An old T-Shirt of mine prompts this week’s Reflection.

I’m not a fan of those guided tours that drag people from sight to sight to ‘discover’ a town or city. I’ve sat in many places just watching the world go by and seen such tours. In the lead will be a keen guide holding a flag, umbrella, or some such aloft, while behind them weave a forlorn, careworn snake of people. Snapping away to the left and to the right. No doubt at the end of the tour of an hour or two they will declare they had then ‘done’ that city or town. I much prefer my urban exploration to be self-guided and ad hoc. That way you are more likely to stumble upon hidden treasures.

Having said that I do enjoy an urban ‘themed’ walk. As a volunteer, I take part in my local museum’s History walk (sold out through September). Some of you have also joined me on the themed walks I’ve organised in London. Over the years, these have covered such topics as the London(s) of Pepys, Dickens, and Shakespeare. The deeds of Jack the Ripper as well as London’s 17th Century pubs.

I’ve had a new Dickens’ walk sitting on the shelf for some 18 months now. I’m much looking forward to following that one with others, as it’s not the usual walk around Villiers Street, The Strand, and Fleet Street etc. I also have in mind to explore the route walked by Vincent van Gogh each day between his home in SW9 and his work in Covent Garden. I hope I’ll get a chance to do these new ones with a few people once we feel more comfortable with such things.

A walk that will live long in my memory had a culinary theme. It was around the Testaccio area of Rome, led by a young chef. Another was a private walk around the ‘London of Oscar Wilde’. That one even took in the Freddie Fox Museum in the basement of the cigar merchants James J Fox. I also much enjoyed exploring part of Cardiff led by a small Theatre Company. More locally, I recommend the ‘Show of Strength’ offerings that range from the writing of Frankenstein to the tale of Blackbeard. SoS both enlighten and entertain.

So, what has all this got to do with an old T-Shirt, you might ask.

Well, this isn’t any old T-Shirt. This was first prize at the Jameson Dublin Literary Pub Crawl. A walk around some of Dublin’s literary sites, along with two or three pubs and a glass or two of Jameson. What’s not to like? Literature, Pubs, Jameson, and a prize for the person who gets the best score from a list of Irish literary questions.

As the walk progressed and the questions answered, I was neck and neck with another. It was the penultimate question that saw me pull ahead.

“In what sport did Oscar Wilde indulge at University?” — it’s a surprising one for the man now seen as the ultimate aesthete. But, while he never writes on it, I suspect Wilde would have seen the ironic humour in the connection between that sport and the man who became his nemesis.

My correct answer to the question that sealed the quiz for me was,

“What great American novel came from the pen of a son of an Irish immigrant family”.

Again, I’ll leave you to work out the answer, and while a T-shirt may not seem much of a prize, I’m immensely proud to have won it.

This week’s music has both an Irish connection and a London link. It’s by a favourite group of mine, The Pogues. Incidentally, the group’s original name was ‘Pogue Mahone’ from the Gaelic póg mo thóin. Those easily offended should not look up the English translation.

My Reflection this week is on cinema.

I’m a member of the Little Theatre Cinema in the nearby city of Bath. I still pay to see films but receive a discount, or on some gain free entry and with others exclusive viewings. It’s a small cinema. Two screens holding around 250 people between them. It does offer mainstream films, but my attraction is for the independent films and documentaries it shows. The audience for these is not large. On one occasion, I was the only customer. Not a unique experience for me. I’ve enjoyed (and I do enjoy having an auditorium all to myself) the same experience in central London cinemas.

A recent survey of members asked what film they would choose as their favourite to see back on the big screen in the Little Theatre. My vote, given it’s a beautiful film, was for Cinema Paradiso. I wasn’t the only one who thought that way as it was the overwhelming winner of the survey. I’ll now be going along to a screening of it in August. 

I recall one of my earliest cinema visits was to see the original ‘Dumbo’. It had me in floods of tears. The power of film. Especially at six years old. Another early visit was to see a Hard Day’s Night. That one had an eight-year dancing in the aisle.

