The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it.
Hubert Humphrey
I understand that Elton John is to play his last UK farewell performance next year, and in recent weeks, I feel that I, too, have ‘played the role of an ageing rockstar’ on a farewell tour. I’ve enjoyed drinks, food, conversation and laughter with colleagues and friends, new and old, as I said my goodbyes before my return to Newcastle.
The last of those farewell ‘gigs’ was earlier this week when it was time to say au revoir to those friends of longest standing. Over the past twenty years, we’ve met every few months or so. For a bite to eat, a glass or two and much conversation, usually in London.
We’ve known each other much longer than that, however. We first met as twenty-something-year-old colleagues in the late 1970s. Outside of work, we socialised together and with our families. We also played football and cricket together. But as happens in life, we went our separate ways workwise over time. Still, we continued to meet for an occasional meal and a couple of beers. And as we aged, we christened ourselves ‘Summer Wine’ as a tongue-in-cheek homage to the TV show.
We had Martin’ our own woolly hatted ‘Compo’. Our Phlegmatic ‘Cleggy’, Yorkshireman John. There was Kelvin, our gentle and cautious ‘Foggy’. And taking a liberty with the three-handed TV series, I ‘played’ the “I’m in charge” Cyril Blamire character (no comments, please).
Then another ‘old codger’, Reg, joined the group. He, too, had been part of our football team way back, but we’d then lost touch with him. One memory stands out of Reg and football playing. Before taking the field, I’d never seen anyone strap his knees so much. He looked like he was auditioning for the ‘Mummy’. And this was in the days when we were young! (Well, comparatively so).
Sadly, ‘Foggy’ died a few years ago (and when we meet, our first toast is always to ‘absent friends’) at a far too early age. I wrote of Kelvin in another piece last year. Then, as fate would have it, at his funeral, we met another workmate from the 80s, and so in losing one member, we gained another. We also began to branch out a little, and a meal and a beer became a ‘themed’ pub crawl, usually around London (though we did get as far as Oxford on one occasion). Themes have included Dickens, Jack the Ripper (I’ll never forget the end of that one in the Blind Beggar), film and medicine. One crawl we’ve done more than once is that of the 17th Century pubs that sit by the Thames in the East end of London. Pubs that once saw the Mayflower set sail. And others frequented by Pepys, Dickens and ‘Hanging’ Judge Jeffries.
The group has expanded too. More members have joined from the working days of the 80s. Even our older children have joined us on occasion. I recall one charming scene from a couple of years ago. It was watching one of the younger group members walking between two’ mellow’ (it was the end of the crawl), older members, their arms linked. It was a sweet scene as the three ambled down Piccadilly together in search of a tube station.
I have this silly thought. After the original ‘Summer Wine’ group shuffle off this mortal coil (many, many, many years from now), other friendships may have been born. And it may be that this younger group will continue an occasional meander, both through city streets and in conversation.
Now, onward to Newcastle and in keeping with new horizons, this will be my last post on WordPress. I have moved all my earlier posts to Substack, so if you are kind enough to read what I write, you can continue to do so here…
I have spent the week waiting. Waiting for those in the legal profession. A profession that works to its timetable. And as one might expect from a longstanding trade, it’s a slow timetable.
The first from that profession on which I wait is the purchase of my new home. It’s a simple transaction. The requisite monies currently reside with my solicitor. The searches are complete, with nothing untoward found. And answers were received for all queries (none came from me). The property I am purchasing is vacant. I know my solicitor is there to protect my interests, and yet ….
What adds to my impatience is that in ‘lodging’ with Sarah, I can see how quickly she is making her new house her home. Every time I enter the front door of her place, I notice another slight change she has made as she settles in. The latest is the fitting of a cat flap to make the cats feel at home. The two have behaved since the move from Wiltshire (as well as two cats that don’t get on can behave). Only in the past few days have they indicated their desire to venture out of doors. They have done so tentatively. Part of Sarah’s decision to buy the house was that she felt it was a ‘cat-friendly’ area. From what I’ve seen, it’s a very cat prolific area. Our two are bound to have to assert their authority over their territory.
It’s nice that Sarah is receiving many ‘welcome to your new home’ cards, but again, it reinforces that this is her new home, not mine. In the future, I hope to receive such a card or two. However, I suspect not in the profusion that Sarah has received.
And minor signs of the upcoming Christmas celebrations are also appearing around her home. I confess that festival is not on my mind. However, the spirit may descend in a couple of weeks when I hope to be in my new home. Meanwhile, I live my transitory life watching from the touchline as Sarah brings her home to life.
Sarah and I have also waited for the Divorce Court to confirm our legal separation. We started the process in the early summer, and as with my house purchase, granting the separation appeared straightforward. Our parting is amicable (in legal terminology, ‘No fault’). Sarah and I also quickly agreed on a financial arrangement; thus, the two of us naively assumed that making a joint application would promptly move us to a conclusion.
The ease of making our application indeed indicated that. We downloaded the requisite form from the Court website. And completing it took little time. Off we then sent it with the marriage certificate and requisite cheque. Finding the chequebook was the most onerous part of the process.
A week later, our application returned, along with the uncashed cheque. The reason was that we needed to copy some information exactly as written on the marriage certificate. So, that issue resolved off we sent the application again.
A month or so later, we each received in the post a copy of our application with a covering note asking, “are you both sure?”. If we were, then we needed to confirm this separately by email. We both did, by return.
