I guess it's part of the intrinsic nature of blogging that so many of them achieve a sort of 'here today - gone tomorrow' status. One of the more stable (or so I thought) had been that of Inspector Gadget, the pseudonymous Police Inspector whose accounts of what it's really like out there the front line in the British Police force have kept me entertained, informed and on occasion saddened by some of the goings-on behind the scenes. It's never been my intention in this blog to lift the lid on what similarly went on (and doubtless still does) behind the scenes in Local Government, nor to bad-mouth my erstwhile employers: suffice to say that the pernicious creeping influences of political correctness and emphasis on diversity had to be experienced to be believed, and the resultant barking madness was nothing short of a massive impediment to actually getting the job done.
I'm not sure why the Inspector has decided to call it a day. Maybe he's decided enough is enough and is about to hand in his badge. I feel I detected a growing desperation on his part at the direction in which successive governments have sought to take both the police force and the way it operates. I hope he hasn't got 'busted': I can't imagine his outspoken views on the antics of senior officers will have earned him many friends in high places and the opportunity to shut down such a thorn in the side would be one many a Chief Constable would find hard to resist.
Friday, 15 March 2013
Saturday, 2 March 2013
Marking occasions
Predictably, but at the same time unexpectedly, the entry I wrote earlier in the week has left me feeling more than somewhat restless and unhappy. The apparent paradox of that is explained by the fact that although on the surface there's no obvious reason why it should've done (I was, after all, reminiscing over what I thought were happy events) it suddenly dawned on me on re-reading it that this year is the 25th anniversary of my mother's death and that, certainly, has disturbed some fairly deep-seated unhappy memories which I fully thought the passage of time would've virtually erased.
I'm not even sure I want to write about it much, save to say that it made me acutely conscious at the time of having been something of the proverbial prodigal son. I wished more than anything in the world that I could've gone back in time and undone that, but of course I couldn't then and I can't now. They say it's not a good idea to dwell overmuch on the past - there's after all nothing you can do to alter it. But that doesn't stop it coming back to haunt you from time to time. On a slightly more rational level, I suppose I can say that in a lot of respects I've probably succeeded in behaving the way I was brought up to do: certainly both my parents were keen that I should make the best of my abilities and I'm glad they were both eventually able to share the proud moment of their son's graduation ceremony.
As I ponder what to put next to try and explain my rather muddled feelings, I wonder if I'm just being too hard on myself. The world I've grown up in is a very different one from the one they grew up in, and as I tried to adapt to it some of the decisions I took - wrong though they were with the benefit of hindsight - were ones I thought were right at the time. I'm sure my mother must've made her share of wrong decisions too over the years and the degree of omniscience and infallibilty which I always assumed (or was taught from my earliest childhood) was innate in a mother was in reality not quite all it seemed! Maybe in the end she was more forgiving of her errant son than I've perhaps ever realized.
Coincidentally the shops at the moment are full of Mother's Day gifts. We never used to "celebrate" the occasion: back in those days 'Mothering Sunday' as it was properly called wasn't anywhere near as commercialized as it's now become. But as I browsed earlier today, I spotted some pots of tulips and suddenly remembered the ones I'd planted in the long flowerbed alongside the garage in our back garden at Kenilworth - and how they always used to flower there despite being in almost permanent shade. I've never yet succeeded in growing them properly here, so it seemed only fitting that I should buy some and plant them in the rockery. In the unexpected warmth of an early spring afternoon I found a suitable spot for them, and as I said a short prayer I hoped I'd finally laid a bit of a ghost to rest.
I'm not even sure I want to write about it much, save to say that it made me acutely conscious at the time of having been something of the proverbial prodigal son. I wished more than anything in the world that I could've gone back in time and undone that, but of course I couldn't then and I can't now. They say it's not a good idea to dwell overmuch on the past - there's after all nothing you can do to alter it. But that doesn't stop it coming back to haunt you from time to time. On a slightly more rational level, I suppose I can say that in a lot of respects I've probably succeeded in behaving the way I was brought up to do: certainly both my parents were keen that I should make the best of my abilities and I'm glad they were both eventually able to share the proud moment of their son's graduation ceremony.
