It's been a surprisingly successful week. It began on Sunday when, with my food-shopping out of sync, I had planned a pub lunch. Unfortunately by Sunday morning, I had forgotten this resolve and it wasn't until someone asked 'have you anything planned for lunch today?' that I remembered. By then, of course, my plans weren't required, because my answer was followed up by an invite to join the questioner and his wife to dinner later.
Monday saw the final session in the online genealogy course, which was appropriately interrupted by the arrival of the postman, who delivered a marriage certificate I had ordered only last Tuesday from the National Archives of Ireland (notwithstanding that this was for an event in Co. Fermanagh, so I wasn't sure that it would be successful). How's that for service?!
Last week I had advertised my now-redundant 'awning-cum-marquee' on eBay. On Wednesday, I discovered how their system works. Despite my checking the website frantically as the deadline approached, the process is so automated that I didn't need to at all. I had a message saying the item was sold, and another from Paypal telling me, in effect, that I'd got the cash, so I'd better get on with sending the goods! Now, the 'goods' comprised the tent part, all packed away in its own bag, a long bag with the poles and pegs, a set of rods with a canvas strip that constituted the 'fitting kit' and, completely separate in its own container, the additional underlay that I was selling with it. The whole lot couldn't easily be assembled into one despatchable item, and was in any case beyond the weight limit for most services.
Years of experience told me quickly that the best way to send it was by courier - the old trio of possible necessities (urgency, fragility or value) came into play, with two scores out of three. But why waste all those years of practice? It took only minutes for me to decide to take it to Yorkshire myself. The journey was only just over three hours, and I enjoyed revisiting a past life ... all the more so, knowing that I wouldn't be doing the same thing tomorrow, and could take my time getting home again.
Yesterday, I woke up with a headache. That was caused by the sinusitis, which has now outlived the prescribed medication, and is prompting me to consider a return to the medical professionals next week. Apart from the physical, I also woke up with a definite idea from somewhere, that my lounge could benefit from a partial re-arrangement mirror-wards. So, with very few interruptions, and following an intense session of on-screen planning, I have now changed what was (in cricketing terms, thinking of bookshelves as fielders and the armchair as the batsman) a 6-3 offside field to the right-hander into a 6-2 offside field to the left-hander. As a result, I expelled from the field one computer screen, one bookcase and one lampstand, along with about 140 assorted books.
The single items were immediately offered on freecycle and the screen was picked up while I was still filtering the books between 'not-wanted', 'must-keep', 'might-be-useful' and 'could-probably-do-without'. To my amazement, the collector was one of the town's parochial clergy, who was only too eager to snaffle up all the theological rejects, leaving me with a heap of rejects that had accumulated on a makeshift workbench in the bathroom (board for making up extra bed in motorhome placed over the bath). These have now been neatly packaged into three boxes ready for next week, when they will be foisted on an unsuspecting charity shop!
With all that success going to my head, I now need to come quickly back to earth and finish planning my next motorhome expedition ... but more about that in the coming weeks!
Saturday, 27 August 2016
Saturday, 20 August 2016
The Somme ... and not the Same at all!
On my journey through Lincolnshire earlier this year, I visited the town of Horncastle. There in a bookshop I found a volume that took my eye and, as is often the case, I began reading it immediately. Unusually, instead of putting it aside fairly soon afterwards and turning to something else, I carried on with it and - rather topically, in the sequence of centenaries - have now come to the end of it. Called 'Kelly's War', it is the diary of Frederick Septimus Kelly, an Olympic rower, composer and naval soldier, from September 1914 to November 1916, when he was killed in one of the last phases of the Battle of the Somme.
I was struck by a description he wrote after a reconnaisance walk in the last days of October 1916 to a point from which he could see the line of their forthcoming advance. "The land up there is an indescribable scene of desolation. For acres and acres (as far as we could see) there was no sign of vegetable life, just a sea of lacerated earth, with here and there the traces of a former trench system. ... I was haunted by the sense of terrible tragedy - the triumph of death and destruction over life. ... There were no trenches in the sense of an excavation or breastwork giving protection - just tracks from shell hole to shell hole." The previous day Kelly had written, "we turned to the left and walked through Thiepval Wood - or, rather, the appalling wilderness of tree-stumps and lacerated earth which was once a wood - to the northern edge where we got an excellent view of both the bank and the trenches over which we are to advance."
