In a couple of days from now, I will be en route to the, postponed from last year, Lindisfarne 50th anniversary concert in Newcastle’s City Hall. A venue they have played many times and of which their Christmas Concerts live long in Reflection.

I’ve enjoyed their music for all those fifty years. Hence, it is good to see the increasing recognition of the song-writing talent of Alan Hull, the writer of many of Lindisfarne’s songs. I confess it was a misty-eyed watch of the recent BBC documentary on his life. Someone even gave him the sobriquet, ‘The Geordie Bob Dylan’.

Most people will have heard ‘Fog on the Tyne’ or maybe ‘Lady Eleanor’. But those who watched the documentary will now have insight into such beautiful songs as ‘Clear White Light’, ‘January Song’ and ‘I hate to see you cry’.

Lindisfarne appealed to this fourteen-year-old not just because I liked the music. I also valued that their songs had something to say, unlike many popular bands of the 1970s who were just saying something. Lindisfarne sang of council corruption, Government incompetence, struggles in Northern Ireland. As a young teenager, I sought my own political viewpoint, and Alan Hull’s writing influenced that.

It wasn’t all deep and meaningful stuff. I’ve already mentioned ‘Fog on the Tyne’, which, in truth, is a nonsense song. Although it is Joycean in its use of words.

Another appeal to me was that Lindisfarne were of the Northeast. A local band. Their accent was my accent. Their experience, my experience.

In those days it was common practice to paint the flap of your school haversack (whatever happened to them?) with designs, names of groups or football team supported. I am no artist, but I carefully painted ‘Lindisfarne’ on mine. Of course, the colour scheme was black and white. The background was white and the letters were in a black script akin to the cover of ‘Nicely out of Tune’. Lindisfarne’s first album from 1970.

I thought Sam Fender did a marvellous job presenting the Alan Hull documentary. Sam summed it up for me when he said that people see those from the Northeast as parodies on TV. “Daft drinkers with silly accents”. But as Sam goes on to say. While many of those outside of the Northeast do not recognise Alan Hull’s talent, it doesn’t matter. Those of the Northeast know he is one of the most significant songwriters this country has produced.

The Lindisfarne line-up I will see this coming Saturday is not the original line-up. Time and death have seen to that. Alan Hull died tragically young aged fifty in 1995. Lead Guitarist Simon Cowe passed away in 2015.

I could choose many of Lindisfarne’s back catalogue for my music this week. About every song has some meaning or triggers some recollection. The one I’ve chosen is something of an anthem. It’s featured in a live performance towards the end of the Alan Hull documentary. The camera picks up one young lad in the crowd giving the chorus his all. Sam Fender again spoke for many of us ex-pat Geordies when he highlighted that young man’s passion for his hometown and his home band.

And when it comes down to it, isn’t life a search for home ….

As we are nearing Christmas, I think I can allow myself a Reflection of a song from that time of year.

It’s a song that does not bring back happy memories. In fact, if I heard it as a young child, I would burst into tears.

I inherited from my father a propensity to sing snatches of songs. Especially when in a comfortable mood. Hearing him sing a snatch of this song first caused my tears when I was around five years old.

It was not his intent to upset me. I suspect he, like me, was not always conscious of the lines we sing. A tune will just come to us, or some event may trigger a few songlines.

In this case, the song was, ‘The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot’.

I know not why it upset me so much. Of course, there wasn’t much money around in my young days, but I did not have a deprived childhood. On the contrary, Christmas was a celebratory event with presents aplenty to my young eyes. Yet this song twanged my young heartstrings.

It might be that it invoked in me some psychological fear of the uncertainty of the future (I’ve always been a bit of a worrier – I worry when I’m not worried!). Who knows what might be going on in the depths of the subconscious of a five-year-old? That age when the imaginary can seem just as real as anything we can touch or see. Could be I was overly empathetic to the boy in the song.

As an aside, I was also scared of feathers at that early age. Not birds. Feathers. I was happy amongst the chickens my parents kept. Yet, if my mother wished to deter me from investigating the contents of a drawer or cupboard, she placed a feather within. One glimpse and I would beat a wary retreat.

I have no idea what brought on that fear of feathers. At that stage in my life, I had not yet felt the bite of the Emperor Penguin in Edinburgh Zoo. That was to come some years later when my father tried to snap me standing beside the said bird (the penguin and I were the same height). I also have no idea how or why I overcame my feathery fear.