Then we waited. And we waited. After another month, we decided to check where things might stand.
Unlike most other Government departments, the divorce service has a webchat facility. It was through that we discovered that Sarah’s email affirmation of the separation had been ‘lost in the ether’. So, we duly sent it again.
And we waited.
Earlier this week, I was back on the webchat.
The outcome was that Timothy, the person eager to help at the other end of the chat, couldn’t help. He could tell us that the Court in Bury St Edmunds was reviewing the case. Sadly, that Court did not make use of webchat. Nor did it have a telephone helpline, and to quote Timothy, they do not respond to emails. Instead, he advised that the best way of finding out where things stood was to send a letter by recorded delivery. At least that was one up from a request written on vellum in gothic script with a quill.
Is it me, or are all Government departments slowly slipping into the pre-electronic age? Indeed, my recent correspondence with HMRC has been by good old-fashioned letter as other means weren’t bearing fruit.
So, I wait, and as any regular reader knows, I hate waiting. As long as, unlike Godot, my house purchase and the separation agreement eventually turn up…
It’s said that three of the most stressful times in life involve separation or divorce, death and a house move. Well, I’ve experienced all three in the last few months, and I still have another of the last ones to do again.
At least Sarah and I have not allowed our separation to degenerate into some internecine warfare. Yes, there have been occasional waves of sadness on both sides. Still, we’ve moved ahead to our parting in a constructive and forward-looking manner. While love may have cooled, a deep friendship remains and will always do so. Our formal break may only be a fortnight or so away when I move to my new home near Newcastle, so we took the opportunity to enjoy a relaxed dinner and eat some flavoursome food together in a well-regarded Indian restaurant a short distance from Sarah’s new house. A separation celebration if you like. Sarah kindly paid for our meal, offering that it was only fitting, given I picked up the bill for our first meal together.
Sarah and I may have few opportunities in the future to dine out together. However, I will be back at her place over Christmas for some cat-sitting while Sarah visits with her family in Wiltshire. Yes, that may well have you scratching your head, but our separation is not that of other people. And I’m looking forward to Christmas Day in the company of two felines. Not that I suspect they will be tremendous company for me. Cats can be comforting creatures at times but live their own lives. It was Hemingway, a known cat lover, who wrote.
“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reasoner another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.”
We could live less stressful lives if we adopt the emotional attitude of a cat.
You will have guessed that the first house move has happened. Sarah now settling into her new home where I’m the ‘lodger’ for a couple of weeks. As house moves go, this one went smoothly. Our movers chose to move us over two days. ‘Completion’ was on a Friday, so they picked up ‘non-essential’ items on Thursday and stored those for delivery on Saturday. The ‘essential’ items were picked up early Friday morning. The movers then left Sarah and me to clean the now echoing house we were leaving, ready for its new occupants. Then off we went. Not entirely as the old music hall song goes,” off went the van with me home packed in it, while I followed on with my old cock linnet”. In our case, we followed on with two cats. One peacefully slept the journey away. The other proved Hemingway correct as she vocally shared her unhappiness with us while cooped up in a cat-box for what was far too long a car journey to her.
The money for the sale and purchase went through as we travelled, and our movers picked up the keys to Sarah’s house. So, by the time we arrived, half of what they had moved was already in the place.
I’m pleased to report that both cats have settled into their new abode nicely. And so they should as Sarah’s ‘new’ house is a cosy place. Made twice as cosy as my stuff is also occupying some of it. Sarah will have more room to breathe once those items go north to Newcastle. The house is in a quiet area too. Not remote, though. In my brief time here, I’ve sampled the delights of a buzzy local hostelry and brunched very nicely at a coffee bar/restaurant. There’s also a large area of woodland/park close by that offers a boating lake, a fishing lake, and a wide variety of trees, too numerous to mention. It was charming for Sarah and me to stroll through only a tiny yet striking part of it on a chilly November day. So come the spring, I suspect it will offer a magnificent place to visit and relax.
I’ve written before about my sister Judith’s death, a few weeks ago. And of the influence she had on my life. Her funeral was not an overly sad affair. There were tears in place, but few funerals end with the mourners singing along to ‘Hey Jude’. The title of that song was very apt as Judith was universally known as Jude by family and friends. Of course, the song’s words were also in keeping with the event, “take a sad song and make it better”. Many people attended to offer their farewell and pay final respects to Jude, and the closing ‘chorus’ of Na Na Nanana filled the place.
And so, to the last stressful event, I mentioned in my opening sentence. My move to the Northeast. I’m not ever going to worry about something. Regular readers might recall my piece earlier this year on that sunbelt. I worry when I’m not worried. But my sense of stress is very much on the low side. The ‘legal’ bit of the purchase is moving nicely. All the searches are done with nothing major found. The money for the purchase is with the solicitor, ready for Exchange and Completion. Bar a few queries my solicitor has raised, the house purchase seems close to an agreement (I write that while holding a large piece of wood tightly!). My movers have pencilled in a date for the move of the first week of December. So, I’m spending the time making lists of things I need to check (where the meters are etc.), the things I need to buy, people I need to tell of my address change and services I need to set up. It’s helpful that I like lists!
When my wife, Sarah and I moved to Chippenham over nine years ago, it was a ‘convenient’ town.
My then-new job had brought me to Wiltshire from Hertfordshire. I saw the job as my last great ‘hurrah’ in the autumn of my career, and I lived out of a suitcase for a few months while Sarah spent much time house hunting in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. Looking for that one place that suited our needs.
