I feel most 'at home' is the hospice warehouse.  Here, although it's only a day and a half a week, I can walk through the door, be recognised by any one of a score of possibilities, and am quite happy to take my seat and organise my surroundings to best serve the purpose for which I'm there.

The other half-day of my 'working life' is the Ark drop-in.  Here, too, I can turn up, greet those in charge and get on with my allotted duties with a minimum of fuss.  In these last few weeks, two more situations have been added to that list.  The first (although not chronologically) is the campaign office in St Albans, where I've been helping in the run-up to the General Election. 

Whoever is in charge when I arrive welcomes me and, after I've signed in, can give me something to do, whether it's data entry (even sorting out the awkwardness of finding, yesterday morning, that my mouse needed 'feeding' with a new battery!), or something more physical, like bundling leaflets or (as yesterday) helping to put up Christmas decorations.  Yesterday, at the end of the day, we found ourselves still waiting for a delivery of leaflets that should have been there before lunch!  The camaraderie in those few hours was incredible ... although what I shall walk into on Monday can only be guessed!

That will be the last day of that sequence; I've enjoyed the commuting, driving to a convenient point and then catching one of four possible buses to take me to the city centre.  I have to say that whenever I've waited for the bus it's not been wet, although the morning when two scheduled buses didn't turn up, I was getting pretty cold and despondent!

The other new welcome came this morning as, for only the second time, I helped prepare for the church's Community Cafe, where we are able to offer 'best before' food items (thanks to local supermarkets), and a children's clothing exchange.  Although many of the other helpers are not known to me by name, I have already become an accepted part of the team, and my unfamiliarity with the visual appearance of clothes for a 3-, 6- or 9-month-old infant is acknowledged and worked around quite satisfactorily.

On Thursday, I was one of seven who gathered at a restaurant in the town for a 'Christmas curry evening'.  This was the third such event I've attended (not all at Christmas time, I might add) and, as I left, I realised that I'd enjoyed this much more than on previous occasions.  Again, the welcome factor had kicked in.

Also during this week I submitted my name to be a Counting Agent next Thursday after the polls close.  This will be a second for me, having attended the count for the local elections eighteen months ago, when I was one of the candidates.  It will be interesting to see how the two compare, not least in the matter of time, since this will be at night, whereas the local elections were counted the following morning. 

I don't envisage being up at 6.30 next Friday morning!