As I ponder what to put next to try and explain my rather muddled feelings, I wonder if I'm just being too hard on myself. The world I've grown up in is a very different one from the one they grew up in, and as I tried to adapt to it some of the decisions I took - wrong though they were with the benefit of hindsight - were ones I thought were right at the time. I'm sure my mother must've made her share of wrong decisions too over the years and the degree of omniscience and infallibilty which I always assumed (or was taught from my earliest childhood) was innate in a mother was in reality not quite all it seemed! Maybe in the end she was more forgiving of her errant son than I've perhaps ever realized.
Coincidentally the shops at the moment are full of Mother's Day gifts. We never used to "celebrate" the occasion: back in those days 'Mothering Sunday' as it was properly called wasn't anywhere near as commercialized as it's now become. But as I browsed earlier today, I spotted some pots of tulips and suddenly remembered the ones I'd planted in the long flowerbed alongside the garage in our back garden at Kenilworth - and how they always used to flower there despite being in almost permanent shade. I've never yet succeeded in growing them properly here, so it seemed only fitting that I should buy some and plant them in the rockery. In the unexpected warmth of an early spring afternoon I found a suitable spot for them, and as I said a short prayer I hoped I'd finally laid a bit of a ghost to rest.
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
La maison où j'ai grandi
Lately, I've been coming across a lot of clips on YouTube of songs I remember well from my youth in the 1960s, one such being Françoise Hardy's La maison où j'ai grandi (The house where I grew up). It's a favourite of mine: I've always loved its haunting melody and poignant lyrics. I bought it when it first came out: I was learning French as a schoolboy, and I think I've still got a 7" vinyl single of it somewhere.
For me, the "House where I gew up" is always the detached house in Kenilworth my father bought when I was about 14. I've never been entirely sure what lay behind his decision but I suspect that having been back 'home' four years or so after Hong Kong with no further posting or promotion materializing, he began to sense that his days in the Army were numbered and it was perhaps time to start making preparations for what we were going to do and where we were going to live when he came out.
The house itself, in Windy Arbour - then (and probably still now) regarded as the 'posh' part of Kenilworth - had been allowed to run to seed more than somewhat. My parents got busy wallpapering and painting, and I helped clear what was an absolutely enormous garden but one which was waist-high in nettles at the bottom: it took us a couple of seasons to get it into the state of actually being able to grow things in it. Being the youngest in the family I got the short straw in the form of the smallest bedroom, which was right above the front door and hall, and consequently only big enough to accommodate a single bed and a chair on which I could keep a few clothes. There wasn't room for any heating in there: the metal "crittall" window frame dated back to when the house was built in pre-war days, and on a cold night the ice would form on the inside of the window-pane. By the time it reached its turn for decorating, I asked for a sky-blue ceiling in preference to the off-white or 'magnolia' that my mother insisted on putting practically everywhere else in the house. She was distinctly reluctant but I suppose having concluded that she wasn't going to be the one who had to sit in there and look at it, she eventually agreed!
I couldn't use my bedroom for anything except sleeping in, so I did my homework and studying in the dining room. After the first couple of years we got it fitted with a solid fuel back boiler which took care of all the hot water we needed, but which also resulted in it being the warmest room in the house. This was in contrast to the lounge which had a open coal fire - one which was only lit for the evening and thus left you initially huddled round it if you wanted to try and watch TV: it only warmed up comfortably by bedtime. The dining table had a green baize cloth on, so after we'd had our evening meal and washed up, I could spread out and fit in a couple of hours or more studying whilst listening to Radio Luxembourg without having my parents' choice of TV programmes inflicted on me.
What estate agents coyly refer to as "local amenities" were basically non-existent, the notable exception being a convenience store just round the corner in Birches Lane which also housed the local Post Office and which went by the name of Terry's. Consequently, the shout of "Anyone want anything from Terry's??" was usually enough to generate a veritable shipping order. An infrequent Midland Red 536 bus route ran along the street outside and enabled passengers to make a morning shopping trip into nearby Leamington, which my mother occasionally used to do. But Kenilworth town centre itself was a 15-20 minute walk away, and until the arrival of a supermarket called Bishop's in (I think) the late 1960s had no large shops there anyway.