My long and busy working days didn’t lend themselves to supporting her in that task. And I confess it’s a task that I don’t enjoy. I trusted Sarah to find our new home; I didn’t even see a photograph of that new home in Chippenham. Yet, it was a house I fell in love with immediately as I arrived at its front door for the first time after a day at work.
It rapidly became one of only two places I’ve lived in that felt like home to me, not just a house. As for Chippenham, as I wrote earlier, it was ‘convenient’. Handy for the M4 so I could quickly get to my primary office near Bristol. There was also a good train service to London as Sarah, and I frequently visited there to attend art exhibitions, theatre or to meet with friends. Chippenham also offered a variety of handy shops and other amenities that were just a walk of a few minutes into town. A walk that for the past four years took me alongside the Avon and through the scenic Monkton Park. If we required a wider variety of outlets, these too were only a short drive or train ride away.
Chippenham didn’t have everything. Does anywhere? Its restaurants only offered some of what we hoped for. It was either a trip to Bath, Bristol or to surrounding villages and towns for a more sophisticated meal. Pubs also could have been more attractive. The one exception was ‘The Flying Monk’. That wasn’t the pub’s name when Sarah and I arrived in Chippenham. Frankly, it was a place to avoid. But when Justin, the new landlord, took over, it became a pub that is now my local. It may not meet every aspect of Orwell’s ‘Moon Under Water’, but it comes close. I think George would happily settle down to an ale in “the Monk”. So do CAMRA, as it’s now in their Good Pub Guide.
I confess, however for the first five years of living in Chippenham, I discovered little of the place. And certainly nothing of its rich history. For instance, if things had gone another way for Alfred the Great on Twelfth Night 878, it might well be Danish and not English that the world sees as a lingua franca. I’d also only visited Chippenham’s parks on a handful of occasions. I rarely strolled into town. My excuse was that my 6am working day starts and 7pm finishes left little time for leisure during the week. At the weekends, there always seems to be somewhere else to go and something else to do.
That changed when I retired and wished to give something back to ‘my’ community. Never did I imagine how much that community would give back to me.
Volunteering at Chippenham’s small but perfectly formed museum and a nearby primary school proved more rewarding than I ever imagined. Both welcomed me from the start and quickly made me feel part of their teams. Not some ‘add-on’ that might offer a few hours to help. I never imagined running up and down Chippenham High Street one day wearing a wig as part of the Museum team while attempting (miserably) to toss a pancake. Or desperately trying to remember the 80s on a themed quiz night. As well as meeting and greeting visitors, the museum gave me their trust in leading history walks around the town and offering artefact handling demonstrations. My role at the primary school was to help year 2 students better develop their reading skills. But again, I was involved in cricket lessons, circus activities, and school plays.
I felt at home, and my life ahead seemed running to plan. But as Allan Saunders wrote in a Readers Digest edition of January 1957, “life is what happens to us while we are making other plans”. In my case, life happening meant moving away from Chippenham. Initially, Kettering to ‘lodge’ with Sarah in her new home for a couple of weeks. Then once my house purchase completes, I move on to the next chapter of my life in Blaydon-on-Tyne. For those not up on Northeast geography, it’s a few miles west of Newcastle. Geordie Ridley wrote of Blaydon as the theme of the northeast anthem, ‘Blaydon Races’. Sung with gusto at many a Newcastle United match.
As I write this, I’m surrounded by boxes that will soon be heading to Kettering, and I’ll post this once I’m in that temporary home. I leave the community in Chippenham with sadness. I look forward with nervousness (it’s nearly 50 years since I left the northeast) and excitement in joining my ‘home’ community in Blaydon.
Of course, I don’t know what life will next have in store for me while I’m making plans of what I might do….
I began to write and share with others a weekly ‘positive’ some seven years ago almost to the day. It started as a ‘challenge’ from a friend. A challenge that for every day for a week, I should seek out at least one positive from that day. Then write it up and share. So, I did, and I found it remarkably easy to do. Those positives weren’t always ‘big’ things, but they don’t need to be. Even a tiny positive can change the tenor of the day.
At the end of the week, I could have stopped. But I didn’t. Instead, I realised that searching for something positive every day was helpful to me.
Why did I find it so helpful? I’ve written before that I see myself as a pragmatic person, although others might say it’s pragmatism bordering pessimism. Once upon a time, I pondered whether that side of my personality was nature or nurture. Was I born to approach life that way, or was it the problem-solving type of work I did through my career(s) influence my personality?
In my Forensic Chemistry days, my role was very much about determining what a particular unknown substance might be and, once known, had a criminal offence taken place?
When I moved into Computing (the 1970s name for today’s Information Services), I was initially solving problems of my own causing. I was a programmer — or software engineer as it would be today.
I enjoyed the challenge of ‘debugging’ a programme in those rudimentary times. The battle between man and machine. Especially when the machine gave you little room to manoeuvre in its 64K RAM. I spent many a late night attempting to identify software ‘bugs’ by setting toggle switches on a computer’s front panel and studying its registers to see if their contents were as expected. You literally got your fingers dirty hunting bugs back then.
As my career developed, I faced more problems with organisation, process, and people than technical and engineering. These ‘softer’ problems are much more difficult to solve at times; there is often not an entirely right or wrong solution. One thing I did learn was not to seek a solution to the wrong problem. Changing an organisation’s structure won’t solve a people ‘problem’. You are moving the deck chairs rather than steering away from the iceberg.