Having read them within the last week, these phrases were still fresh in my mind anyway, but they were brought back to me again as I reflected on my mission yesterday to the Suffolk Record Office in Bury St Edmunds. I've lost count of the number of times in the last fifteen years that I've examined the fiche copies of the parish records for the villages of Hoxne and Syleham. Most of my father's immediate family came from there and, every time I turned a corner in my research, I returned to seek some more data from the same records, perhaps looking for a different name, or for one particular detail I hadn't recorded on an earlier visit. After ploughing in the same field so many times (sorry about the changed metaphor) I'm beginning to know the terrain backwards.
As I return time and again to the same entries, I find there's a decreasing limit to the new life I can squeeze from them. After nearly five hours, I emerged with two or three pages of scribbled notes; I now find that the majority of what I had written was not only familiar, but exactly the same as what I already have recorded on my computer. I have verified about a dozen items that had been passed to me fifteen years ago by a distant cousin with whom I lost contact long ago; I have found the names of the two hitherto undiscovered direct ancestors, great-great-great-great-grandparents, and revealed a possible step-great-great-uncle, whose very existence is subject to further checks before I can count him.
It must have felt a bit like that to those men in 1916. Quite apart from the effects of earlier campaigns, the to-and-fro-and-get-nowhere shooting and shelling of the past three months had, by November, left little recognisable of the countryside, let alone any trace of normal village life. As Kelly wrote, there was no sign of vegetation ... just mud in the advancing autumn rains.
Hundreds of comrades lost, hundreds of thousands of other men killed ... and all for a few hundred yards of unrecognisable land. Little wonder, then, that, at the same time, talks were going on among the politicians of both sides - although not between them - of some kind of peace to bring this waste to an end. But little wonder, too, that any peace to be considered would have to secure some recognisable gain that those lives had bought. In 1916, no such gain was apparent.
In comparison, I'm just playing games!
I was struck by a description he wrote after a reconnaisance walk in the last days of October 1916 to a point from which he could see the line of their forthcoming advance. "The land up there is an indescribable scene of desolation. For acres and acres (as far as we could see) there was no sign of vegetable life, just a sea of lacerated earth, with here and there the traces of a former trench system. ... I was haunted by the sense of terrible tragedy - the triumph of death and destruction over life. ... There were no trenches in the sense of an excavation or breastwork giving protection - just tracks from shell hole to shell hole." The previous day Kelly had written, "we turned to the left and walked through Thiepval Wood - or, rather, the appalling wilderness of tree-stumps and lacerated earth which was once a wood - to the northern edge where we got an excellent view of both the bank and the trenches over which we are to advance."
Having read them within the last week, these phrases were still fresh in my mind anyway, but they were brought back to me again as I reflected on my mission yesterday to the Suffolk Record Office in Bury St Edmunds. I've lost count of the number of times in the last fifteen years that I've examined the fiche copies of the parish records for the villages of Hoxne and Syleham. Most of my father's immediate family came from there and, every time I turned a corner in my research, I returned to seek some more data from the same records, perhaps looking for a different name, or for one particular detail I hadn't recorded on an earlier visit. After ploughing in the same field so many times (sorry about the changed metaphor) I'm beginning to know the terrain backwards.
As I return time and again to the same entries, I find there's a decreasing limit to the new life I can squeeze from them. After nearly five hours, I emerged with two or three pages of scribbled notes; I now find that the majority of what I had written was not only familiar, but exactly the same as what I already have recorded on my computer. I have verified about a dozen items that had been passed to me fifteen years ago by a distant cousin with whom I lost contact long ago; I have found the names of the two hitherto undiscovered direct ancestors, great-great-great-great-grandparents, and revealed a possible step-great-great-uncle, whose very existence is subject to further checks before I can count him.
It must have felt a bit like that to those men in 1916. Quite apart from the effects of earlier campaigns, the to-and-fro-and-get-nowhere shooting and shelling of the past three months had, by November, left little recognisable of the countryside, let alone any trace of normal village life. As Kelly wrote, there was no sign of vegetation ... just mud in the advancing autumn rains.