Although I loved the house - it was a nice place to live and I called it "home" - it was underneath it all my parents' house, so eventually and perhaps inevitably it became time for me to leave the nest with its sky-blue ceiling and fly off to make a home of my own. After some nine years altogether it was the longest time I'd ever lived anywhere in my life. My parents carried on living there and even had a small extension built on. But then after my mother died in 1988, my father soon found that living alone in a big detached house with a massive garden was far too much for him to manage, and decided he wanted to sell up and move to a sheltered housing complex. I'd have liked nothing better than to have bought the house off him, but even had it been a knock-down price there's no way I could've afforded it. Unlike the one in the song, as far as I know it's still standing, but I've never had the occasion to go past and look, and I somehow doubt now that I ever will. Come what may, though, it's always going to live on in my memory as "la maison où j'ai grandi".
For me, the "House where I gew up" is always the detached house in Kenilworth my father bought when I was about 14. I've never been entirely sure what lay behind his decision but I suspect that having been back 'home' four years or so after Hong Kong with no further posting or promotion materializing, he began to sense that his days in the Army were numbered and it was perhaps time to start making preparations for what we were going to do and where we were going to live when he came out.
The house itself, in Windy Arbour - then (and probably still now) regarded as the 'posh' part of Kenilworth - had been allowed to run to seed more than somewhat. My parents got busy wallpapering and painting, and I helped clear what was an absolutely enormous garden but one which was waist-high in nettles at the bottom: it took us a couple of seasons to get it into the state of actually being able to grow things in it. Being the youngest in the family I got the short straw in the form of the smallest bedroom, which was right above the front door and hall, and consequently only big enough to accommodate a single bed and a chair on which I could keep a few clothes. There wasn't room for any heating in there: the metal "crittall" window frame dated back to when the house was built in pre-war days, and on a cold night the ice would form on the inside of the window-pane. By the time it reached its turn for decorating, I asked for a sky-blue ceiling in preference to the off-white or 'magnolia' that my mother insisted on putting practically everywhere else in the house. She was distinctly reluctant but I suppose having concluded that she wasn't going to be the one who had to sit in there and look at it, she eventually agreed!
I couldn't use my bedroom for anything except sleeping in, so I did my homework and studying in the dining room. After the first couple of years we got it fitted with a solid fuel back boiler which took care of all the hot water we needed, but which also resulted in it being the warmest room in the house. This was in contrast to the lounge which had a open coal fire - one which was only lit for the evening and thus left you initially huddled round it if you wanted to try and watch TV: it only warmed up comfortably by bedtime. The dining table had a green baize cloth on, so after we'd had our evening meal and washed up, I could spread out and fit in a couple of hours or more studying whilst listening to Radio Luxembourg without having my parents' choice of TV programmes inflicted on me.
What estate agents coyly refer to as "local amenities" were basically non-existent, the notable exception being a convenience store just round the corner in Birches Lane which also housed the local Post Office and which went by the name of Terry's. Consequently, the shout of "Anyone want anything from Terry's??" was usually enough to generate a veritable shipping order. An infrequent Midland Red 536 bus route ran along the street outside and enabled passengers to make a morning shopping trip into nearby Leamington, which my mother occasionally used to do. But Kenilworth town centre itself was a 15-20 minute walk away, and until the arrival of a supermarket called Bishop's in (I think) the late 1960s had no large shops there anyway.
Although I loved the house - it was a nice place to live and I called it "home" - it was underneath it all my parents' house, so eventually and perhaps inevitably it became time for me to leave the nest with its sky-blue ceiling and fly off to make a home of my own. After some nine years altogether it was the longest time I'd ever lived anywhere in my life. My parents carried on living there and even had a small extension built on. But then after my mother died in 1988, my father soon found that living alone in a big detached house with a massive garden was far too much for him to manage, and decided he wanted to sell up and move to a sheltered housing complex. I'd have liked nothing better than to have bought the house off him, but even had it been a knock-down price there's no way I could've afforded it. Unlike the one in the song, as far as I know it's still standing, but I've never had the occasion to go past and look, and I somehow doubt now that I ever will. Come what may, though, it's always going to live on in my memory as "la maison où j'ai grandi".