Similarly, improving people’s skills, motivation and aptitude will not correct a flawed process. The people will just fail faster. One had to get to the true cause of a problem then, no matter how difficult, resolve that root cause.
For much of my career in major Systems Integration and Information Services, it was about delivering what customers wanted when they wanted it. At a price, they felt appropriate and from which it was possible to make a reasonable profit for my organisation. As an Operations or Programme Director, one constantly ‘juggles’ time, cost, and quality (capability). It’s like holding jelly. Squeeze too much of one of the three, and another will pop out of your hand and fall to the floor. And of the three, time is the most unforgiving. You might find more money to fix a problem. You might agree with the customer on a revised specification for the delivered capability or quality. But you can never get back the hour, day, or week once passed. That time is gone forever. So, you must manage Time most closely and carefully of all three. Indeed, as in industry, as in life.
My father always said that the thing that marked out a good driver was anticipation. Seeking out hazards before they materialise as a problem and being ready to take avoiding action. The same is true in the world of business. Understanding risks and taking action prevents them from becoming issues or growing into problems. Exploiting opportunities too, but my brain was more wired for the former, not the latter. I had a colleague who renamed opportunities ‘positive risks’ and then found people with my view of life paid more attention to them.
Of course, spending day after day seeking out potential risks in my business life bled into my personal life and thus gave me a more negative outlook. Hence as I wrote at the start of the piece, there was a psychological benefit to me of always seeking to find positives in life.
Since those early pieces years ago, my ‘positives’ have evolved. They have developed more into narratives on life. Although I always try to offer an optimistic note, it can be challenging.
As a variation on my ‘positive’ theme, I offered a piece of music or song to accompany my words throughout last year. The plan had been to share music or a song each week that had some personal meaning for me. Then share what that meaning was. But, as ever with my writing, I digressed. It became more about sharing the music I enjoyed then adding a narrative of why I enjoyed it rather than its meaning to me. At least, towards the end of the year, I returned to my initial intent.
I can’t say I will ever be a natural optimist, but my weekly offerings such as this and my daily Journal combine to counter my pessimistic (with a small p) view of life. If you share a similar worldview to me then I’d certainly recommend trying out both these approaches.
Over the last couple of weeks, the ‘wheels’ on the pending house moves of Sarah and I have turned very slowly.
We seem locked in a sequence of queries and answers going back between our solicitors and those of the buyers of our house, with the occasional interjection of information from us. At least Sarah’s house purchase seems to have completed the Q&A stage, and ‘exchange’ can happen. But her purchase can only occur at the same time as our sale. My house purchase is not so critical, but it is also moving forward only slowly.
The sense of frustration and helplessness is not conducive to a positive atmosphere. Especially as the house looks increasingly like a storeroom as we pack things in boxes in anticipation of the move. Exacerbating that sense of transition is that we have disposed of some of our furniture. Given to charity in the hope it can benefit others. Sarah and I are both downsizing in that regard. Overall, our once home is becoming a shell of a house.
This feeling of stasis is familiar from earlier house moves. Even from a once-loved home, there comes the point when you imagine yourself in the new house. You begin to look forward positively, even in these sadder circumstances of Sarah and my separation. Yet the process then begins to drag. So, when the move eventually happens, it’s more with a sense of relief than a celebration. This has undoubtedly been the case with all the house moves I’ve made over the years.
Some may think it strange that Sarah and I decided we would celebrate our move this time. A separation celebration if you like. A meal together in a favourite local restaurant. A chance to appreciate the happiness we enjoyed by being together and not dwell overly on our sadness that being together is soon to end. Despite all the current tedium of waiting, I hope that’s one thing we will still do and can always do.
I described this feeling of waiting as sitting in a vehicle with the engine idling while we waited for the lights to turn green. There’s mounting frustration that we can’t both move into first gear towards our respective futures. I’ve never been a patient person; life is too short to wait around.
It’s the feeling I recall from my business days after submitting a competitive bid. That time when the customer goes into purdah to consider the various offerings. Bidders anxiously await the forthcoming decision. A period I called, dramatically, ‘The Valley of Death’.
If possible, one attempts to shoot ‘ropes’ up from the valley floor and ‘climb’ those ropes to engage with the customer. To determine where things stand on the final decision and in which direction that decision may be leaning. And, of course, attempt to influence that decision as necessary. The ‘ropes’ being things you’d put in the bid (or deliberately leave out) that might cause the customer to call to ask questions. That call might then allow you to discover how things might stand with your proposal.
While the two processes are not identical, they share the same frustrations. They are hands-off, with little chance to engage in open dialogue that would reach a conclusion far faster and, one might say, more beneficial to both parties. Unfortunately, in both business and house sales, we have let the monster of a remote-controlled process take over to the detriment of what people are trying to achieve.
Another sad aspect of such delay is that one increasingly falls ‘out of love’ with their present property. Once it had been the most desirable place to live, and even its ‘quirks’ were engaging. That affection has now moved to another place where one wishes to make a home. In that regard, there are some parallels with relationships. Someone’s amusing quirk can, over time, become a significant irritation.
So, Sarah and I wait. For the queries to end. Contracts to exchange. Packing to finish. And with a sense of relief, move on. Although this time, I trust we can also find a few hours for that celebration of the love that once existed.
I mentioned in a previous piece that I’m donating many of my books to charity as I prepare to move home. Unfortunately, there is just not enough room for all the books I currently have in my new place.