Hundreds of comrades lost, hundreds of thousands of other men killed ... and all for a few hundred yards of unrecognisable land. Little wonder, then, that, at the same time, talks were going on among the politicians of both sides - although not between them - of some kind of peace to bring this waste to an end. But little wonder, too, that any peace to be considered would have to secure some recognisable gain that those lives had bought. In 1916, no such gain was apparent.
In comparison, I'm just playing games!
Saturday, 13 August 2016
Coming Together
Life always feels good when you can see plans that are coming together or simply things succeeding around you. Take, for example, the churches' picnic in the town last Sunday afternoon. Last year, I remember, I packed my normal 'snack lunch' in a cool-bag and walked into town with my chair-in-a bag. I sat on the periphery, ate my lunch, spoke to no one and, after a few minutes' watching what was going on around me, came home.
This year I had been involved. Through being asked to produce a risk assessment for the event, with all the interaction that this had necessitated, I got to know some of those from other churches who were engaged in staging the event. As a result of this, I had been asked to be an official 'supervisor' for half of the time. I was a bit apprehensive but, in the event enjoyed it, talking to a number of people, offering advice where it was requested, and feeling 'engaged' in the whole affair.
Last week I wrote of learning flexibility; this week's lesson was patience. Before last weekend, I had ordered a new awning for the motor-home; the initial arrangement was that it would be delivered on Monday but by 5.30 it hadn't arrived so I phoned the supplier to find out why. He was most apologetic and explained that he'd overlooked an e-mail telling him that the colour I'd ordered was out of stock. We agreed a different colour and delivery was re-scheduled for Wednesday. Finding it by my door when I returned from the midweek church service, I thought I'd get straight on with its installation. Think again! It was far too heavy for me to lift up unaided and guide into a slot some feet above my head! I rang a friend who agreed to help but wouldn't be free until mid-afternoon. We managed the basic installation but some means of stopping it from banking into the wall of the vehicle while driving along was clearly necessary. My friend had an idea, and returned to implement this on Thursday morning. What was to have been a simple afternoon's job on Monday proved to take twice as long and need twice the effort!
Furthermore, in the range of success surrounding me just now, is the unexpectedly good performance of my investments. This is very much contrary to the gloomy outlook reported on the business and industrial front following the EU referendum, and the recent reduction of interest rates. As I am constantly being reminded, favourable results cannot be guaranteed and past performance is no guarantee of future returns, but with that in mind, I cannot fail to be encouraged when, over the last ten weeks, their value has risen by an average amount the equivalent of an annual rate of over 40%!
Uppermost in my mind today, however, is the great emotional enjoyment of a trip yesterday to the seaside. As I told one family, as I sought permission to take a picture of their home, I used to stay there as a holidaymaker over sixty years ago! My favourite picture of my father, which featured here only a few weeks ago, was taken on just such an occasion.
Some years later, I visited the same resort to spend time with the young lady who was my first real girlfriend. Yesterday's trip allowed me to take pictures of both the house where she lived at that time and one of the places where we would park the car for the endless conversations that were part of that phase of life.
I remember that, one May afternoon, we had parked in a nearby village where there was a view of the railway line; as we listened to Radio Caroline, we watched the passage of the very last passenger train on the Lowestoft-Yarmouth line, the last relic of the Norfolk & Suffolk Joint Railway.
When opened in Edwardian times, this was jointly owned by the Great Eastern Railway and the Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway. It wasn't until this week, as I put thoughts together, that I realised that the place where we did our courting was actually the track-bed of the main line of the M&GN, whence the tracks had been removed - with what many since have agreed was unseemly haste - following its closure on 2nd March 1959.
This year I had been involved. Through being asked to produce a risk assessment for the event, with all the interaction that this had necessitated, I got to know some of those from other churches who were engaged in staging the event. As a result of this, I had been asked to be an official 'supervisor' for half of the time. I was a bit apprehensive but, in the event enjoyed it, talking to a number of people, offering advice where it was requested, and feeling 'engaged' in the whole affair.
Last week I wrote of learning flexibility; this week's lesson was patience. Before last weekend, I had ordered a new awning for the motor-home; the initial arrangement was that it would be delivered on Monday but by 5.30 it hadn't arrived so I phoned the supplier to find out why. He was most apologetic and explained that he'd overlooked an e-mail telling him that the colour I'd ordered was out of stock. We agreed a different colour and delivery was re-scheduled for Wednesday. Finding it by my door when I returned from the midweek church service, I thought I'd get straight on with its installation. Think again! It was far too heavy for me to lift up unaided and guide into a slot some feet above my head! I rang a friend who agreed to help but wouldn't be free until mid-afternoon. We managed the basic installation but some means of stopping it from banking into the wall of the vehicle while driving along was clearly necessary. My friend had an idea, and returned to implement this on Thursday morning. What was to have been a simple afternoon's job on Monday proved to take twice as long and need twice the effort!