Anyway, back to the song, and you will be pleased to know I can now listen to it without collapsing into a paroxysm of tears.

I’m fortunate to have seen many wondrous sunsets in beautiful locations around the world. There is one, however, which always captures my heart more than the rest. And as far as I’m aware, the only one that has its own song.

I’ve shared in earlier Reflections that I started my working life as a Forensic Chemist. That’s not entirely true. My working life began at age thirteen working, after school, as a ‘shelf stacker’ in a local supermarket with some cleaning thrown in. The wage was the princely sum of half-a-crown a day with a weekly bonus of half-a-crown for the person with the cleanest aisle. 

Anyway, getting back to chemistry, I’ve also shared that the Lab was a building, Cornwall House, on the south side of Waterloo Bridge. It’s on my days working there that I reflect this week.

In the evenings, the area around Waterloo had a vastly different feel than now. It was not a place to find street food markets, enjoy riverside dining, or a romantic stroll by the Thames. Instead, it was a far more edgy place to be.

One of the local celebrities was the Great Train robber, Buster Edwards. His flower stall on Waterloo Road was a stone’s throw from the Lab in which I worked. The film ‘Buster’ shows his stall in front of the Festival Hall. A more scenic location than its actual one under a railway bridge. A burger van now occupies that spot.

Opposite Buster’s stall was the cramped fish and chip restaurant where a couple of colleagues and I had lunch if funds allowed. I recall a TV high up in the corner of the place offered our entertainment. Lunchtimes coincided with the children’s TV show, ‘Rainbow’. So, over the years, we became remarkably familiar with the exploits of Zippy, George and Bungle. Interestingly the place is still a fish and chip shop, although the TV and Rainbow have long gone.

A little further along Waterloo Road is what is now the ‘Wellington Hotel’. It’s moved upmarket since those days when it was simply the ‘Wellington’ pub. I’ve spent many an hour and many a pound in its company. 

As interesting as I found Analytical Chemistry when a position opened for a computer programmer in the newly established Computing section, I applied. Unfortunately, my then knowledge of Computing was my ability to spell the word. I know not how I got through the interview, but I did get through it and began a career that filled the next 43 years.

In those days, computers were fragile beasts. The one I began my career working with housed within a temperature and humidity-controlled environment. Kept safe from smoke, dirt, and any other contaminant that may bring it crashing to its knees. As computer programmers, we even donned white coats when we entered the computer room. This differentiated us from the computer operators who wore brown coats and computer maintenance engineers kitted out in blue overalls. We were all equal, yet some were more equal than others, to paraphrase Orwell.

The computer in question was a Xerox 530. Yes, Xerox made computers back then (everyone made computers back then). It had a massive 64 KB of RAM (Random Access Memory) and occupied the floor space of an average domestic dwelling. The first iPhone had 128 MB, and iPhone 13 has up to 6 GB.

As a programmer in those days, one wrote lines of code (either a high-level language such as Fortran, COBOL, ALGOL, or machine-level Assembler) onto a coding sheet. These sheets then given to a punch card/paper tape operator who keyed in your code to produce the requisite block of punch cards or reel of paper tape. The programmer would then hand the cards or paper tape to a computer operator for reading (feeding as we called it) into the computer. Mishaps occurred. You might drop your cards, or the paper tape might snap. The former meant a painstaking task of reassembling the card deck into the correct order. For the latter, one became adept at paper tape splicing.

Debugging a programme was a time consuming and very ‘hands-on’ process. To find a ‘bug’, one sometimes resorted to halting the programme during execution and then stepping through it one instruction at a time to look at the binary contents of the computer’s registers. A 1000-line programme written in a high-level language would take two years to produce a ‘bug-free’ fully functioning result. In comparison, a modern game such as Minecraft has circa 600,000 lines of code. At 1976 coding rates, it would take 1,200 years to produce.

What has this got to do with the Wellington? I hear you now ask. Every Friday afternoon, the computer maintenance engineers could conduct preventative maintenance on the computer. This meant that come Monday, it could spark back to life and perform its role for another four and a half days of the week.