I’ve made deliveries most days, to the charity shop, for a couple of weeks or more. When I now enter, I enjoy seeing some of the books that once graced my shelves awaiting ‘adoption’ by a new owner.
The memory of where and when I acquired many of those books, or where I read them, will long live with me. However, there is one book in particular in that regard. Raymond Briggs’ (he of Snowman fame) ‘Ethel & Ernest – A True Story’. A graphic novel that recounts the lives of Briggs’ parents. From their first meeting in 1928 to their deaths in 1971. It is a humorous yet poignant tale of the lives of two ordinary people. All families have an ‘Ethel & Ernest’ story, yet Briggs brings a magic touch to his.
It was 1999, and I’d bought the book to take on a family holiday in Cornwall as part of my reading material. It was a holiday within which my birthday would fall.
Nothing special was planned for the big day itself, and my wife, children and I discussed what we might do over breakfast. They wished to visit a donkey sanctuary about an hour’s drive from our holiday cottage. While I respected those who had set up the sanctuary and cared for the plight of the animals, it wasn’t a visit on which I particularly wished to join my family. So, we agreed that en route to the sanctuary, we would seek out a quiet pub where they might deposit me for an hour or so. I suspected there would be several such establishments along the way, and it would allow me to read ‘Ethel & Ernest’. Afterwards, they could pick me up, and we’d have a celebratory lunch.
It was a warm day in the middle of July with a clear blue sky and golden sun. Around half an hour after setting off, we came upon an establishment that could have come straight out of a Hollywood movie as a stereotypical English pub. The place I espied was squat in stature and sat within a small sun-drenched courtyard. The pub sported a thatched roof, and its sturdy stone walls bore a whitewash that dazzled in the sunlight. Above the pub’s small windows hung baskets that held a profusion of flowers in a cacophony of colour.
It was not much past noon when I said my goodbye to the family and became the pub’s first customer of the day. The inside matched the outside in its quintessential Englishness. Low ceilings, polished wooden floors, benches, and tables. The interior walls showed off the stones of the pub’s construction without the need for decoration other than the crisscross of supporting dark wooden beams. Tankards of varying shapes, sizes and materials hung above the bar. Not for decoration. It was clear that each had a long-term user. Standing stiffly to attention, along the bar was a line of pumps offering a selection of local ales and ciders.
All brought to mind Orwell’s ‘Moon Under Water’.
The young Landlord offered me a warm greeting along with his enquiry about what I might have.
Taking his recommendation, I was soon ensconced on one of the polished wooden benches with my freshly drawn pint. I opened ‘Ethel & Ernest’ and began to read.
I was only a few pages in and had supped little of my pint when the Landlord apologised for interrupting. As it was so quiet (I was still the only patron) in the pub, he wished to water his hanging baskets and, therefore, would be outside for a while. If I happened to want a second pint before he got back, he was happy I pulled that myself, and we could settle payment later. An excellent arrangement, I thought. I returned to ‘Ethel & Ernest’.
Then, a brief time later, I felt something brush up against my leg. Looking down, I saw an old retriever whose glistening coat matched the colour of the Noonday sun. The Landlord’s dog soon settled itself down. Resting its paws and head on my feet.
I eased myself back into ‘Ethel and Ernest’, and for the next hour or so, the pub remained empty save for the Landlord pottering about, more outside than in. All was quiet other than the rhythmic ticking of a large wall clock and occasionally the contented sigh of a relaxed golden retriever as she shifted her position against me.
It was the personification of peace. Through the open windows came a cascade of shimmering sunlight flinging shafts of gold across the room. Also drifting through those open windows came the busy buzzing of bees going about their business. And in that peace, I read while sipping slowly at my beer (and a second, delivered courtesy of the returned Landlord), and lost myself in the story of a loving couple and the decades of their marriage.
I have enjoyed many happy birthdays. Some that stand out include a ‘mystery’ tour around London. A fantastic food tour in the Testaccio area of Rome. Drinking Sassicaia while sitting on Rome’s Palatine Hill. Watching a performance of Aida in the Roman amphitheatre in Verona. But this quiet interlude was different. A golden moment both literally and metaphorically.
If we are lucky, we might bask in a few such moments in our lives. A decade after ‘Ethel & Ernest’, I discovered the tranquil magic of the Villa Monastero gardens in Varenna on Lake Como’s eastern shore. I spent a few hours there reading. Surrounded by the sounds of nature and lulled by the gentle lapping of the lake.
These are moments when the confluence of our mood and ambient surroundings minimise the need for the company of others (except a sleepy old animal and an enjoyable book). To lose ourselves in the comfortable timelessness of our own company.
The new owners of ‘Ethel & Ernest’ may not experience reading it in quite the same circumstances as I did. But I trust that they, and all the new owners of my collection of books, gain the pleasure I have found in their pages. I envy those owners and their discovery to come.
I write from fifty years hence and apologise for addressing you so informally, but after all these years, I know you well.
I remember that right now, you enjoy chewing the fat with your friends and thinking about the future and what you and they might be up to in ten years. Well, I can do better than that in this letter and give you a peek at your life ahead over the next fifty years.
The first bit of news is that I am afraid you’ll never know what your current friends will be up to in the ten years ahead of you. In fact, you will lose touch with all but one of them by the end of the 1970s. But there’s no need to worry; you’ll make some new friends well before the end of that decade, and some of those will remain close to you throughout the next fifty years.
