Category:

Old Chums and Great Passions

1/6/2014

A Midsummer Night's Dream (Nov 1970) - Ogmore-by-the-Sea

The wife’s gone off to London for the day (Saturday). She just rang - she’s having a coffee with Bob Mason , an old chum of mine from my teenage years in Wales (see photo left of the Glamorgan Schools' Theatre Company production of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream - Bob played Bottom and is photographed with donkey ears, end of third row on right - that’s me seated on end of second row left). We met up again in London about a decade later, around the time my son was born; my wife got to know him then too. Unbeknown to either of us, we’d both trained as actors at different schools in London. We saw a lot of him for a while and then he disappeared from our lives again until about three years back - he tracked me down through my website. He rang yesterday to say he was on a flying visit from Sweden and were we around to meet up? I wasn’t able to get up to London myself today as I had a pre-arranged appointment this afternoon with someone who is going to be doing some work for us. Judith however was actually visiting London today to see her lifelong hero Julie Andrews, who’s appearing on stage at the Hammersmith Apollo. Sadly, she no longer sings of course, but I think she tells anecdotes and is interviewed by Aled Jones. What’s for certain is that Judith will love it! And when I imagine the audience of two thousand odd adoring fans and think of my wife’s rapturous expression surrounded by all those like minded ‘brothers and sisters’, without being in any way snide, somehow I can’t help smiling.

We should all have at least one thing in this life that we really adore!

Judith and I consider ourselves extremely blessed because we’re enthusiastic about literally dozens of things. Reading is of course a shared lifelong passion. I’m currently reading Jane Eyre, which I’m almost ashamed to say I’d never picked up before, although I have seen numerous adaptations. When I was a boy the BBC took its remit to educate its audience very seriously, and every Sunday afternoon we were introduced to the Classics through various serialisations - I suspect Jane Eyre was first experienced in this way. I know the characters and story in the book very well, so unfortunately there are no great surprises as there might have been, however it is still a great book and remains after more than a hundred and fifty years a total page-turner.

On the subject of books: I am really pleased that lots of people have taken advantage of the ‘Pre-Summer Madness’ low-price promo for Niedermayer & Hart and Roadrage on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords (if reading on my website, full details in the column to the right of this blog post). I plan to allow this offer (especially as it’s not officially summer yet!) to run for a little while longer before putting the price up again. Thanks very much to everyone who has posted a review - this is an invaluable promotional tool and always greatly appreciated.

Enjoy your week!

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Richard and Jane

24/4/2014

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The elderly pair at the heart of this family portrait were my Great-Grandparents, Richard and Jane. They were the parents of my my maternal grandmother Gwenllian - who was generally just called Gwen. That’s her, my Nan, in the back row on the far left. She had long auburn hair and was considered quite a beauty in her day. However you never think about your own Nan in such terms. As far as I was concerned she was simply very kind and perhaps more importantly, because of the sometimes slightly mercenary nature of children, always generous. By the time I got to know her, her hair was totally white, just like mine is today. The only other person in the picture that I knew personally was Richard and Jane’s other daughter, Mary. She’s also in the back row, in the middle. Mary, or Bopa Mary (Bopa being Valleys’ dialect for Aunty) as I always called her, lived with us (as did my grandparents) from the time I was five.

This photograph is the only known entire family group of Richard and Jane and their four children. Their youngest son William is next to my grandmother, and the eldest son Tom is over on the far right. Richard and Jane had nine children, but infant mortality was particularly high in the South Wales Valleys during the Victorian era, and only these four survived to adulthood. They look proud of their family, and so they should be, because only a generation or so before their families were illiterate, itinerant labourers, who marked a cross for their names. Richard, who had been a collier himself as a young man, ended up with his own small butcher shop, and he and Jane between them produced two teachers - my Nan and her brother Tom, who actually ended up a Headmaster.The other brother William was an accountant. Mary, a real character, wasn’t very taken with learning, and was happy to leave school at eleven, but she was literate and numerate and had her own little shop in Trecynon, Aberdare. The lady seated beside Richard and Jane is Tom’s wife and the mother of their first three grandchildren. The pretty young girl standing next to Tom in the back row is his eldest daughter, who was sadly to die of appendicitis very shortly.