Having no computer on which to work, those of the computing lab (bar the duty programmer) decamped to the Wellington for an afternoon of alcohol and pool. The duty programmer of the day had two roles. First, to manage user queries that arose (primarily “when is my programme going to be ready”). Secondly, to safeguard all the backups if the IRA came calling. Large magnetic tapes held the backups. On receipt of a bomb threat with a legitimate code word, the DP put their arms through the middle of the tapes and left the Lab with arms reminiscent of the Dunlop tyre character. The evacuation point was the site on which the Imax cinema now stands. We called it the Bullring in our day, and it also functioned as our football pitch.

Other than Friday afternoons, we avoided socialising in the evening around Waterloo. Preferring the more refined atmosphere of the pubs on the north bank. This meant after-work strolls either across Waterloo, Hungerford or Westminster bridges depending upon our ultimate drinking destination. Whichever we used, we often found ourselves looking towards the Houses of Parliament to see the sun sink slowly behind that gothic edifice. It was a sight of which I never tired. It was a Waterloo sunset.

 You’ll have guessed the song by now ….

This week my Reflection is of some of the North-eastern folksongs I recall from my early years.

Of course, the one that most people will know of is Blaydon Races. Although, as with God save the Queen, many cannot get past the first verse and chorus.

The song relates a series of adventures and sights on a day out at a horse race meeting in Blaydon. Racing ended there during the Great war, but the meeting was a hugely popular event for many years.

Here’s the familiar first verse in the vernacular. You’ll know the tune, so why not have a shot at singing it?

Aa went to Blaydon Races, ’twas on the ninth of Joon,

Eighteen hundred an’ sixty-two, on a summer’s afternoon;

Aa tyuk the ‘bus frae Balmbra’s, an’ she was heavy laden,

Away we went ‘lang Collingwood Street, that’s on the road to Blaydon.

And here comes the chorus:

Ah me lads, ye shudda seen us gannin’,

We pass’d the folks along the road just as they wor stannin’;

Thor was lots o’ lads an’ lassies there, aal wi’ smiling faces,

Gannin’ along the Scotswood Road, to see the Blaydon Races.

It’s long been the anthem for NUFC, and as a supporter, there is nothing more rousing than to hear thousands of voices singing it in unison. One of my abiding memories is that song echoing around a packed St James’ Park in March 1974. A cup-match, in which a ten-man NUFC came back from 3:1 down to beat Nottingham Forest 4:3. As the final whistle blew, the ground erupted in a spontaneous explosion of joyful emotion. Then, echoing around the terracing, came Blaydon Races. Virtually all 60,000 people singing it in full voice. It was the last time I attended a game with my father.

Some may also know of ‘Dance to thy Daddy’ or ‘When the Boat Comes In’ to give it the correct title. Indeed, those old enough may remember the TV series of that name that ran in the late 1970s. Set near Newcastle, it followed the trials and tribulations of a family between the two World Wars. My parents knew one of the lead actors, James Garbutt. James, slightly younger than my mother, lived as a boy one terraced street over from our home.

Going back to the song, the most recent rendition I’ve heard was on Rick Stein’s Cornwall series shown on TV. The song has lasted well for something written two hundred years ago.

People may not realise that rather than being some sweet song for infants, its theme is the attraction of drink. Sung by a mother (a canny woman) to a child while they wait for the child’s father’s return. As he approaches comes his wife refrain,

Yonder comes thy father

Drunk, he cannot stand.

Then the mother confesses that,

I like a drop mysel’,

When I can get it sly

and that one day

And thou, my bonny bairn,

Will lik’t as well as I

In between, we get the familiar chorus,

Dance to thy daddy, sing to thy mammy,

Dance to thy daddy, to thy mammy sing;

Thou shalt have a fishy on a little dishy,

Thou shalt have a fishy when the boat comes in.

And after each verse, the fishy in question becomes grander and grander. First Haddock, then Bloater, then Mackerel and finally

Thou shalt have a salmon when the boat comes in

Drinking obviously expands the imagination. But, not surprisingly, the lyrics required a rewrite for its everyday use for TV and the like.

A song that stands only second to Blaydon Races for popularity in the Northeast is ‘Cushy Butterfield’. It’s a parody of a famous 19th-century song in England of; ‘Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green’. A piece on unrequited love.

Of course, the writer of the North-eastern version changed the prim and proper, pretty Polly, from a petite milkmaid to the more robust Cushy, a seller of whitening for doorsteps. At the time, a spotless doorstep signalled an immaculate home.