We did not have a TV at home, so my mother was my usual cinema-going companion until my teens. She was not one for ‘sloppy’ films, as she called them. Casablanca was an exception as Humphrey Bogart was a favourite actor of hers. As was Edward G Robinson and Spencer Tracey. You will not be surprised that it was on Film Noir and anti-hero films I cut my teeth in early cinema-going.

My local cinema in my then hometown in the Northeast was the Essoldo. Once a theatre before its conversion to a cinema. Alas, since 1975 it’s been a small supermarket. The Essoldo’s heyday was from 1960 through to the early 1970s. In some ways the Little Theatre reminds me of the Essoldo.

Friday night was usually cinema night for my mother and me. And for many others, as there were always long queues. But, as I do now, my mother hated queuing. So, we always left the house early to gain a spot near the front of the queue. This meant we could occupy seats at the end of a row that again my mother preferred. Not because it offered the best view, but more it supplied a quicker getaway at the end of the main feature.

These were the days when the national anthem played as the lights came up. At the striking of the first bars, all those still in the auditorium had to remain standing until the anthem finished. It’s not that my mother (or the many others keen to get to the exit) was not patriotic. They’d done their bit in the war. They just felt it an unnecessary ending to a visit to the cinema.

My visits to the cinema with my father were more formal affairs. He, too, would aim to be near the front of the queue, but that was to obtain a front and centre seat. My father allowed no consumption of refreshments, and it was an obligation to wait for the national anthem. Fortunately, my father was not a great cinemagoer.

However, he occasionally took me to the News Theatre in Newcastle near to what was then the Haymarket bus station. I enjoyed the cartoons that interspersed the newsreel items he wished to see. Afterwards, he would spoil me with an ice cream soda in a close by cafe. Often, and being prone to travel sickness, I would again see the ice cream soda at some point on the bus ride home.

Another culinary recollection of those early cinema-going days was the packets of crisps on offer. You could have any flavour you liked, providing it was plain. Although, there was a blue paper twist of salt in the packet. To find it in the dark meant rummaging through the crisps. Then carefully untwisting the paper to scatter its contents on the crisps themselves. Or in most cases everywhere but on the crisps. It was also not unusual to become so enthralled in the film that you forgot to look for the salt twist. You found it eventually when inadvertently biting into it.

Smoking was allowed in cinemas back then and if a film began to drag there was always the Brownian Motion patterns of overhead smoke caught by the lights of the projector. Swirling shapes of vaporous kaleidoscopic colour to fascinate this young viewer.

These early trips gave me a love of cinema. Of course, my viewing is more selective now than that it was 50 years ago, but the magic of a well-directed, acted, scripted, photographed and scored film still holds.

Cinema Paradiso is a film that brings together all of that. But, of course, it also has the magic of cinema at its heart. And, more than that, it offers a commentary on life and relationships. Within families, between young and old, and of love. Found and lost.

It will not be too long before I sit in a darkened auditorium, to watch young Salvatore once again, fall in love with cinema at an age when I, too, did just that. Until then I’ll leave you in the hands of Ennio Morricone (few film theme tunes make the Proms) ….

I celebrated my 65th birthday last week.

Thus this week’s Reflection is that I am now of the age at which traditionally one retired from the world of work. But I’ve already been there and done that. In any event, my ‘official’ retirement age is 66. I know for those younger than me, the retirement age is even higher. One wonders how long those born today may have to work before receiving a State Pension. Seventy. Seventy-five?

Part of my celebration was a trip from my home in Wiltshire to Nottingham. Why Nottingham you might ask? Well a birthday present from my wife was a ticket to see a performance of ‘Piaf (In Person)’ at the Nottingham Playhouse. I’ve always enjoyed the singing of Édith Piaf. Over the years, I’ve seen similar productions staged. I much enjoyed those, as I did last weeks. Jenna Russell (pictured above) in the title role offered a creditable performance. Her recreation of Édith Piaf’s voice was more laryngeal vibrato than Édith’s hammer vibrato but very creditable nonetheless.

A measure of a performance of Piaf! is whether I cried at the end. Yes, dear reader, I cried.

It isn’t just Édith’s voice (Jean Cocteau described it as being “like black velvet”) and the songs. Her life makes for a very watchable story. Her real name was Édith Gassion. Édith from Edith Cavell, a British nurse executed by the Germans in 1915 for helping French soldiers escape. 