I am also afraid your aspiration to find a job where you can make a difference in society won’t quite work out either. No, you won’t be working to find the causes of disease. While your career begins in science, that will change by the time you are twenty-one. You will, and you might want to sit down before reading the next bit, … spend much of your career working in an office, although as I write this, you are retired. You will enjoy those first few years of test tubes, Bunsen burners, Gas Chromatographs, and Electron Microscopes. But, when the opportunity arises to be part of a developing technology of the 1970s, you’ll jump at it. So far, you have only seen this technology on futuristic TV programmes. However, you will be good at it, enjoy it, climb the corporate ladder, and earn a good income.
That income will mean you can retire early and begin to give something back to society in a separate way than you originally planned. That way will be through volunteering, by helping children read, supporting a small museum, and helping the homeless. Your aspiration to help the community happened in a more minor, if not less valuable, way.
So, what else can I tell you?
Well, your thoughts of a life living in the Northeast won’t quite work out, either. Although, as I write this, you are soon to return. And even when living away from ‘home’ (you will continue to call it that whenever you speak of it), you will still visit and be proud of being from the area. But you’ll live most of your years to the tune of the ‘Lambeth Walk’ rather than ‘Lambton Worm’. You will also fall in love with a city you haven’t yet even visited (although you passed under it on the tube when you had your first overseas trip a couple of years ago). You will also have affection for many other places around the world that, for now, you have only seen on TV or read about in books.
You might wonder about family, and it will be no surprise to discover that you are now an orphan. There will be other loss and pain for you around family matters in the next few years, as a family schism means a break with your brother and sister. That pain subsided; however, the effect of the loss will stay with you. Happily, Andy and Judith come back into your life. And while they were both out of it for a long time, they were never out of your heart, and absence made that heart ever fonder, and all was well in the end. Although sadly, Judith, too, has now recently passed away.
As to girls, something of an interest of yours, as I recall, and something that you hoped would lead to a long marriage and children of your own at an early age. Like the other unexpected outcomes, life has some surprises in this area too. You will get married much sooner than you ever imagined, and yes, there will be kids (and, one day, grandkids). Your married lives (yes, there will be more than one) will bring you much happiness but also, at their end, some emotional pain and loss. But, long in the future comes a life living alone, and you will be comfortable with that.
The affection for art you discovered some years ago in the Kelvingrove Gallery and your more recent appreciation for literature will be lifelong companions. Many, many hours will be spent in their delicious company. One writer will influence your lifetime view of society and political outlook. Another will give you an insight into the magic of language and prose. As for music, its influence upon you is well-established and will never diminish.
The only other part of your life that will remain a constant is your support of Newcastle United. As well as stirring your emotions and giving you some happy excitement, they will continue to frustrate, depress, and disillusion you. You have already learnt stoicism following the team for the past five years. You will continue to need that along with much fortitude as you see the rise of several false dawns. Right now, though, the dawn looks bright.
However, what of you? The person?
Well, I don’t think you turned out too badly (I admit I am biased). You wanted to achieve something with your life, and I think you have done that, albeit differently than you currently imagine. You will fulfil the potential you possess. You’ll realise early in your career that you are a natural leader and a good ‘reader’ of people. You learn quickly, and your early self-confidence endures, although you now know a darker, more vulnerable side of your inner self. But you will learn to manage the fear and uncertainty it brings. You remain kind and generous both in spirit and materially. You’re still a bit quick to anger with your sharp summer ‘storms’, but at heart, you remain loving and, more than that, a romantic. Those first shoots of romance that emerged in you a couple of years ago will blossom even more through the years.
You will have many happy times in the life ahead of you, but you will always look back at the summer you’ve just experienced as the period when you were most content. That time in your young life when it felt like the sun shone every day. Your ‘O’ Levels are just behind you (you did OK, by the way), and ‘A’ Levels are three months away. At sixteen, those months between the two seem a lifetime. You don’t see it right now, but in the coming years, you’ll realise how good life felt in those few months when you had no obligations other than those to yourself. No demands or pressures upon you. The time was your own. You could play endless games of football and cricket. Take long walks to the coast. Read and listen to music until your heart’s content. Climb Millers Hill and lie on its grassy top, chatting, laughing, and joking with friends. Go bike riding and, on that one memorable occasion, bareback horse riding. So, as you go through life and experience its demands, be patient; one day, that feeling of inner contentment will return, even if your football and cricketing days are behind you by then. The same goes for horse riding, whether bareback or with a saddle!
So don’t worry, Harry, you will survive the knocks, enjoy the laughter, and endure the tears. The future works out for you, and if “the boy is the father of the man”, you can be a proud ‘father’.
Some thirty years later, that question stays with me.
“Are you nervous?”
Ummmm nervous? I pondered the question. There I was. A thirty-something-year-old man naked from the waist down with my male questioner’s rubber-gloved hands probing and squeezing around my nether regions.
Ummmm, nervous? I repeated to myself. What a question!! I wondered if the questioner assumed I went through this intimate examination every day and should be calm and relaxed about it.
“No, I’m fine”, I replied in a voice which conveyed anything but that state of mind.
“You are OK on the right side, now let’s see about the left”. My questioner continued to probe and squeeze.
I could not think of a thing to say in reply. I just wished that the talking would stop and a swift end brought to this whole experience.
My wish came true regarding the talking, but the probing and squeezing continued. What seemed to me to be a very long silence followed. Adding mental discomfit to the physical discomfit I already felt.