The picture has numerous stories to tell and I am so glad that my own son Tom took the time to sit down with my mother, (not yet born at the time it was taken) and get her to accurately name everyone in it. I calculate that the photograph was taken shortly after the First World War - perhaps as a reminder of how fortunate they had been to all come safely through it. I suspect the picture was taken by my grandfather - also called Martin like myself, who was a keen amateur photographer and who would have already been courting my Nan by this time. What I particularly love about the photograph is how relaxed and happy everyone looks - unusual for the rather stuffy group portraits more generally seen from this era. Another thing that makes it unusual is that it was taken outdoors in beautiful natural sunlight - most photographs from those times were shot inside against a studio backdrop.

Last weekend my wife Judith and I went for a long weekend to Cardiff. We met up with two descendants of Richard and Jane, themselves great-grandchildren like me. It was exciting and a little strange because I hadn’t seen them since I was ten or eleven. They are the children of the small boy in the sailor suit in the foreground. Like myself they were born several decades after both our great-grandparents had passed away.

When I do a quick calculation I reckon there are now something like twenty-four people currently alive who are directly descended from Richard and Jane.

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Sharing and People Building

11/4/2014

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I genuinely enjoy the experience of sitting down and writing. I find the daily practice totally absorbing, and almost without fail, by the time I’ve reached the end of my daily word quota, the five or six hours necessary seem to have flown by. However, after getting to the last page of a (very large first) draft, I found myself suffering from the non-life-threatening ailment of ‘writer’s butt’. So, I am taking a break from putting too much pressure on ‘it’ and getting down to some jobs requiring attention. I’m fairly easily satisfied in what I do, just as long as I’m fully engaged, however, I am incapable of doing nothing at all. One of life’s (many) little pleasures for me is an occasional bout of physical activity, but it has to have some goal in mind other than just being exercise. I mean, send me to the gym for a daily workout and by the end of a month I reckon I’d be a candidate for Prozac. But give me an overgrown garden to dig or tell me to hack off old plaster and I’ll be as happy as a sandboy!

Yesterday, my son Tom came round to help me re-felt the roof on our garden shed. It was a lovely warm, sunny day and really great after so many grey wet months to be working outside again. Judith, over breakfast this morning, clearly enjoyed pointing out that my scalp, once graced by long, thick, chestnut locks, but now hirsutely-challenged and therefore a little sensitive to ‘the eye of heaven’, was looking a bit red and shiny. In response to this wifely mocking I simply adopted a look of noble indifference and attended to my egg and soldiers.

Tom and I have been doing jobs together since he was very small. I recall we built shelves for his bedroom when he was about seven. I let him measure and cut and drill all the wood under my close supervision. It was a very slow process and a bit frustrating as I could have done it all by myself in about a tenth of the time. I recall him asking me with sober concern for my well-being if I’d mind him going off to watch his favourite serial The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on TV - once he’d gone off, after I’d said I thought I could probably cope on my own for a bit, I admit to punching the air gleefully at the thought of being finally able to crack on!

However, when we allow our children to assist and learn like this far more is being given than just a few basic skills - we are really building people. All around our home there is evidence of work shared in this way. It was the same back home in Wales when my Dad and I built a concrete base for his garage and took on many other tasks together. Dad had a great many fine qualities, but was surprisingly ungifted at most jobs requiring even quite rudimentary building or DIY skills - even so, it was still always fun to work together!

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Rain!

13/2/2014

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The weather here in the UK has been phenomenally wet of late. In fact it’s hard to recall a single day when it didn’t rain at some point within its twenty-four hour timespan. My wife, Judith, commented the other morning that it has become quite a rare sight to see the neighbours, mostly a cheery bunch who we generally stop and chat with. So, the weather is affecting our local social life - If you do happen to spot a neighbour these days they’re generally struggling to keep an umbrella in mid air whilst battling gale force winds. It’s always flippin’ raining! Well, it certainly seems like it is! Harumph! Harumph! And harumph again!

Judith, who works near a Kent reservoir and wildfowl centre, says that even the bird watchers, who are renowned for being all present and correct in every kind of weather, aren’t even bothering to turn up, because there just aren’t any birds about apparently! Don’t know where they’ve gone, she didn’t say. Personally I’d opt for somewhere like the Costa Dorada - I have a sister-in-law who lives there and she posted a picture today of her nice local beach, with the sea calm as milk, on Facebook. Grrr! Talk about rubbing salt in wounds!