There are many legends about her early years. But what is fact is she began singing on the streets of Paris as a young teenager. A mother by seventeen (the child died aged two), Édith’s ‘discovery’ came two years later by a nightclub owner, Louis Leplée. Being so small (4′ 8″ with a size 3 shoe), Louis gave Édith the stage name La Môme Piaf (Parisian slang for ‘The Little Sparrow’). The stage name stuck.

Her fame began to spread through her nightclub singing, and records followed. But unfortunately, so did notoriety, as for a time it was thought she was involved in the subsequent murder of Louis.

In 1940 she made her first film, and despite the Germans occupying Paris, her career continued to flourish. She ‘walked a tightrope’ of performing for the occupiers and POWS, helping some of the latter’s escape. After the war, her fame spread around the world.

There were many men in Édith’s life, but her great love (despite the fact he was married) was Marcel Cerdan, a famous French boxer who died in a plane crash. Edith struggled with alcoholism and drug use all her life. Not helped by the tragedy of the death of her lover and car accidents in which she was severely injured. She died aged 47.

Several Piaf songs are now known around the world. La Vie En Rose is her most famous. Indeed, it was the song that marked the entrance of my daughter-in-law to her marriage ceremony (although sung by Satchmo, not Édith). 

Then, of course, there’s Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien, Milord, Padam Padam…

My choice however is this, the song that Piaf wrote in memory of Marcel Cerdan. What a voice ….

This week’s Reflection, while not political, is of politics or at least political figures.

I’ve read the Guardian for almost fifty years and since 1978 bought a copy of the ‘Bedside Guardian’ every year. For those that may not know, the BG is the annual anthology of some of the best pieces the paper carried in that year.

In my younger days, I looked to read the BG as quickly as possible after buying it. Then I decided to let each copy rest on my ‘to be read’ shelf for a while. A chance to let the pieces within ‘mature’ and to allow me a longer-term perspective of them. To slow the news if you like.

It was for this reason that last week I began reading the edition from 2014. As ever, I enjoyed the varied and consistently well-written articles it held. One written by Patrick Wintour caught my attention. Its title, “A tale of two careers: Gove and Ian Duncan Smith”.

The article posed why Grove had just been ‘demoted’ from being an ‘effective’ Education Secretary to Chief Whip. While in contrast, IDS remained as Secretary for Work & Pensions. A role in which he had no outstanding achievement. Wintour used the analogy of omelette making. Grove: “Multiple eggs had been broken, but there was a recognisable omelette”. Whereas for IDS: “[the eggs} have largely been scraped from the Kitchen floor”.

The piece brought home the vagaries of politics and how ‘vague’ are ministers to many of us. I follow politics, yet it had completely slipped my memory that Gove had been Secretary of State for Education for four years. It was on his watch the Academies came into being. But as Wintour points out, to most people, “politicians are a grey blur of identikit-suited men.”

The other thing that caught my eye in the article was the mention of Dominic Cummings. At that time, he was an advisor to Michael Gove. The then PM, David Cameron, describing Cummings as a “career psychopath”. And Cummings himself shared, “There is institutional power that needs to be destroyed. A lot of our job is walking along a cliff edge and stamping their fingers off”. I guess our current PM regrets not talking to David Cameron and reading some of Cummings’ words. If he had, he might not now be the focus of Cummings’ unflattering utterings on their time working together.

I should add before closing that the BG is a much broader read than politics. Articles in the 2014 edition cover a full range of topics. Art, music, fashion, TV, food, adventure, phone hacking and many more. There’s even an article on ‘Let it Go’ from the film Frozen. The song described as not so much a Disney hit as an adolescent aperitif.

There’s something in the BG for all and you don’t have to share the Guardian’s political view to enjoy its `bedside’ anthology.

So, to the music. I nearly went for ‘Let it Go’ but instead opted for the record that topped the UK charts for the most extended period (6 weeks) in 2014.

As are so many people, I’m playing catchup on get-togethers with family and friends. This week it was to organise a day in London with my future son-in-law. A chance for us to spend some quality time together. One idea I had was to start the day with some street food from the market behind the Festival Hall. I’ve always enjoyed sampling the varied tastes and flavours there. It was thought of the market that prompted this week’s Reflection of a London visit that began there some years ago.