Saturday, 19 January 2013
The big freeze
After a comparatively mild Christmas and New Year period, the thermometer took a sudden nose-dive. We had snow on Monday, although only about an inch or so, but a lot more fell yesterday and I spent most of the morning looking out of the window at the white-out developing. Predictably it caused the usual travel chaos, and I learned at lunch-time that my Italian class this week had been cancelled. I don't really have any clear recollections of the famous last great freeze of 1963 except that I was at school: we at the time only lived just round the corner so I didn't have any great difficulty getting there and I don't remember that we had classes cancelled or impromptu days off - although I do have a dim recollection of makeshift timetables for a while. I'm sure we were all hardier and made of sterner stuff in those days! This morning I swept the path clear despite a forecast of more snow later in the day, which in the event didn't materialize, although I see there is likely to be some tomorrow. Well, I know someone who's going to be pleased.... Woof! Saturday, 1 December 2012
Tempting fate
I've been putting off writing this entry for one particular reason. Every time I write anything about wearing a corset *again* I immediately go off the idea and it all comes to nothing. After two months, that may still be the case, but I very much hope not.
I've been corseted now for several weeks - and when I say "corseted" I mean laced up in a corset tight all the time apart from showering and 'essential maintenance'. Although I've had brief spells of lacing up before, and did it on and off on a pretty regular basis a few years back, I've never managed to do it quite so successfully. How do I define success? I've gone from a fully-closed 30" corset, down to a 28", and at the beginning of this week to a 26" one - which I bought some years ago when I could only just about fit into it. So I'm feeling pleased, quite proud of my efforts, and best of all really comfortable and happy at being so tightly corseted. I was pretty amazed at the photo I took last night of the jeans I'd been wearing all day - 34" waist Levis (my natural waist size) looking positively baggy!
I've always tended to look back rather wistfully to the time when I'd just left school but was still only a 28" waist and used to buy boys jeans because I could still get into them and they were in fact a better, slimmer fit on me than the men's styles. It's probably optimistic to expect to be able to recapture that, but I'm able to pull my laces just a little bit tighter every few days so I'm certainly working on it!
I've always tended to look back rather wistfully to the time when I'd just left school but was still only a 28" waist and used to buy boys jeans because I could still get into them and they were in fact a better, slimmer fit on me than the men's styles. It's probably optimistic to expect to be able to recapture that, but I'm able to pull my laces just a little bit tighter every few days so I'm certainly working on it!
Saturday, 6 October 2012
Of cans... and the worms that lie therein
In a blog entry written round about this time last year, I concluded with the observation: "In an age increasingly dominated by revelations of sleaze amongst the rich and famous, it's a refreshing change to have come across a genuinely good person". Normally, I stand by what I write on here as being an accurate reflection of my thoughts and feelings, based on my own perceptions and experience. However, I'm neither omniscient, infallible nor clairvoyant and so I wasn't to know that other peoples' childhood memories of the late Jimmy Savile are considerably less happy and innocent than mine were.
The full story is yet to emerge. While I have considerable reservations about the principle of launching accusations against people who are dead and therefore unable to respond to them - and the cynic in me can't help wondering if there's a "me too" element involved with an eye on a prospective claim for compensation - can this many people really be making it all up? There's certainly a disturbing element of complicity and cover-up allegedly involved and a better-than-average chance that other famous names may get caught up in the fall-out.
Thinking back to when I was a teenager at the time, I'd have been an innocent victim, too. Would the word of an unknown 13- or 14- year old boy be believed against that of a "respected" broadcaster? Of course it wouldn't. Would I have been naive enough to believe that being groped - or worse - by a famous DJ was 'par for the course'? I might well have done, having overcome the initial shock. The "untouchables" rely on their victims' continuing silence, as well as on the co-operation of their accomplices. No-one, but no-one is in a position to blow the whistle.