Returning to the subject of birds, the pair of chirpy wood pigeons, a perky couple, who generally hang around on the oak tree at the back of our garden, sit hunched-up day after day on separate branches in the endless rain - frankly, the poor blighters look like they could do with Prozac! And they’re not the only ones feeling down in the dumps. A neighbour who works as a postman told me that he has done several deliveries recently where he has been out in non-stop torrential rain for his entire shift. He gets soaked, the mail gets soaked and the public then complain at him because their mail’s soaked. Even the odd passing dog on a lead looks like it might prefer to be at home - in front of the telly watching an old Scooby Doo episode perhaps?

I’m indulging in all manner of strange, previously unknown behaviour (for me that is!) like checking the daily weather forecast! I actually did something today that I have never done before and which I put down to the adverse effect the weather’s having on me. You see I work to a daily word quota when I’m writing a first draft and today, for the first time ever, I clocked that I’d hit my word count and literally just stopped mid-sentence. Mid sentence! I was feeling so darned apathetic that ....

Yes, I know, I’m whingeing, and I also know that there are hundreds of my fellow countrymen (women included of course) who are really suffering. There was one old feller of ninety-two on the radio news who had been cut off by floodwater and said he hadn’t seen a soul in days. Another elderly man was caring for a wife with Parkinson's disease who couldn’t be moved. There are hundreds and hundreds of people who have been without power for extended periods; people with potentially life-threatening illnesses who have to have a regular supply of medication; people who’ve been flooded out, their homes awash with contaminated water; people who have lost precious family heirlooms, or just about everything they own. It’s sickening to hear about the thieves who have been robbing the deserted properties of flood victims. But uplifting to hear the far more numerous reports of acts of generosity and kindness. Our emergency services continue to deliver help where needed day after day. They deserve our praise for their tireless efforts on our behalf.

The rain is getting on my nerves, but we live up on a hill, we’re warm, dry, and there’s nothing much to moan about really. I gave another exasperated shrug when I heard that after what had been a mostly dry day today, tomorrow there are more gales expected and more torrential rain.

But I guess it has to stop sometime. It does, doesn’t it?

The picture at the top is of Three Cliffs Bay on the Gower Peninsula, Wales. It has nothing whatever to do with this blog post. I took the photograph eighteen months back on a gloriously warm morning when I went for a walk and a swim with my son. My smiley face instantly returns when I think of it.

Chin up!

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Porthcawl

23/1/2014

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Grandfather with Mam at Porthcawl (c. 1930)

My father in true Welsh fashion loved nothing better than a humorous tale with a touch of the grave about it. He could tell a story marvellously; there was one I heard him relate many times, and no matter how many times it got told, I always received it with great appreciation. It's feasible that he embellished it a little over time; but be fair, what story worth its salt can't bear a touch more seasoning?

This story took place sometime in the late forties/early fifties, before I was actually born.

Dad's uncle John was old, he had been a widower for some years and now lived with one of his two sisters in our hometown of Aberdare in the Cynon Valley. It had been one of those grim winters, cold, damp and endlessly grey, the sort where all you can do is grit your teeth and battle on. By the end of it, Uncle John, physically lugubrious by nature, was looking thinner than ever and pale as a ghost. His loving sisters implored him to take an early holiday, and listening to their good advice, he booked himself a week at Porthcawl.

I should perhaps say something about Porthcawl here. It sits on the Glamorganshire coast, faces out towards the Atlantic and is renowned for its bracing sea air. My parents, who didn't know a package holiday until they were in their fifties, loved Porthcawl, as indeed did most of their friends and contemporaries. In our valleys home in those days, grimy, dark and polluted from the coal industry, its lifeblood, the seaside town of Porthcawl, its air bursting with ozone, had a reputation bordering on the mythic. A visit there was the standard treatment for any respiratory ailment. My mother was a Porthcawl defender to the death; she absolutely loved the place - to Mam's mind spending a week there would tune and tone up anyone. Two weeks would get you into tip-top condition; three weeks and it wouldn't have been too great a stretch of the imagination to expect blind men to see or the lame to walk. Yes, Porthcawl was a tonic!