She’s a big lass an’ a bonny one,

An’ she likes her beer;

An, they call her Cushy Butterfield,

An’ aw wish she was here.

One of my favourite songs is ‘Keep your feet still Geordie hinny’, about two workmen saving money by sharing a bed. As the title suggests, one is something of a restless sleeper who disturbs the dreams of the other. Interestingly the idea of walking a thousand miles for love in this song predates that by The Proclaimers by over one hundred years..

Keep your feet still! Geordie, hinny, let’s be happy for the neet,

For aw mayn’t be se happy throo the day.

So give us that bit comfort, –keep your feet still, Geordie lad,

An’ dinner send maw bonny dreams away!

And it’s that one I’ve chosen… all together now!

My first Reflection of 2021 offered that it, and those for the rest of the year, would have a different spin. That spin was to be music. Each week my Reflection would revolve around a piece of music, a song or some such. Something that has personal meaning. Or comes to mind because of an event. Or it might be a new musical discovery.

I realise that over the year I have drifted away from that intent. All my Reflections include music, but over the year, the thrust has become my words with the music then added to ‘fit’ those words.

So, I intend to go back to the original intent for the few weeks still left of this year. I will choose the music first and then wrap my words around that. It will be a mini–Desert Island Discs. To kick things off, I go back to 1973 and the album ‘Holland’. Given that name as the album’s recording took place in the Netherlands. While The Beach Boys surfing music never really did it for me ‘Holland’ was a much more eclectic mix of tracks. Indeed, some now say that ‘Holland’ was the last great Beach Boys album.

I bought the album in the NAAFI in RAF Wildenrath. At that time, my brother and sister were both married and both in the Army and based at Wildenrath. My visit to them was my first foreign foray (and my last holiday with my parents). I recall how much I both looked forward to, and then very much enjoyed, the adventure.

It began with an overnight train from Sunderland to London’s King Cross. Not a sleeper. There wasn’t the money for that. Then it was my first journey on the London Underground (how many hundreds have I taken since that day) from Kings Cross to Victoria and a train from there to Gatwick.

We flew (another first for me) on a Boeing 727 operated by the now demised Dan-Air (colloquially known as Dan Dare) airline. I recall in the days leading up to the flight of having some apprehension. I fell for the old line from my sister that flying was “just like sitting in a bus”. It’s from the same family of lines used by people to describe the food you may not have eaten before. That “it tastes like chicken”. Invariably it doesn’t. And flying is not like being on any bus in which I’ve travelled. Anyway, that early experience did not put me off.

My next memory was the check by an Army doctor that my smallpox ‘injection’ had taken. At the time, there was a smallpox scare across Europe so one needed an inoculation against it to enter what was then West Germany. The ‘bedside manner’ of the doctor, as he closely examined the large blister that had formed on my upper arm (that was a good sign), still lives with me. I guess it was one of the reasons that I realised a life in the services was not for me.

The adventure didn’t stop there. I saw my first Hawker Harrier aircraft, and more than that, saw its vertical take-off. Given my support of NUFC, less exciting for me was watching Sunderland win the FA Cup. I was pleased they won even though I had mixed feelings before the match. My local northeast loyalty won out, given Sunderland were playing the much-disliked Leeds. I recall watching the game amidst a room full of soldiers, and my brother-in-law, an avid Sunderland supporter, was understandably overjoyed.

I much enjoyed my visits to various places both in West Germany and the Netherlands while learning a little about their diverse cultures. I’ve travelled to both Germany and the Netherlands many times since that first visit, for both business and pleasure. However, that first experience of a foreign shore still stays with me.

So back to ‘Holland’, and I’ve chosen this track from the album. Something I found engaging from my first listening. It’s ‘The Beaks of Eagles’ that features the poem of that name by Robinson Jeffers intertwined between music and song.

I wrote in earlier Reflections of my love of film and cinema. Over the past week or so, I’ve indulged that love.

Visits to cinema include a trip to the Little Theatre in Bath, of which I am a member, a visit to my local cinema and finally a viewing in the cellar of a wine merchant.

The visit to the Little Theatre was to see Wes Anderson’s ‘The French Dispatch’. It would not be a film to everyone’s taste, given it is another beautiful example from Anderson of a film that veers to the eccentric with a distinctive visual and narrative style. I very much enjoyed it.