Sarah and I were destined to have lunch in Skylon at the Festival Hall. Having arrived tremendously early, we took a stroll through the market stalls to stimulate our appetite. While surveying the stalls, we passed an open door on the side of Queen Elizabeth Hall. Beside the door was a sign advertising an exhibition called, “Wot no Fish?” Intrigued, we decided to explore and found ourselves in a room around the walls of which were many small cartoons. When we read the background to what we looked upon, the whole exhibition sprung to life.

In 1926, shoemaker Ab Solomons began sketching drawings for his new wife Celie on the back of his weekly wage packets. He kept this up for close to 60 years producing more than 2,500 drawings. Those back of small envelope drawings record the evolution of a marriage and of life. The laughs and tears, the contentment, and the differences. The illustrations convey familiar scenes to any of us who know the joys and challenges of relationships. Births, lives, deaths, and even social prejudices are all there, as Ab captured domestic life against the background of one of the most turbulent times in social history. And Celie is in every picture.

Ab clearly loved Celie very much. The simple drawings of their life together are refreshing in their honesty. 

After Ab and Celie’s death, the drawings ended up in a shoebox and forgotten until Danny Braverman, Ab’s grandnephew, discovered them years later. He decided on an exhibition and what an exhibition it was. A gem, and I defy anyone who saw it not to have their heartstrings twanged a little as they moved from pay-packet drawing to drawing (about a 100 of which were on display).

Danny also decided upon putting together a talk about Ab and Celie’s life using the drawings as a backdrop. He premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 2013, and it was a couple of years later, Sarah and I caught up with it.

You might think a man on stage with only a shoebox full of small brown envelopes and a projector would make for scant entertainment. Yet, Danny’s anecdotes as he shared Ab’s drawings brought Ab and Celie to life. 

Danny’s only other prop was a Tupperware box filled with Gefilte Fish and some Chrein Sauce. The audience invited to share this snack. In doing so it brought much debate from those who knew this food. Do you boil or fry the fish balls? What should go into the sauce?

For so many in the audience, sharing such simple food reinforced their sense of identity and gave Ab’s drawings even more significance.

The words of Nick Philippou, the director of the one-man show, so well sums it up, “Ab’s work was an act of love. The best way to love somebody is by not looking away. It’s continuing to look.”

Stumbling upon the exhibition was a fantastic accident. And then, some months later, listening to Danny bring Ab and Celie to life added to the magic of their story.

That quote has stayed with me too, “The best way to love somebody is not to look away. It’s continuing to look”

This week’s music must be a love song, mustn’t it? This is one of my favourites ….

A zoom call in which I took part prompts this Reflection.

I volunteer at my local museum. The call was to re-introduce volunteers to the processes to follow as the museum reopens. We also received an insight into up-and-coming exhibitions.

One of those is an Art exhibition (museums aren’t just for ancient artefacts). The presenter mentioned that many people seem intimidated by displays of Art. It’s as if they feel Art is for the highbrow or those who have in-depth knowledge of the subject. The presenter noted that he’d also seen people move through earlier museum Art exhibitions at pace rather than taking the time to linger on what’s on display.

You might recall that I reflected on my enjoyment of music a while ago even though I can’t play a single note on any instrument. The same is true of Art. I can draw the curtains or a conclusion, but otherwise, my artistic ability is zero.

I found art lessons at school a nightmare. I could fake playing a musical instrument but not drawing or painting. One of the pieces I produced still lives in my mind. It was a painting of a giant bright red budgie that could well have featured in one of those 1950s horror movies in which enormous creatures invade the earth.

Yet, I’ve always appreciated Art and envied those who have talent. Again, in an earlier Reflection, I wrote of being mesmerised by Dali’s, ‘Christ of St John of the Cross’ when eight years old. My love of Art has lasted all through my lifetime. I find galleries havens of peace. Places to rest the mind and calm the soul. I recommend them as great therapy when troubled.