Anyway, Uncle John booked his week at Porthcawl and as anticipated, returned thoroughly refreshed. Unfortunately, shortly after his return he was taken ill, and having a dicky heart and a bad chest after his life as a miner, suffered a very serious heart attack and sadly died. My father, as a loving nephew and also in his capacity as secretary of the chapel, went along to the house to pay his respects. He took a cup of tea and the sandwich offered in the room the family used for meals and for all its daily negotiations. They talked warmly of Uncle John and reflected on his kindness and generosity and the good times they'd all shared. Then my father's aunts invited Dad into the 'front room' - this room was sacrosanct in those days, kept only for important occasions - and it was here that Uncle John had been laid to rest in his coffin, chapels of rest being considered cold, uncivilised affairs in Wales back in those days. My father, bearing the appropriate gravitas for a deacon stood beside the sisters to pay his last respects.

Dad said the undertaker to his mind had been a little too free and easy with the rouge, because Uncle John hadn't looked anything like that well in decades. This was a view clearly shared by Dad's aunts, who perhaps in light of the sensitive and melancholic nature of the occasion had chosen to ignore the mortician's artistry.

My father, always had a twinkle in his eye as he told how his aunts stood admiringly before their late brother.

It was Annie I think who felt moved to announce proudly to her sister Maggie, "You know, Mag, that week in Porthcawl did him the world of good! Look at the colour in his cheeks!"

Porthcawl does have the most marvellous air!

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Cymraeg

12/12/2013

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'Mynd' magazine August/September 1966

I've started to learn Welsh (Cymraeg). I grew up in a home with one parent fluent in both English and Welsh and the other one (Mother), who although she had a solid understanding of her native tongue, lacked the confidence to engage in conversation with more able Welsh language speakers. Despite attending a Welsh speaking chapel throughout our childhood, my brother and I, without the benefit of Welsh being spoken at the hearth-side, grew up with only English. This is something I've often regretted deeply and always meant to remedy. Thing is, it's hard to commit to learning something new, not that Welsh is of course an entirely new thing for me.

I did Welsh up to O Level - the equivalent of a GCSE when I was in school. I really enjoyed the subject and tended to be fairly good at it. However, learning a language formally via the text book and speaking it as it is spoken are two very different things. I was talking to one of my brothers-in-law yesterday evening on this very subject. He, like most of my wife's brothers and sisters, has whatever the necessary gene is for language learning. As children they also had the benefit of spending their summer holidays on a campsite in Spain among kids from half a dozen other European nations. When you're a child you don't stop to find out if your last sentence was eloquently put or wholly grammatical in its structure - you just say it! My brother-in-law describes himself as a 'guerilla language speaker' - he explained: 'I'm not worried about making mistakes. I don't mind getting dirty, I simply get down in there and start speaking.'

My wife has often spoken of her Dad's Herculean efforts to learn Spanish. He studied tapes and text books in his dressing room in Drury Lane, but whenever he got over to Spain and tested it out on the natives, he found people just looked confused or thought him crazy. He had learned the poetic language of Cervantes - "Landlord bring forth a flagon of thy foaming ale , that I may quaff it!"

See the problem?

His wife on the other hand was a natural 'guerilla' language speaker and like her children got right in there, low-down, mean 'n' dirty, regardless of all the mistakes she was no doubt making.

My wife Judith, who has always considered herself honorary Welsh, has taken up the learning challenge with me. I do of course have an advantage, as discussed above, with Welsh. However, she was born with an innate interest in everything, has a large propensity for learning, may actually be part parrot I think; and I do have a little niggling worry that in a very short time she will be up at the bar telling rude jokes in Welsh with the boys, while I sit lonely and confused on the sidelines!

They say it's always good to express your innermost fears!

The internet is of course a great resource for any kind of learning and BBC Wales has loads of lessons and help to offer any Welsh learner. The magazine Mynd (verb 'To Go') pictured above, was at the heart of Welsh language learning at the the time I started secondary school and contained sections for every ability level. As I'm a hoarder, I still have all of mine - incidentally 1/3d (one shilling and threepence) was in pre-decimal currency approximately 8p - I'm not sure this would buy you a fruit chew today!

Onward and upward!

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Hiraeth to Hamlet

23/10/2013

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We've had a busy few days recently and several late nights - but who cares? I no longer possess a complexion worth getting to sleep early to conserve!