My wife joined me for the trip to our local cinema to see ‘One Night in Soho’. When it comes to cinema, Sarah and I have differing tastes; however, based on what we had read, this was a film that appealed to us both. Sadly, we were both disappointed by what we watched. I won’t give any spoilers, and while there were some engaging elements, overall, neither of us felt it would be a film that lived long in the memory. For my part, it failed the principal rule of offering characters in which you could believe and with whom you could identify. And, most importantly, characters for whose outcome you cared.

It was the Bristol Film Festival that took me to the wine merchant’s cellar to watch a classic film. And that film? ‘A Room with a View’. Made in 1985, it turned Merchant Ivory from respected Art House filmmakers to recognition and appreciation from a wider audience. The film might now seem a little dated to some. Still, the overall quality of the offering means I forgive that. Who could better a script based on a work by E. M. Forster? Or the sublime acting of Judi Dench, Helena Bonham Carter (in her breakthrough role), Daniel Day-Lewis, Julian Sands, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow and Maggie Smith. And what a setting. My love of Italy and my affection for Florence undoubtedly help my appreciation of the film. I just wallow in the sumptuousness of the scenes set in the city and surrounding Tuscan countryside.

This week will see me book an offering for next year’s Festival. There is much from which to choose. Right now, I favour either ‘Apollo 13’ in the Bristol Planetarium or ‘1917’ in the Bristol Museum. I’m also tempted by ‘The Third Man’ back in the Wine cellar. Overall, there are thirty-six different films spread across fourteen varied locations. So many classics in so many exciting venues.

I also caught up on TV with a couple of much-loved films. One was the ‘Exorcist’. I have shared my memory of first seeing that film in an earlier Reflection. I know every twist and turn in the story, and yet unlike ‘One Night in Soho’, I am pleased to watch it over (and over) again. Script, cinematography, acting, direction, special effects, and score all come together to create a classic.

Last but by no means least came, ‘Don’t Look Now’. The film is not faithful, in all aspects, to the Daphne de Maurier short story, but it certainly captures its atmosphere. It’s a film, along with the ‘Exorcist’, I first saw on the Big Screen in my teens. Just like the ‘Exorcist’, ‘Don’t Look Now’ still both holds me, and unsettles me, on every viewing.

Unlike many people, Venice holds no great attraction for me. People are enthusiastic about its light, its sights and its maze of intertwining streets and canals. Not me. Regular readers will know of my love of Italy, and a reason Venice doesn’t gel with me might be because it doesn’t feel like Italy to me. One meets few Italians and fewer Venetians there, with four out of every five people a visitor. 

Venice is also the only place in Italy where I feel both exploited and manipulated. My wife summed it up when she offered that the buildings of Venice offer the viewer a facade, and the city as a whole has now become one. There are two exceptions. The small bar My wife and I stumbled upon where the gondoliers drank. They were both welcoming and engaging conversationalists. The other was the renowned Harry’s Bar. The bar that gave the world Bellini and Carpaccio. On one visit the bar undercharged me. When I pointed out the mistake, the maître d’ happily said that the error was theirs, so the extra drinks were on the house.

Of course, my jaundiced view of Venice may also be coloured by watching ‘Don’t Look Now’, ‘Death in Venice’ and reading Ian McEwan’s, ‘The Comfort of Strangers’. All play on the darker heart of Venice. Certainly, on my first viewing of ‘Don’t Look Now’, long before I first ventured to Venice, it coloured the city in my mind. But unfortunately, those colours were not bright and light.

So, to this week’s music. I’ve already used a theme from the Exorcist and decided against the range of 60s music that forms the musical backdrop to ‘One night in Soho’ (even though for me that music was the most enjoyable element). I also thought of ‘Laura’s Theme’ from ‘Don’t Look Now’. Instead, I chose this from the soundtrack of ‘A Room with a View’. The aria ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ from Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicchi (it also includes scenes from the film)

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.

At this time of the year, you will see many people in the UK wearing some form of a poppy as a symbol of remembrance. In my latter working years, I had the honour to take part on several occasions in my then employer’s remembrance activities.  One talk I gave was, “My family at War”. As the title suggests, it was the role that my family members played in the Great War, The Second World War and later in ‘peacetime’. Another year I gave a talk on the history of poppy wearing. This Reflection is of that.