One of my favourite artists is Caravaggio because of his atmospheric use of dark and light. Another is Artemisia Gentileschi for the passion in her paintings of classical scenes from a female perspective. I much enjoy the work of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists with their mastery of light, colour, and movement. Most will think of Monet when they read that, but I prefer Manet, Cezanne, Renoir, Van Gogh etc. Then there is Turner, who once said, “I paint what I see, not what is there”.

I’m fortunate to have seen many striking paintings in many different galleries in the UK and abroad. I also much enjoy stumbling over an exhibition. On one occasion, I came across such in the central railway station in Rome. On another in a library in Milan. On both occasions, it was of works by Caravaggio.

My favourite gallery is the Courtauld in London that holds Manet’s remarkable ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère’. The reflected perspective of Suzon, the barmaid, and you, the viewer, fascinates me. As does the detail such as the bottle of Bass recognisable from its famous triangular trademark.

One painting that I have always wished to see ‘in the flesh’ is Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Bruegelthe Elder. I have tried on three occasions to see it in the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Thwarted each time by renovations or the painting being ‘on tour’. One day….

I also much enjoy reading the back story of a painting or painter. It’s easy with van Gogh, as he wrote so many letters in which he discusses his paintings. Except, of course, which is his final painting. Arguments still rage about that one. The drama of Caravaggio’s paintings matches the drama of his life. He appears in some as the main character and in other’s an extra. I’m always surprised by the volume of information that exists about the background of a painting. Even those painted some 500 years ago.

I am untutored in Art and look at the work with an untrained eye. As with music, A person takes from a painting what they bring to it. Their experiences, current mood, emotions etc. We all differ in that regard. The same artwork will offer different reactions from two people because of those different perspectives.

You don’t have to be an expert for an artwork to move you. it’s about having a feeling for, and appreciation of, the form. There is nothing scary in taking the time to look upon a painting.

So, what music matches this week’s reflection? Well, it just must be this, doesn’t it? A beautiful song of a magical artist, sung beautifully, ….

Last week, Scotland and England met in EURO 2020. As the Scots would put it, a meeting with the Auld Enemy. My Reflection this week is of my only attendance at that meeting.

The match was at the ‘old’ Wembley stadium. Over the years, I’ve watched many games there and in its ‘new’ replacement. I’ve seen NUFC lose three FA Cup Finals. I’ve seen NUFC lose a League Cup Final. I’ve not seen NUFC lose a Charity Shield game. Only because they weren’t playing in the game I saw! I watched my first England International in Wembley, against Cyprus, in April 1975. Before the match, I joked with my colleagues that if Malcolm MacDonald (then NUFC’s number 9) scored a hat trick for England, I would streak across Wembley. He scored all five of England’s goals, but no, I did not get my kit off.

I’ve seen Olympic Football at Wembley, including the final of Brazil against Mexico. Playing that day was the young Neymar of Brazil. This was before he commanded the sort of transfer fee that’s the equivalent of the GDP of a small country. He shone like a diamond on the pitch, but Brazil still succumbed to the energy and enthusiasm of Mexico. It’s not just English football I’ve watched at Wembley. Until Covid struck, I attended the annual American football games held there. There’s a quite different atmosphere to watching ‘soccer’. Much more razzmatazz and extravaganza, but I love it just the same.

But to get back to that England v Scotland match. It was on the 23 May 1981. A day that lives long in my memory for several reasons. 

These were the days when pubs around football grounds closed on match days because of the risk of trouble. Of course, that didn’t stop my friends and me from seeking out a hostelry in which to enjoy a pre-match drink. If I recall correctly, we calculated we would need to leave the pub about 1:30pm to walk to Wembley in time for the 3pm kick-off. While we were drinking, we heard a chap say he was offering rides to Wembley for a fiver each. Thinking this gave us a precious extra 30 minutes of drinking time, we went for it. one of us asked what sort of car he had. In response, he tossed his keys on the bar. The key fob had a Rolls Royce symbol. We laughed, thinking the car was no doubt a Ford Cortina or some such. It was, therefore, a surprise to leave the pub to see a’ Roller’ in front of us. Little did we imagine we were to travel to Wembley in such style.