Furthermore, in the range of success surrounding me just now, is the unexpectedly good performance of my investments. This is very much contrary to the gloomy outlook reported on the business and industrial front following the EU referendum, and the recent reduction of interest rates. As I am constantly being reminded, favourable results cannot be guaranteed and past performance is no guarantee of future returns, but with that in mind, I cannot fail to be encouraged when, over the last ten weeks, their value has risen by an average amount the equivalent of an annual rate of over 40%!
 |
| The boarding house where I stayed as a child |
 |
| The new Temple Road by-passes the market place |
 |
| The house where my girlfriend lived |
When opened in Edwardian times, this was jointly owned by the Great Eastern Railway and the Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway. It wasn't until this week, as I put thoughts together, that I realised that the place where we did our courting was actually the track-bed of the main line of the M&GN, whence the tracks had been removed - with what many since have agreed was unseemly haste - following its closure on 2nd March 1959.
 |
| The track-bed of the old railway |
 |
| The former M&GN terminus is now a car and coach park |
Saturday, 6 August 2016
Sliced and Diced
A couple of weeks ago, I gave you a brief introduction to one of my longest-standing hobbies, bell-ringing (not - as I delight in correcting people who clearly like to appear better informed than they actually are - 'campanology', which is the study of bells, not specifically their ringing. While there is a great overlap between the two, not all ringers are campanologists, and not all campanologists are ringers <climbs down from soapbox>).
Today, the lesson continues. Most ringing methods consist of each bell following the same path among the others in turn, and that path can be broken down into 'places', a place being the section that any one bell covers before another one begins the part where the first one began. Many beginners (myself included, many years ago) tend to learn the path from start to finish as one single pattern, ignoring these divisions. Hence, without some re-learning, they then find it difficult to ring a method that they have already learned if they are asked to ring it on a different bell. It's like describing the road from London to Glasgow, with which you may be familiar, if you're asked to start from Leeds; <thinks> it's actually more difficult, because you would probably have a pretty good idea where Leeds was anyway!
In the almost infinite collection of methods, there are families in which one method is the parent, or basic pattern, and others, while accorded their own identity, are actually derivatives of that parent method. Fairly early in my ringing career, I learned a method called Cambridge Surprise. If it's rung on six bells, then there are five 'places' in the basic pattern (because the sixth bell, the smallest one, follows a different pattern, like a piece of string that holds all the others together). Some years after becoming familiar with Cambridge Surprise, I underwent a very confusing introduction to two others called Primrose and Ipswich.
These two are both based on the pattern I knew but somehow, while understanding the principle, I could never get to grips with them while holding the bell-rope in my hand. In Primrose, those five 'places' are exactly the same as in Cambridge, but occur in a different sequence, while in Ipswich, each of them is split in half and all the halves are matched together in different pairs. This confusion very quickly got the name - in my vocabulary, at least - of Sliced and Diced Cambridge ... hence the heading for this week's blog.
That's just how this week has felt. When I first retired, I quickly adopted a fairly rigid pattern to my week. Tuesday, for example, was when I learned Welsh; Wednesday was shopping, Thursday was cooking, and Friday was washing. Gradually, some of these got adjusted for a variety of reasons and others ceased to occur every week, but there has still been a fairly consistent pattern to life. It only needs a couple of big interruptions, however, to upset the whole pattern completely.
You already know about the genealogy course which takes up most of Mondays at the moment, so I won't go on about that. This week was further invaded by a trip on Wednesday to get the fresh water pump on the motorhome replaced, and then yesterday was completely devoted to Health & Safety. In the morning came a meeting with the churchwardens to discuss a number of matters, including revisions I have proposed to our official policy document, in order to make the standards that we are aiming to achieve a little more clear and consistent. Then in the afternoon I carried out my official inspection of the premises, and was accompanied by the churchwarden who was newly appointed earlier in the year, so she could see what is and what is not included in this exercise.