The poppy has an ancient tradition in Britain as a symbol of death. It was from the Napoleonic wars we first see the wearing of a poppy as a symbol of remembrance. However, inspiration for the current wearing of a poppy as a tribute to ‘the fallen’ comes from the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’. Its writer, John McCrae, was a physician who served in the Canadian Army in the Great War. 

It was the death in action of a close friend that inspired McCrae to draft the poem. However, there are various suggestions as to the exact circumstances of his writing it. Legend also has it he initially discarded the poem. His comrades later retrieved it. Persuaded to send the poem for publication, it first appeared in print in December 1915 in Punch (the Spectator rejected it). The poem rapidly became popular. Some say the most popular of all the Great War poems.

The poem certainly struck a chord with an American professor called Moina Michael, who worked in the YMCA Overseas War Secretaries Office in New York. After reading McRae’s poem, she vowed to wear a poppy to honour the war dead. Moina then bought twenty-five silk poppies and distributed these to her colleagues. Further to that, she campaigned (unsuccessfully as it turned out) to have the poppy adopted as the official symbol of remembrance across the USA. A French lady called Anna Guérin then met Moina. Anna realised that making and selling poppies could raise money for those French children adversely affected by the Great War. So, she organised a group of French war-widows to make paper poppies. The first sale of these happened across the USA.

In 1921, Anna Guérin came to Britain to try to persuade the newly founded British Legion to adopt the poppy as its symbol of remembrance. Anna offered to supply poppies made by French ex-servicemen. Even though the BL had reservations, some nine million poppies went on sale on November 11, 1921. All sold that day, and the tradition in the UK of wearing a poppy in remembrance was born. The following year British ex-servicemen took over the making of the poppies for sale in the UK.

Interestingly, ‘In Flanders Fields’ is not an anti-war poem, unlike Wilfred Owen’s, ‘Dulce et Decorum est’. Nor does it have the sweeping patriotism of ‘For the Fallen’ by Robert Binyon that contains those oft-quoted lines,

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Indeed, the last verse of McCrae’s poem is an encouragement to keep fighting. Yet, his poem captures a readily recognisable scene and atmosphere. Flowers blowing in a field, larks flying, the sun rising and of course love. In my case, I find the second verse particularly moving.

Wearing a poppy is a personal choice. I happen to choose so to do. A small symbol that says I remember. I remember Private Taylor, A Gordon Highlander, in whose name I wore a poppy in 2016. I remember Private Outhwaite, a Machine Gunner, for whom I wore a poppy in 2017. I remember Edith Cavell (not all casualties of war, wore military uniform) and Noor Inayat Khan. And I remember all the others. Be they military or civilian, female, or male, of any religion and all nationalities that have lost their lives to military aggression, or terrorism. I also remember Harry Farr and the other 305 men wrongly executed by firing squad during the Great War. 

Lest we forget, as if we do forget then to paraphrase George Santayana, we may be condemned to repeat that which is forgotten.

There are so many songs or pieces of music I could choose this week. Still, I’ve opted for Elgar and Nimrod, his most well-known Enigma Variation. It’s played each year at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. It’s also a musical depiction of Elgar’s great friend Augustus Jaeger. In German, ‘Jaeger’ means ‘Hunter’, and Nimrod is the “mighty hunter” in the Bible. So, it seems apt at a time of remembrance to share a piece of music depicting a friendship between two people of those nations.

Last week saw the 55th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster. That horrific event of an early morning on a Friday before half-term when an avalanche of coal slag engulfed a primary school and some houses killing 116 children and 28 adults.

I was ten years old and living in a mining town in the Northeast of England, where slag heaps dotted the landscape. Indeed, we had a small one close to the primary school I attended. It’s, therefore, not surprising that the news deeply affected me when I heard of the disaster later that Friday. October 21, 1966. It is because it affects me to this day, that I write this Reflection and as I do I confess a little tear is in my eye.

At the time, my 10-year-old, and overactive, imagination put me into the classroom with those children. Given it was the last morning before half-term, the school was to break up at noon. If the torrent of slag had come four hours later, then the school would have been empty and the loss of life, especially young life, so much less. 