Once there, it was to come upon an ocean of tartan. Wembley is the cradle of English football, but on that day, Scotland’s supporters vastly outnumbered their England equivalents. All around in the ground were waving Saltires and the Lions Rampant of Scotland. All I could hear; ‘Flower of Scotland’.

Many of the anthems from around the world are dirges of which most people know only the first verse. There are exceptions. For instance, the urging of La Marseillaise, the love of homeland of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, the jaunty, Il Canto Degli Italiani, and even the defiance of The Star-Spangled Banner.

For me, and writing as an Englishman, the unofficial anthem, ‘Flower of Scotland’ tops them all. Especially when some 90,000 voices combine in singing in. The song is less than 60 years old. Yet in writing it, ‘The Corries’ reached back in history to the Scots victory at Bannockburn. Starting life as a folksong, it’s become Anthem and Battle Cry to Scotland’s sporting teams. On that day in May some 40 years ago, it also signalled Scottish triumph.

The game over; it was to seek refreshment. My compatriots and I fetched up in what was then the Waggon and Horses on Watling St between Borehamwood and Radlett. While we propped up the bar, in walked Tony Currie and his wife. That name will mean little to anyone under the age of 50, but in 1981, while his England career was over, he was still a footballing star. A wonderfully skilful attacking midfielder and a superb passer of the ball. On hearing where we had spent the afternoon, he offered his commiserations. On leaving, he offered to buy us a drink. We declined but did ask if he might sign something for an avid QPR fan we knew (Currie than playing for that team). 

Overall, it was a memorable day. Not for the game or the score but the golden moments met along the way. There are few days in life when that happens.

There will be no surprise that this is my song this week. Listen out for the crowd adding the unofficial ‘call back’ lyrics, ‘gainst who? and whit fir?

The postponed EURO 2020 football championship started last Friday. It’s that which prompts this week’s Reflection.

I had a ticket for one of the England games until the Covid pandemic struck, causing a significant reduction in the number of spectators that can attend matches. Much to my disappointment, I did not come through the resulting ballot, of ticket holders, successfully. Never mind, in compensation for that disappointment, I bought a ticket for the same day, to the much-acclaimed Thomas Beckett exhibition at the British Museum. Ironically, Covid also caused the postponement of that exhibition from last year, the 850th anniversary of his murder. I will watch the England game on TV when I get home.

I’ve seen a few games at earlier EURO tournaments. All with my eldest son. In 1996 we travelled around England catching a few games. In 2004 we went off to Porto together to watch some games.

Only one of those games involved England. That was the opening one of the 1996 competition against Switzerland that ended in a 1:1 draw. I have three memories of the game: Alan Shearer’s cracking goal. ‘St George’, having a mishap when his horse slid during the pre-match entertainment – and hearing the Red Arrows as they carried out a short display above the ground. We couldn’t see them. The roof of the old Wembley Stadium blocked our view. Air displays and sporting arenas don’t work.

While I always wish to see England do well, I do not want to attend only their games. I enjoy the different atmosphere that supporters of other teams create.

For instance, the orange hordes that follow the Netherlands. You name it; the Dutch fans colour it orange – their hair, skin, clothes, shoes. They are a remarkable sight when they group en masse. As if they’ve all overdosed on Sunny Delight.

Then there are the Danes and Swedes, both of whom prefer the horned helmets that brought fear to the heart of the early Anglo-Saxons once upon a time. It’s even a bit disconcerting seeing them today. I’ve come across some noticeably big lads amongst Danish and Swedish supporters. It doesn’t take much imagination to think of their ancestors marauding the English countryside terrorising the population. Current supporters also drink prodigious quantities of beer. However, unlike their ancestors, in the present day, it leads to boisterous good humour rather than pillage.

As you would imagine, Italian fans have more style. There’s even elegance to how they wear their scarves and colours of the ‘Azzurri’. They also seem just as likely to order un caffè as una Birra. I once sat in a bar in Rome watching a Napoli v Roma game on TV and was one of only two drinking alcohol. The Roma fans preferring soft drinks or coffee. Yet, it didn’t stop the emotion in word and gesture whenever Roma came close to scoring. Although losing Italian teams can come in for some stick from their supporters. In England, we might throw epithets at poorly performing players. On one occasion, an Italian squad returned home to a waiting crowd that pelted the players with overripe tomatoes.