Quite incredibly, it's been nearly a year since my mother passed away, and although my emotions aren't as raw as they were in the weeks immediately following her death, there remains a great sadness when I think of the almost constant loneliness she suffered during her final years. I have an old bureau that was originally purchased by my grandfather around the time of WW1 and which always held a prominent position in our family home. I associate it with my parents, and since I've inherited it, whenever one of its glass doors swings open unannounced (a matter of a worn-out locking mechanism, not ghosts!) my wife and I always greet it with a cheery, "Hallo Mam!" Occasionally both doors open simultaneously and when this happens we welcome my Dad too. It's comforting to own a piece of furniture that connects me to family - its very presence brings to me an incontrovertible sense of belonging at least somewhere in this great big world! I can only imagine how devastating it must be for refugees fleeing from an oppressor, still an all too frequent reality, people running for their lives and forced to abandon all else.

Yes, Tommy Cooper was born in Caerphilly!

Because of my long adopted practice of visiting my mother for several days at a time every six weeks, I'd recently found myself experiencing the phenomenon we Welsh call 'hiraeth' - it translates into English as 'longing' but this doesn't nearly do it justice - the word conjures-up in us 'Taffs' an umbilical link to hearth and homeland. Anyway. the opportunity to return home arrived by way of an invitation to a birthday party in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire - near enough to Wales to plan a long weekend! We left late on Thursday evening and stayed for two nights near the town of Caerphilly in south-east Wales. On Friday we explored the town and were both struck by the friendliness of its people. In the afternoon we visited Caerphilly's impressive, moated Norman castle, built by the immensely powerful Gilbert de Clare in 1268. We agreed that the quite extensively restored areas enhanced the experience positively, as too did some highly imaginative audio/visual presentations. It was well worth the visit and comes highly recommended. Later on that afternoon we got ourselves pretty much lost on top of a mountain whilst trying to navigate our way to Pontypridd. The mountain sheep eyed us with disinterest, a hill runner gave us a cheerful wave as we drove by, and the only car we passed stopped for a humorous exchange in true 'valleys' fashion.

On Saturday we drove the twelve miles into Cardiff, enjoyed its marvellous shopping precinct and met up with some friends for a chat. We were very lucky with weather, and just as it began to rain with a not unprecedented ferocity for Wales, we were fortunate enough to be heading east along the M4 towards our new accommodation in Wiltshire for Saturday night. We were given impeccable directions by our hotel receptionist to the birthday party's location, which turned out to be a terrific evening. The entertainment was provided by a really accomplished local band called The Dubious Brothers. They must've known I was coming because they covered just about every one of my favourite songs from the last four or five decades! We drove home on Sunday morning and after picking up the week's shopping, didn't overtax ourselves for the rest of the day.

Yesterday we had another late night as we'd booked to see 'Hamlet', an NT Live encore production to mark the National Theatre's fiftieth anniversary. We were told that the showing marked exactly fifty years since Peter O'Toole's performance as the Dane in the National's very first production of the play, then staged at the Old Vic and directed by Laurence Olivier. The central role in our version was comfortably inhabited by Rory Kinnear, Patrick Malahide brought the corrupt Claudius to sleazy life, James Laurenson was a powerfully moving ghost and David Calder brought much warmth and humour to Polonius. I shan't go on with listing, it was directed by Nicholas Hytner with crystal clarity, and for this reason might have been especially worth seeing for anyone coming to the play for the first time. I for one found myself totally engaged throughout the entire performance.

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Co-operation

29/8/2013

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I find myself naturally inclined towards any organisation that promotes or aims to develop co-operation between human beings. I love everything about that word 'co-operation': the way it looks, way it sounds (for me it's onomatopoeic), but most especially what it means. Just about every war in the history of the world seems to have ended with virtually the same people who couldn't find one darn item to agree upon at the start, sitting round a table and co-operating. The word co-operation is defined as - 'the action or process of working together to the same end'. I recall tears springing to the eyes of my late father in law once when I played him a recording I owned of a Welsh male voice choir. He said that what always moved him was the idea of men working together and raising their voices to produce the most beautiful harmonies. Of course I undersood what he meant, and I hope this doesn't sound patronising to younger folk, but perhaps I hadn't lived long enough at that time to fully 'get it' - but I certainly do now!