Surrounding my childhood were my grandfather’s stories of his life as a coal miner. Those stories heightened the impact of the news of Aberfan on me. He first went down the mine in 1907 as almost a child himself at aged fourteen. He retired as a miner in 1958, having spent most of his adult life working deep underground. His respite was three years above ground in the trenches of the Great War until his severe wounding in July 1917. Once recovered, he was back in the mine. 

My grandfather’s stories captivated me. Of his working in stifling heat in coal seams barely wide enough to fit a man. Of the dangers, death and injury to which he was a witness. He didn’t escape such injury, suffering a handpick in his chest when, in cutting for coal, the handpick bounced back off some hardened rock. He once said that he joined up in 1914 to fight in the Great War because he thought it safer than working in the pit.

At the time of the disaster, I did not know the cause. I suspect even adults who were not from Aberfan assumed it to be some form of horrific accident of nature. I know my own parents reassured me that it was a one in a million chance and that it could never happen to any of ‘our’ slag heaps.

It was only when the public enquiry began that the country realised that this was a man-made and not a natural disaster. While a prolonged period of unprecedented, heavy rainfall caused the landslip, it was the bureaucrats in what was then the National Coal Board who ignored all the warnings over the preceding months. A primary duty of Government is the protection and safeguarding of the people over whom they govern. On that day in 1966 and for many months beforehand, the Government failed in that duty.

This week’s music is ‘Close the Coal House Door’. Written by Alex Glasgow, son of a northeast miner, just before the Aberfan disaster. Glasgow added a “bairns” verse after that disaster. Later, the song became the title song for the 1968 stage musical of the same name, co-written by Alan Plater. The play is based on the short stories of Sid Chaplin and reflects the history of the northeast mining industry through family drama, comedy sketches and songs.

I first saw a broadcast of the play on TV in 1969 as part of the ‘Wednesday Play’ series. I’ve since seen it performed on stage several times. On the last occasion at the Oxford Playhouse a few years ago. Before the performance, some of the audience took advantage of the cafe bar. Tucking into quiche, goats cheese sandwiches and other such delicacies while quaffing chilled dry white wine. I couldn’t help having a quiet chuckle to myself at the thought of what my grandfather and his fellow miners might have made of that.

Here’s a compelling rendition of the song. 

I have written in earlier Reflections of my support of the work of the Big Issue Foundation. It’s one of the UK’s leading social charities whose aim is to offer homeless people, or individuals at risk of homelessness, the opportunity to earn a legitimate income through the sale of the Big Issue magazine. Through this, the individuals help themselves to reintegrate into mainstream society. As a result of the efforts of the vendors, the magazine is now the world’s most widely circulated street newspaper.

The Foundation does not offer their vendors a hand-out but a hand up. The vendors buy the magazines and then sell them. Thus, they run as sole trader businesses.

Some might recall my Reflection from April this year, recounting an encounter with my first vendor in Bristol, post-second lockdown. As I approached him, I realised I carried no cash (does anyone have ‘real’ money these days?). Anyway, I thought I might have to find a cashpoint until I saw another customer using a credit card to make his BI purchase.

As a tongue-in-cheek comment, I asked the vendor whether he might take American Express. He replied, with a beaming smile, “mate, if it means selling a copy, I will happily take anything, including two chickens”. Then adding more seriously, while pointing to his handheld reader, “this thing takes any card you like and even Apple Watch”. My first contactless purchase of a BI duly followed as I continued my conversation with the vendor.

He was delighted with his recent technology. He told me that The Big Issue Foundation negotiated a reduced price of £20 with the reader manufacturer for those sold to vendors. My vendor said he’d covered that outlay in his first week, as using the reader had boosted sales.

The reader needs access to Wi-Fi and my vendor told me he got that by way of friendly retailers around his pitch. He then mentioned there was one new thing he needed to manage: his cash flow. He still must buy his weekly supply of copies of the magazine on a Thursday, but not all credit card sales might not have gone through by then, so he must keep enough cash in reserve just in case. 

Never in the world would I imagine I would one day have a technology/business conversation with a BI vendor. It reinforced to me the benefit the Foundation offers for those down on their luck. Although having said that, I’ve yet to meet a vendor who’s down in the dumps. They all offer a smile, a friendly greeting, and a courteous response when you buy. And they sell an excellent product.

BI vendors are also always up for a bit of a chat. They may look disconcerting, dishevelled, and unkempt at first sight. Their clothes old and careworn. But they have a spirit within them that is engaging. 