So, who do I think might win this year’s tournament? Belgium seem the favourites. No matter how poor their pre-tournament form, one can never rule out the Germans. But I think the French will follow up their World Cup success. As for England? They are off to a good start in the group stage. They might swagger through the last sixteen and even the quarter-final. Offering us false hope. Then they’ll fall. To the Germans. On penalties. Isn’t it always thus?

This week’s music must be this catchy little tune from 25 years ago (Ummm, I wonder what happened to the guy at the start of the video who missed the penalty…)

Last week, I wrote in my Reflection of a week of ‘firsts since Lockdown’. The trend continued this week with my return as a volunteer to my local museum. It felt good to be back.

I’m masked, sit behind Perspex, ask visitors to check-in, and to sanitise. But I can still smile with my eyes, offer a warm welcome and make them feel comfortable and at home. It is their museum. Everyone I greeted on my first ‘shift’ seemed pleased they were able to enjoy visiting again. It was also good that the younger visitors seemed enthused by what they saw.

I’ve long had an interest in History and from an early age enjoyed visiting museums. The first of those was the Hancock Museum (now Great North Museum) in Newcastle. Its focus was Natural History and Ancient Civilisations. At the time, topics of fascination for me.

Then in 1970 came the opening of the open-air Beamish Museum. A museum set up to preserve an example of everyday life in the Northeast of England from the turn of the 20th century. A museum of the people of the Northeast by the people of the Northeast. It hooked me. This was my type of museum.

It’s grown tremendously since my early visits. Now boasting trams, a pub, shops, a drift mine and coal head, a school, miner’s cottages etc. When I moved to London in 1974, those cottages were still in situ in the once mining town of Hetton-le-Hole. Before moving brick by brick to the museum a couple of years later.

One of the golden memories I have as a young boy was going to Beamish Museum with my grandfather a couple of years after its opening. My grandfather keen to see the recently installed colliery winding engine or pit head, as he called it.

My grandfather was a miner for close to 50 years, only taking a few years’ ‘sabbatical’ to fight in the trenches of the Great War. In the pit head were the artefacts of mining. There were the picks, the shovels, the tubs, the tallies, the pit ‘hoggers’. There was the winding engine that took the miners underground. I listened avidly as my grandfather walked around the various artefacts bringing them and mining in the first half of the 20th century to life.

After a few moments, I noticed others stopping to listen. Over the following twenty minutes or more, an increasing crowd grew to listen to an old miner tell them of their heritage. The distance a miner typically travelled to a seam, the heat, a miner’s minimal workwear, of seams so narrow you couldn’t turn your pick around. The dangers. In his case on one occasion a pick in the chest. After my grandfather’s impromptu talk, applause broke out. Not just for what he said but for what the man himself had done.

For a brief period that day, my grandfather brought the past to life for his audience. We’d seen photos in books, heard teachers talk of such things, even seen TV programmes. But the man in front of us had once used these tools and pieces of equipment. He knew them as everyday objects, not dusty artefacts. He brought History into the present, as a present, to those who listened.

For me that’s History and the role of museums. To reflect how the lives of ordinary women and men formed the society in which they lived. Offering an understanding of how they did what they did. The tools they used, the places they worked, the way they travelled, relaxed, educated themselves.

George Orwell wrote, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” He is correct. 

At heart, I am a Historian. One of the saddest moments of my schooldays was the requirement to give up subjects such as History, German, and Geography at the age of 14. I had the ambition to be a Doctor of Medicine (alas my intellect did not match that ambition) and was destined for a science cohort at what was then ‘O’ level. A world of Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Technical Drawing, Applied Maths, Pure Maths etc. Given the other five ‘core’ subjects, there just wasn’t room for anything else.

It’s very often a teacher that inspires an interest that stays with you lifelong. In my case, it was Mr Sowerby, my history teacher. It was from him I learned that Jethro Tull was an innovative agriculturist and not just a 70s pop group. How the Spinning Jenny changed the economics of the cotton trade and the consequences to the emerging British Empire. These were days when maps of the world in school rooms still had countries coloured pink to show the extent of that one-time Empire.