George Martin Thomas

The Co-operative Movement has always interested me a great deal too. My grandfather, George Martin Thomas, was manager of the Home Furnishings Department of Aberdare Coop in the 1930s and early 40s. In its heyday it was a department store that the community was immensely proud of. Every town had its Coop branch, and I recall my mother taking her passbook with her each time she shopped, to have her 'dividend' added. We actually lived in Trecynon, one of the villages around Aberdare, but this community too had a small Coop for groceries.

A Welshman, Robert Owen (1771 - 1858), is generally regarded as the father of the co-operative movement, though his early attempts to set-up co-operative communities in both Scotland and the US ultimately failed. However, in 1844, twenty-eight men, inspired and influenced by Owen, started what we recognise as Co-operation today, and became known as the Rochdale Pioneers. We need to reflect on the social conditions of the time to fully appreciate their sense of solidarity and commitment. In the 1840s, life expectancy was approximately twenty-one, bosses could cut wages because unemployment was high, and shops often adulterated foodstuffs and 'doctored' weights and measures. The Rochdale Pioneers started by each setting aside 2d (two old pence) a week until they had each saved £1 - the sum they set for membership. By my reckoning, with there being 240 pennies in a pre-decimal pound, this would have taken them about two and a half years - impressive to think of their grit and determination. They devised a set of eight principles to work by. These were based on democratic rights and fair dealing, open membership, political and religious tolerance, and the promotion of education amongst its members. Once they had raised £28 they rented a property, and what was left after repair and renovation was used to purchase their first stock. They were laughed at initially, and mocked by some of the other shopkeepers. However by the end of the first year they had increased their membership to seventy-four and had a surplus of £22. The movement thrived, and by 1860 it had spawned six branch stores and had nearly three and a half thousand members.

There's a huge amount of stuff about Co-operatives on Line. If you're interested in further research The National Co-operative Archive site is well worth taking a peek at.

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Birthday Cache!

7/8/2013

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All my birthday presents were spot on this year, all well considered items I truly liked. I'm pleased to say, there wasn't even one dreadful tie, despicable pair of socks, or that most feared pressie of all, the 'thing' that has literally 'done the rounds' until its packaging is too bashed and no longer presentable enough to be offered as a 'first-hand gift'. Undoubtedly it is doomed to end up back in the Charity Shop where it probably began its life - who knows, perhaps they can refit it with a new box there and send it back out on the road again for another few thousand miles!. You know those films that never manage a cinema release and are labelled 'straight to DVD' - well I reckon there are probably gifts like that too, things like Foot Spas; Bread Makers; Odourless Deep-Fat Fryers; Golf Ball Shaped Digital Alarm Clocks; Crepe Making Machines; Fat Free Grills; Fizzy Drink Dispensers - it would be far easier for all concerned if they were stamped on their box at the time of manufacture 'Straight to Charity'.

Anyway, I didn't get any of these (he says gloatingly)! Apart from a few items of clothing I really liked, I received a bumper stack of books (that were already on my wish-list) and DVDs - either things people already knew I loved and would like to own, or things they knew I hadn't seen yet but definitely wanted to watch. I was particularly delighted to receive a copy of the 1953 film Valley of Song. It starred Clifford Evans, Mervyn Johns, John Fraser, Maureen Swanson and was directed by Gilbert Gunn. The film itself was based on a stage play called Choir Practice by Cliff Gordon. I kicked myself each time this film was dusted off and shown on British Television over the years - not because of the film itself, but because my grandfather George Martin Thomas, who ran a tiny General Stores just a little way up Alan Road from Llandeilo railway station (which became the station of the fictional village Cwmpant in the story), is an extra in one of the railway scenes. The film itself is whimsical and rather charming, a comedy drama that belongs to a far gentler age than our own. However, it is still very entertaining and engaging - marvellous to see some great British character actors like Rachel Thomas and a young Rachel Roberts in action. The story is simple and revolves around a feud that is unwittingly started by the recently returned to the village new choir master (Clifford Evans) when he gives a coveted role in the annual oratorio to someone
unexpectedly. The film is relatively short, just 70 minutes long, and is very amusing.