I, never the optimist, thought he must have discovered something seriously wrong.
My examiner broke the silence, “Good, you are OK on the left side too, so we can undertake the procedure using a local”.
I greeted those words with very mixed emotions. Happy that the examination had not inadvertently discovered some life-threatening condition but nervous that I would now be fully conscious during the procedure that lay ahead.
I knew that many men had undergone this procedure. The more macho dispensed with pain-killing aids, other than maybe self-hypnosis, and then returned to work immediately afterwards. However, I also knew the other side of the story. I knew of men who later could only crawl around on all fours. At the same time, parts of their anatomy required the support commonly only called upon by large suspension bridges.
The examination I had just undergone was to determine how minor or major the procedure would have to be. Before this, I had already attended a ‘counselling’ session with my gruff GP. Unfortunately, it had not been a comforting experience. More an exhortation by the GP of “doing the right thing by your wife”, peppered with quotes such as, “who wants to be a 60-year-old parent with teenage children”. This, along with dire warnings of the consequences of a change of mind after I had undergone the procedure. The counselling also required me to lower my trousers and underwear to my ankles to allow appropriate scrutiny of the relevant part of my anatomy.
This trouser-dropping was becoming a recurring theme. As if I needed practice in this before the main event.
Now that I had successfully negotiated these two steps, I only had to face the procedure. Alas, despite being busy at work, it did not offer much distraction to me in the days before the procedure; in some ways, it was a relief when the day arrived.
I knew from instructions given during an earlier examination how to prepare myself on the morning of the procedure. Therefore, when the day finally dawned, I mentally braced myself for this preparation.
Naked from the waist down (there’s that continuing theme), I watched my then-wife, Veronica, approach with a razor in hand.
“Greater trust hath no man to allow his wife near his unprotected private parts while holding a sharp razor”. I hoped that my wife was not as nervous as I was. I did not want someone whose hand was shaking to perform the required task.
Thankfully, Veronica performed the task with swift efficiency. Moreover, she did not attempt to exploit the advantageous situation in which she found herself by asking for a new dress, handbag, or shoes. Whatever she had asked for, I would have eagerly agreed. Unfortunately, I was not in a position to negotiate.
My GP had proscribed some pills to keep me calm during the operation. So, having taken those, Veronica and I made our way to the surgery. However, as we travelled, I did not think the pills had much calming effect. In fact, given what was about to take place, I thought an injection with an elephant tranquilliser would not have had a calming effect.
We arrived at the surgery, and the receptionist asked us to wait. I had hoped to be whisked straight to surgery to avoid prolonging the agony of anticipation of things to come. At least there was no one ahead of me in the queue. I had no desire to watch while a series of men jauntily entered the surgery’s operating theatre, to then leave with pained expressions and tentative movements.
A voice emerged from within the operating theatre, calling me in. I got out of my chair, gave my wife a quick peck on the cheek, and entered while donning a false air of confidence. Confronted by the surgeon in full regalia, including a face mask, I thought of the punchline to the old medical joke, “so he could not be identified after the event”.
Standing beside the surgeon was a rather pretty nurse. Knowing what would take place, a lovely nurse was not high on my list of attractions at that moment. I could also see what appeared to be an enormous variety of surgical instruments lined up on a crisp green cloth, which covered a metal table. Then there was the place of ‘execution’, the operating table covered with a clean white plastic sheet.
“Before we start”, said the surgeon, “we just need to complete the counselling”.
What? I thought. He has to be joking. Indeed, he’s not going to ask me, do you still want to go through with the operation now that I’ve seen the instruments of torture.
The pills must have answered “yes” on my behalf when the surgeon asked me, “do you wish to proceed”; afterwards, I had no recollection of my answer.
For support and comfort after the procedure, I had been instructed at an earlier examination to buy some y-fronts two sizes too small. The nurse asked me whether I had the requisite garments with me. I handed them to the nurse, and after vigorous inspection, she confirmed them as appropriate for the task.
“Would you remove the clothing on the lower part of your body, please” asked the surgeon, “and then get up on the operating table”. This was obviously medical speak for “get ’em off and brace yourself”, I thought.
I did as asked and soon lay flat on my back on the plastic sheet that covered the operating table. Lying in all my glory and awaiting the surgeon to wield knives, needles and goodness knows what else over a highly vulnerable part of my anatomy. At least looking up at the ceiling, I could not really see what was about to happen.
The surgeon approached me holding a syringe, which looked enormous to my tranquillised mind. At this moment, I was convinced the surgeon would utter, “just a small prick”, to which I was ready with my reply, “sorry, I can’t help it; it’s the thought of the cold scalpel that has me worried”. But instead, I heard the surgeon say, “you’ll feel a small scratch”, and the procedure began.
I soon realised that the nurse was only there to perform one role. That was to distract me from what was happening further down the table. She asked me about my family, children, holiday, and work. In fact, anything other than how do you feel right now? Although, I did have to admit it helped me from dwelling on what might be happening below.
A profoundly unpleasant sensation then surged through my lower body and captured my full attention. It felt like the surgeon was trying to extract my bladder through a hole a little bigger than a penny. He then did something which brought me an intense and deep-rooted numbing sensation and at which I could not help giving out a low but heartfelt ughhhhhhhhhhhh.