The effect on my week felt devastating ... although looking back from here, it clearly wasn't, because all the essential tasks were completed, just not in the same slots in my calendar. I've had to learn flexibility, something that is no bad challenge at any age! So, washing migrated to Tuesday, partly as a hangover from the fact of being away for a week in Worcestershire last month, shopping drifted to Thursday morning and cooking was abandoned as a separate exercise. I can live out of the freezer for a week with no undue hardship.
One evening, I noticed on my shelf the timetable for the major football competitions for the 2016-17 season, and realised that this weekend sees the start of the FA Cup. I quickly scoured the local fixtures to see which match I would go and watch. I decided upon Godmanchester, where the visiting team is Great Yarmouth. Then came the coup de grace of my week in the form of two e-mails reminding me that I shall be ringing for two weddings this afternoon, and that we are hosting a district ringing practice in the evening. Football may not be wicked, but there's definitely no rest this week!
Today, the lesson continues. Most ringing methods consist of each bell following the same path among the others in turn, and that path can be broken down into 'places', a place being the section that any one bell covers before another one begins the part where the first one began. Many beginners (myself included, many years ago) tend to learn the path from start to finish as one single pattern, ignoring these divisions. Hence, without some re-learning, they then find it difficult to ring a method that they have already learned if they are asked to ring it on a different bell. It's like describing the road from London to Glasgow, with which you may be familiar, if you're asked to start from Leeds; <thinks> it's actually more difficult, because you would probably have a pretty good idea where Leeds was anyway!
In the almost infinite collection of methods, there are families in which one method is the parent, or basic pattern, and others, while accorded their own identity, are actually derivatives of that parent method. Fairly early in my ringing career, I learned a method called Cambridge Surprise. If it's rung on six bells, then there are five 'places' in the basic pattern (because the sixth bell, the smallest one, follows a different pattern, like a piece of string that holds all the others together). Some years after becoming familiar with Cambridge Surprise, I underwent a very confusing introduction to two others called Primrose and Ipswich.
These two are both based on the pattern I knew but somehow, while understanding the principle, I could never get to grips with them while holding the bell-rope in my hand. In Primrose, those five 'places' are exactly the same as in Cambridge, but occur in a different sequence, while in Ipswich, each of them is split in half and all the halves are matched together in different pairs. This confusion very quickly got the name - in my vocabulary, at least - of Sliced and Diced Cambridge ... hence the heading for this week's blog.
That's just how this week has felt. When I first retired, I quickly adopted a fairly rigid pattern to my week. Tuesday, for example, was when I learned Welsh; Wednesday was shopping, Thursday was cooking, and Friday was washing. Gradually, some of these got adjusted for a variety of reasons and others ceased to occur every week, but there has still been a fairly consistent pattern to life. It only needs a couple of big interruptions, however, to upset the whole pattern completely.
You already know about the genealogy course which takes up most of Mondays at the moment, so I won't go on about that. This week was further invaded by a trip on Wednesday to get the fresh water pump on the motorhome replaced, and then yesterday was completely devoted to Health & Safety. In the morning came a meeting with the churchwardens to discuss a number of matters, including revisions I have proposed to our official policy document, in order to make the standards that we are aiming to achieve a little more clear and consistent. Then in the afternoon I carried out my official inspection of the premises, and was accompanied by the churchwarden who was newly appointed earlier in the year, so she could see what is and what is not included in this exercise.
The effect on my week felt devastating ... although looking back from here, it clearly wasn't, because all the essential tasks were completed, just not in the same slots in my calendar. I've had to learn flexibility, something that is no bad challenge at any age! So, washing migrated to Tuesday, partly as a hangover from the fact of being away for a week in Worcestershire last month, shopping drifted to Thursday morning and cooking was abandoned as a separate exercise. I can live out of the freezer for a week with no undue hardship.
One evening, I noticed on my shelf the timetable for the major football competitions for the 2016-17 season, and realised that this weekend sees the start of the FA Cup. I quickly scoured the local fixtures to see which match I would go and watch. I decided upon Godmanchester, where the visiting team is Great Yarmouth. Then came the coup de grace of my week in the form of two e-mails reminding me that I shall be ringing for two weddings this afternoon, and that we are hosting a district ringing practice in the evening. Football may not be wicked, but there's definitely no rest this week!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)