What's going to eventually happen is at the moment pure conjecture. The police are still trying to build up a complete picture of the extent of what went on, and you can't of course prosecute a dead person - although you can strip someone posthumously of their knighthood (incidentally I think it's high time we ditched that particular anachronism which has its origins in medieval chivalry, but that's another story). But if a prima facie case is eventually made out, what good's it going to do? It's bound to give the victims some sort of satisfaction, certainly. Perhaps more significantly, it might at last make some headway towards encouraging other victims of abuse to come forward and take a firmer stand. As events in Rochdale have recently shown, the problem is still being swept under the carpet just as it apparently was thirty or more years ago.
The full story is yet to emerge. While I have considerable reservations about the principle of launching accusations against people who are dead and therefore unable to respond to them - and the cynic in me can't help wondering if there's a "me too" element involved with an eye on a prospective claim for compensation - can this many people really be making it all up? There's certainly a disturbing element of complicity and cover-up allegedly involved and a better-than-average chance that other famous names may get caught up in the fall-out.
Thinking back to when I was a teenager at the time, I'd have been an innocent victim, too. Would the word of an unknown 13- or 14- year old boy be believed against that of a "respected" broadcaster? Of course it wouldn't. Would I have been naive enough to believe that being groped - or worse - by a famous DJ was 'par for the course'? I might well have done, having overcome the initial shock. The "untouchables" rely on their victims' continuing silence, as well as on the co-operation of their accomplices. No-one, but no-one is in a position to blow the whistle.
What's going to eventually happen is at the moment pure conjecture. The police are still trying to build up a complete picture of the extent of what went on, and you can't of course prosecute a dead person - although you can strip someone posthumously of their knighthood (incidentally I think it's high time we ditched that particular anachronism which has its origins in medieval chivalry, but that's another story). But if a prima facie case is eventually made out, what good's it going to do? It's bound to give the victims some sort of satisfaction, certainly. Perhaps more significantly, it might at last make some headway towards encouraging other victims of abuse to come forward and take a firmer stand. As events in Rochdale have recently shown, the problem is still being swept under the carpet just as it apparently was thirty or more years ago.
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
Trial by Jury Facebook
His dream in ruins, the hapless Jeremy Forrest was hauled into a Bordeaux court this morning, handcuffed - and complete with a coat over his head! What was the point of that, incidentally: his photo was in every paper in the land last week, everyone knows what he looks like? Anyway, if all goes according to plan, the extradition will be finalized on Thursday and he'll be winging his way back shortly afterwards.
Talking of things going to plan (or rather not, as the case may be) the journos have been busy digging away to find out what really went on last week. The answer, we're told, is a staying in a seedy back-street hotel, living out of packed bags and subsisting off kebab takeaways. Oh, and the thing that "betrayed" him - the dodgy fake CV. Personally I'd have thought that was enough to tarnish the gilding a smidgeon on any fairytale romance, but maybe that's just me.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Megan Stammers, who was flown home on Saturday, has been staying at an "undisclosed location" being interviewed by the authorities (I do hope they're feeding her well after all those kebabs). Presumably she'll soon have to start back at school: I mean, she's had a week-and-a-half of 'unauthorized absence from school' already or hasn't anyone else cottoned on to that yet?
There's certainly been no shortage of comment on all this. After all, being a pupil at school is something almost everyone has had at least some personal experience of. One that struck a particular resonance with me is this one on pupils' changing perceptions of their teachers. Coincidentally I was just fifteen, when at my all-boys grammar school, we got our very first female teacher. Married (well, a Mrs at least), 40-ish and by swinging sixties standards somewhat frumpish, she was in our eyes definitely not flirt material. Her arrival to take our German O level classes nevertheless provided us 15-year old boys with something of a lively conversation topic, which soon descended into plumbing depths of hitherto uncharted vulgarity. Certainly no-one had a crush on her, and if she had one on any of us she kept it well hidden. Had she been on the other hand young, single and attractive (or even two out of the three) I can think of several of my ex-classmates who'd have been more than willing to test the water to see if they were in with a chance! Taking that line of thought one stage further, I'm willing to bet that - then as now - if a 15-year old boy had run off with a 30-year old married female teacher, the level of outright condemnation and frankly rather judgemental criticism would be much more muted.