“Sorry about that,” said the surgeon, “I should have warned you there’d be some tugging”. ‘Tugging’ is one of those words used by the medical profession to mask the true extent of what was occurring. For ‘tugging’, read extreme discomfort. Another one I discovered was ‘oozing’. Surgeons use ‘oozing’ when anyone else would say bleeding. ‘Oozing’ conveys a slight loss of blood that is of no concern, while their use of the word ‘bleed’ has much more severe connotations.
The’ tugging’ soon ended. My attention shifted from the peripheral conversation with the nurse to activity in my nether regions. When I looked down the table, I saw a strand of thread that appeared a metre long, emanating from my anatomy. At the end of the strand, the surgeons’ hands were a whirl of activity above my prone figure. I was disconcerted to think that all that thread would end inside me. However, I was soon relieved that the surgeon only needed room to work, and he cut away the surplus.
“I know that technique”, I thought to myself, “I use the same one when I sow on a button”. However, I felt it best not to share this parallel with the surgeon.
I thought the stitching signified the end of the operation. All in all, the discomfit had not been too bad. Alas, I did not escape so swiftly as the surgeon walked around the operating table and again picked up the scalpel. “Now for the other side,” he said.
My lack of familiarity during the first part of the operation meant no anticipation of discomfit, such as the unexpected ‘tugging’. This time I would now anxiously wait for the moment in question. I knew that no matter how pretty the nurse was or distracting her conversation was, it would come at some point.
It did, but as before, other than a prolonged ughhhhhhhhhhhh, I endured it and once again, I saw the surgeon finish things up with much whirling of hands and extended lengths of thread. “That’s it. All done”, said the surgeon, “once the nurse has cleaned you up, you can get off the table and get dressed”.
The relevant ablutions duly performed with a business-like efficiency and appropriate decorum, I tentatively eased myself off the table. Once I had two feet back on the floor, I, unfortunately, made the mistake of looking behind me.
My eye fell on the once pristine white plastic sheet now stained deep red. The nurse noticed my startled reaction to this sight.
“Don’t worry”, she said, “a teaspoon of blood goes a long way”.
The pills taken earlier must have again kicked in because, somehow, this statement brought me massive reassurance. I turned away from the operating table to put on my undersized underwear.
Once clothed, I walked gingerly out of the operating theatre. “Are you OK, dear?” Veronica asked. Tactfully not sharing with me what sort of appearance I offered. “Yes, I said with all the bravado I could muster as, with legs akimbo, I slowly made my way to the car. All the while thinking, “Maybe being 60 and having teenage kids might not have been too bad after all!”
Judith had not been in good health for some years. Problems began with a heavy fall while on a charity bike ride in Switzerland. Fortunately for her, the group with whom she was cycling were colleagues from Bedford Hospital. The combination of neurosurgeons, ER consultants and senior nurses acted quickly on the severe head injury she suffered and from which she eventually made a recovery apart from a ‘lazy eye’ and some lack of balance.
Sadly, that lack of balance some years after the cycling accident led to a fall down the stairs at her home. Her injuries confined Judith to a wheelchair and with limited powers of speech, although her mental faculties were unimpaired.
I wrote earlier that Judith was my sister, but to be accurate, she was my half-sister. Her mum, Bette, had passed away in tragic circumstances when Judith was only four. In my later life, I mused that I would not be here if it hadn’t been for Bette’s death. Life and death’s irony. However, it was not something I ever discussed with Judith, even though through to my teenage years, she and I were close.
Judith taught me to read before I started primary school, and she taught me a love of reading. Something for which I will be eternally grateful.
I recall one incident when Judith was a young teenager. My father had hired a car for a few days and, as a family, went off to Yorkshire on a day trip. Judith was in her early teenage years and in an adolescent mood, so she saw no joy in a walk in the country. Instead, she opted to stay in the car while my parents and I ventured off. We returned to find the vehicle that dad had parked in a field, surrounded by a large group of inquisitive cows. Inside was an overwrought Judith. And, not surprisingly, she decided to join us when we next went for a walk.
I was eight when Judith left home at sixteen to join the Army. I missed my ‘big sister’ and looked forward to her times at home on leave. Especially when she took me to the sweet shop and bought me a ‘bag of treats’ as she called them. Flying saucers, pink shrimps, Spanish (liquorice outside the northeast) etc.
Judith married young, and she and Chris, her husband, spent the next fifty-three years together. I often visited and stayed with them in their first years of married life. In Catterick, in my early teenage years, Chris and I would go off orienteering for the day. Then in 1971, after Chris’ posting to Germany, I made my first foreign foray.
After I left the northeast to live and work in London, the first people I visited were Judith and Chris. By then, Chris had left the Army and worked for the Foreign Office in a role that would see them and their children living and working around the world.
Sadly, a family schism happened after the death of our father a few years later. A division that would last close to thirty years and see no contact between Judith, my brother Andy or me. However, time eventually healed perceived hurts, and the family reconciled. But for the explosion and fire at Buncefield, my first meeting with Judith for thirty years would have been in a motorway service station near Hemel Hempstead in early December 2005. But we’d waited decades, so a couple more months was no hardship. In meeting again, all the warmth we’d know for each other when younger returned. No discussion or even thought of schisms arose.
A few years after our reconciliation, Judith received the MBE for her services to nursing. I recall how delighted she felt to have the honour bestowed by Queen Elizabeth. I can imagine how proud our father would have been of Judith.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that “family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds; they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.”
I am so glad that Judith and I were able to heal our ‘split skins’. And I’m comforted that she has now found escape from the physical trauma she experienced in her later years.
Reflections 