Sadly, however one has to be aware of the Big Issue ‘scammers’. People who buy one magazine from an authorised BI vendor then try to ‘sell’ that magazine repeatedly. They invariably say they only have one copy left and most people then just give them money and move on. Authorised BI vendors carry visible ID and always sell you the magazine even if it’s their last. Be careful. Don’t let the scammers rob you and more importantly legitimate BI vendors.

To help raise funds for the Foundation, I usually seek sponsorship for their annual ‘Big London walk’. A 25 km walk, through the night, around London. However, given the number of participants, Covid has, at least for now, put an end to the walk. So instead, I’ve signed up for Big Issue’ Big Step Challenge’ this November. My aim is to walk 300,000 steps next month.

If anyone cares to sponsor me, that can do so here.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/harry-watson1956

and more importantly please buy a copy of the Big Issue magazine when you next come across a vendor. And pass the time of day with them too.

You won’t be surprised at my choice of this week’s music …

Something I hoped for many a year might happen finally did so last week. I confess now it has happened; I am conflicted. What is it? Well, those who have read other posts of mine might guess it was the takeover of Newcastle United Football Club.

I have written, in several ‘Positives’ and ‘Reflections’ over the six years, I have posted those weekly offerings, about my long affection for NUFC. To paraphrase Nick Hornby, I fell in love with Newcastle United as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.

I caught the NUFC bug on seeing them for the first time at age 11. That was with my father, and for the next two to three years we would attend some games together. I then became a regular at St James Park with my father joining me on occasion to watch a game. Those visits bought me closer to him through my teenage years. Sadly, my leaving home at 17 to live in London brought that shared experience to an end.

NUFC were a decent team through the 1970s, but I envied my father seeing them in the ‘glory’ years that set their reputation. The teams of the 30s, 40s and 50s when they were Cup winners and League winners. My father died a year or so after I moved to London, so he didn’t get to see NUFC’s more recent Wembley appearances. Not that any of them would have filled him with joy. I’ve seen them in four Wembley cup-finals since 1974. They’ve lost them all and only mustered one goal.

I am one of a diminishing group of supporters who’ve seen them win a major trophy (I do not count trophies for promotion to the Premier League). That was in 1969, and the trophy was the now-defunct Inter-City Fairs Cup (it morphed into the Europa League). Since then, the NUFC trophy cabinet has been bare.

A few weeks ago, I bought a book called, ‘Newcastle United Stole My Heart’. Written by Michael Chaplin, the playwright and screenwriter. It covers the 60 years he’s followed the club. Slightly longer than I, but every word strikes a chord with my own experience of following the Magpies. Indeed, I was at some of the games he uses to convey the agony and ecstasy of watching the team play.

Michael includes some photos in the book, and one is of his family in 1957 standing on their doorstep. I have a picture of my family from the same year where they adopt a similar pose and backdrop. Was that the fashion back then? To have the family photo literally framed within your front door.

Anyway, I digress. There have been ‘high’ points over the years for NUFC. For instance, reaching those four Wembley finals and qualifying for the European Championship and beating the likes of Barcelona. However, there have been far more disappointments, especially so in the last few years. Years when both winning a trophy seemed a long way off, and the team’s style of play was mundane, cautious, and bland. Someone once wrote that to support NUFC is not to expect the winning of trophies but to watch a team that tries. Unfortunately, for too long under the outgoing owner Mike Ashley the club seems to have stopped trying.

The new owners have the funding and desire to invest in the club. Not just the first team but also the local community. In training facilities and developing the youth squad. It was in the equivalent of that squad in which my father played just short of one hundred years ago.

So why am I conflicted? Well, I suspect I’m not the only NUFC supporter that feels that way right now. The money that supports the takeover comes from Saudi Arabia. A country with a questionable record on human rights. A challenge might be made to many owners of Premier League football clubs on how they came by their money and in their stewardship of a club. But a State is a little different to an individual.

Will I stop supporting the club? I’m going to find that a struggle after over 50 years. But the takeover has given me much pause for thought, and it reminds me of the old saying, be careful what you wish for.

This week’s music? No, it’s not Braydon Races, although that might seem apt. Instead, I’m going for Local Hero. A piece of music played before NUFC’s home games. And music played at maximum volume whenever my son Mark (also an avid NUFC supporter) and I were in the car together in his younger days. …