Perhaps rather tantalizingly if cryptically, Jeremy's lawyer has indicated that we can "look forward to the full story emerging". Fair size chunks of it already have, courtesy of some determined ferreting. Some of it scrupulous, some less so. In my schooldays this would have seen the light of day in the form of a scandalous 'exposé' in the now-defunct News of the World. Now, thanks to the magic of the internet, considerable material can be amassed and pieced together bit by bit: a tweet here, a photo there, a wish list, a diary entry, a link.... there's a reason it's known as the "Web", you know. Everyone can play at being detective: forget privacy settings, a picture of sorts can still be assembled. It may be incomplete or inaccurate: stuff uploaded in all innocence or with the best of intentions can appear to assume a sinister significance far removed from the one its owner or author may have intended. The finger of guilt will point.
And maybe that's the moral in this story for all of us. If you're ever accused or suspected or wrongdoing, the thing that will hang, draw and quarter you - even if you're innocent - will be your Facebook page.
Talking of things going to plan (or rather not, as the case may be) the journos have been busy digging away to find out what really went on last week. The answer, we're told, is a staying in a seedy back-street hotel, living out of packed bags and subsisting off kebab takeaways. Oh, and the thing that "betrayed" him - the dodgy fake CV. Personally I'd have thought that was enough to tarnish the gilding a smidgeon on any fairytale romance, but maybe that's just me.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Megan Stammers, who was flown home on Saturday, has been staying at an "undisclosed location" being interviewed by the authorities (I do hope they're feeding her well after all those kebabs). Presumably she'll soon have to start back at school: I mean, she's had a week-and-a-half of 'unauthorized absence from school' already or hasn't anyone else cottoned on to that yet?
There's certainly been no shortage of comment on all this. After all, being a pupil at school is something almost everyone has had at least some personal experience of. One that struck a particular resonance with me is this one on pupils' changing perceptions of their teachers. Coincidentally I was just fifteen, when at my all-boys grammar school, we got our very first female teacher. Married (well, a Mrs at least), 40-ish and by swinging sixties standards somewhat frumpish, she was in our eyes definitely not flirt material. Her arrival to take our German O level classes nevertheless provided us 15-year old boys with something of a lively conversation topic, which soon descended into plumbing depths of hitherto uncharted vulgarity. Certainly no-one had a crush on her, and if she had one on any of us she kept it well hidden. Had she been on the other hand young, single and attractive (or even two out of the three) I can think of several of my ex-classmates who'd have been more than willing to test the water to see if they were in with a chance! Taking that line of thought one stage further, I'm willing to bet that - then as now - if a 15-year old boy had run off with a 30-year old married female teacher, the level of outright condemnation and frankly rather judgemental criticism would be much more muted.
Perhaps rather tantalizingly if cryptically, Jeremy's lawyer has indicated that we can "look forward to the full story emerging". Fair size chunks of it already have, courtesy of some determined ferreting. Some of it scrupulous, some less so. In my schooldays this would have seen the light of day in the form of a scandalous 'exposé' in the now-defunct News of the World. Now, thanks to the magic of the internet, considerable material can be amassed and pieced together bit by bit: a tweet here, a photo there, a wish list, a diary entry, a link.... there's a reason it's known as the "Web", you know. Everyone can play at being detective: forget privacy settings, a picture of sorts can still be assembled. It may be incomplete or inaccurate: stuff uploaded in all innocence or with the best of intentions can appear to assume a sinister significance far removed from the one its owner or author may have intended. The finger of guilt will point.
And maybe that's the moral in this story for all of us. If you're ever accused or suspected or wrongdoing, the thing that will hang, draw and quarter you - even if you're innocent - will be your Facebook page.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