My final essay before giving up History was 14 pages in length and of the French King, Louis XIV. Mr Sowerby returned it with the words, “truly a magnum opus”. I looked at the words in puzzlement. There was no mark given, just those words. Was it good or bad? The answer only found when I got home and looked up the phrase in a dictionary (there was no Google in 1970). 

Who knows? If I’d made a different decision at age 14, my life might have taken a different route. I might well now be amongst the likes of Michael Wood, Simon Schama, Mary Beard, David Olusoga (another Northeast lad who ended up in the Southwest). But not I would hope, David Starkey.

Instead, I get to indulge myself in a small way by helping in the local museum. Listening to visitors and volunteers recount their own stories of the artefacts they look upon or how Chippenham has changed over the decades. And when I do, a little bit of me goes back near 50 years, and I am again a boy listening to his grandfather.

This week’s music just had to be this didn’t it?

The past week was one of firsts. Well, firsts since the last (and let’s hope it is the last) Lockdown. 

The first ‘long’ distance journey by car. The first meal in a restaurant. The first stay in a hotel. The first beer inside a pub. The first train journey to London. The first participation in an activity with strangers. And most of all, the first hug with someone other than Sarah.

The first, first was from Wiltshire to Hertfordshire. It should have included Bedfordshire, but the Indian variant did for that. At least my wife and I spent time with some of the family. You can keep your Zoom, Teams etc. I realise I’m a person who needs to be with people, ‘in the flesh’.

Eating out was good. Even if we all enter restaurants, pubs and the like looking as if we were auditioning for the part of Uriah Heep in Great Expectations. Menus seem more limited. People distanced. Yet, there is still conversation, laughter, conviviality.

Staying in a hotel felt much as always. Although it did take what felt like a lifetime to check-in. Has anyone said I’m known for my patience (not)? And the cause wasn’t Covid. However, the thing that felt strange was packing for the stay. I’ve spent my life packing for trips. Business trips, holidays, working away. So much so that my travel bag and accessories were always ready. Following retirement and with the Lockdowns, I’d emptied those. Thinking of what to pull together for a trip now suddenly unfamiliar territory.

My first foray inside the pub, I look on as my local, felt comforting. Yes, I entered mask-wearing, had to register re the QR code and sanitise, but the sight of the landlord pulling a beer he knew I’d enjoy was all I needed. Taking up my usual stool, close to, but not at the bar and enjoying an hour or so of conversation gave a sense of returning morality. The beer was good too!

Train travel didn’t feel too unusual. I’d travelled by train to nearby cities of Bath and Bristol. However, there was still an air of excitement at a journey lasting longer than half an hour. A chance to linger over a coffee, read some of my novel and watch familiar horizons as I headed for London. And oh London…

It will seem strange to many how much I love, ‘The Smoke’. I know rolling landscapes and sea views are beautiful, but I’m a town and city boy at heart. There are three places close to my heart. My native northeast, my adopted hometown of Chippenham and London. Busy, noisy, crowded, chaotic, cosmopolitan, characterful London. Whenever I arrive, I feel it wrap itself around me like a comfort blanket. I have walked its streets at every hour of the day. And at any hour of the day. Those streets feel like home.

This return was to take part in a guided walk with three others around St Pauls, the Old Bailey and Smithfield. The topic was crime and punishment, but in truth, it was an insight into man’s inhumanity to man. The freedom of speech of today once seen as sedition. Today’s multiculturalism once seen as intolerance punishable by death. Governance by and of the people once seen as treason. I left thinking what ‘crime’ today might we one day see as an individual’s right or freedom? 

And finally, the hugs. I’m not a naturally tactile person. I could blame my parents (Larkin’s,’This be the Verse’ and all that) as they were not touchy-feely people. I have no recollection of embracing either. Over the years, I’ve felt more comfortable in regard to hugs although I confess it’s still not something that comes naturally. And yet, embracing my youngest daughter and her fiancé felt like something I’ve missed. Something comforting. Something human. It might be for me a small silver-lining to these Lockdowns.

This week’s music? Well, after the soggiest May I can remember, it’s this favourite Bruuuucee song of mine. I think we are all waiting for a sunny day…