It was fun also to see a very young Kenneth Williams delivering just one line, and an equally youthful Ronald Lewis who plays the part of a non-speaking youthful miner, part of a singing foursome. As a young actor recently out of drama school, I had the great pleasure of working on a stage production of Alan Bennett's Habeas Corpus with Ronnie at Plymouth Theatre Company nearly thirty years later.

And did I spot my 'Dadcu' you'll be asking? Not sure. My wife shouted out, "That's him!" - unfortunately she did this in every railway scene (approx 5 or 6) and I firmly believe he's only in the one! I think I'll have to run the thing again, slow it down and use the recently discovered zoom button on my remote.

Couldn't have done that on VHS! Aren't DVDs great?

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31 - 7 - 13

31/7/2013

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The Author as Zorro

When I woke up this morning I planned to write my weekly blog post on an aspect of British social history - a subject very dear to my heart. The reason for this sudden change of tack? Explained in a single word - palindrome. I sat down after breakfast with a mug of tea to get going on my daily word quota for the first draft of the book I'm currently working on. I'm quite methodical in the way I work, and always number and date subsequent drafts, so when I 'Saved As' I noticed today's date was a palindrome. Okay, I know in the US dates are recorded with the month appearing first, but here in the UK we Brits do it differently - day, month, year - so definitely a palindrome, see! Do I detect a note of ennui here, the odd cry of 'So what'? Let me explain the reason for my excitement: today also happens to be my birthday. And although I'm quite
renowned for my lack of mathematical dexterity, by my reckoning, this won't be happening to my birthdate again for a hundred years. Whilst I do of course have every hope of being there in 2113 to celebrate my birthday, I don't generally plan that far ahead!

So, birthday, mine, today, palindrome, wow! (Well, okay - maybe just a bit wowish)

I can't deny that I occasionally experience the' black dog' referred to by Churchill for periods of depression. However, most of the time I remain pretty optimistic and cheerful, at least this is what those closest to me say. I once worked with someone who if you wished him, "Good morning!" would at once respond with, "Really, what's good about it?" Believe me, it was hard
work!

Despite the potentially auspicious nature of my palindromic birthday, I have no plans to do anything particularly 'special' today, which is actually just how I like it. Sometimes we'll celebrate a birthday, but for me it's really a day for quiet appreciation - the flipside of the coin marked 'expectation' is 'dissatisfaction', and I really have nothing at all to be dissatisfied about. Our whole Western culture seems to be obsessed with the word 'special' - that special occasion, special holiday, special day, special person, special thing! Occasionally, I have stood
stock still in Southborough Woods, listening to the birdsong and feasting my eyes on the splendour and beauty that surrounds me, and tried to imagine how truly awesome this experience would be if I was hearing and seeing it for the first time. I guess what I'm saying is that whether a time or place is 'special' is almost entirely down to me and my perception of
it.

Every day I wake up next to a woman I adore (always the same one I hasten to add!). We have a great many interests in common and we laugh a lot. We are not affiliated to a particular religious doctrine, although we both choose to live our lives along spiritual lines. Every morning before she goes off to her place of work we spend ten minutes together in silent meditation. Then I make a cup of tea and I sit down and write. I find the experience endlessly
absorbing.

Some years back, a senior executive in a major publishing house urged me to trust him that my book Niedermayer & Hart was "Going to happen" - about two years later, when it clearly wasn't, I felt thoroughly crestfallen. It took me a while to get over it and as the song goes, pick myself up, dust myself down, and start all over again! Everyone who writes must occasionally entertain a fantasy that their work will ascend into stratospheric orbit, like Harry Potter. I doubt J K Rowling ever expected her work to be received in quite the way it has been. All I can say is, that today, on my birthday, I am delighted (and a little bit proud) to have written two books. A few weeks back Niedermayer & Hart received this brilliant reader review from someone who won one of two copies in a Goodreads Giveaway and was kind enough to write down what she thought of it - believe me, it is incredibly gratifying when someone truly 'gets' what you've written. My other book Roadrage (published June 2013), a psychological thriller, is acquiring reviews slowly, but what there has been so far is good.

So, as I sit here before my computer screen drafting this blog on my palindromic birthday, wearing a new T-shirt my wife presented me with this morning (along with some other great stuff), and looking forward to seeing my son Tom and his girlfriend Lou who are coming round later, I feel pretty happy with my lot in life. I have a lot to be grateful for!

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