November 8, 2003

  • Well, you see, I was going to give this piece to Tiffy Witherington you know, it being Wales and the place called Mountain Ash and like, but no.



      If anyone thinks that my fiction blog about someone born in Wales IS all fiction, then, Dydw i ddim yn deall, because my mother taught me Welsh, her being from Barry, and if you think that I am, uh Arglwidd maw’l, making this all up like, well, I am not see.



    Anyway, as I was saying, we, my family and I, were staying with some cousin in Mountain Ash, and I, coming from the Derbyshire coal field, and being, oh, say nine, was fascinated like, about the difference with these miners, they were singing see. What these miners thought of the daft looking English minor watching them was not said, they were good Christian folk and were not in a habit of being rude to a child, any child, even one that must have been y diawl bach to them.



      Galla, wrth gwrs, the main difference was these miners were singing going to work, not swearing, not spitting, not mumbling, but actually singing yes, well, you can imagine what that seemed like to a child. Anyway, to carry on, right in front of me a miner fell, a doctor were called, the coal board was informed, and soon the Reverend Trontby (shall we call him) came. It was no good, the poor lad, and he were only a lad, was dead. There was no work that day, not in that pit in Mountain Ash, even the Coal Board understood public relations, but the miners still went to the pithead.



      So did I, with a thousand Welsh children, with they speaking a mixure of (then still banned in schools) Welsh, and a bitter English. “You are not from these parts are you?” “No, Clowne, they have coalfields too, Creswell is one of them.” Creswell Colliery was infamous for it’s tragic pit accident, in about 1970 I wrote a song about the disaster, it is still sang in the folk clubs I am sure, but I bet it’s wrote by “Anon” by now.



      Anyway, I was one of them, I lived in a pit village, and though I might have been autistic, I knew, animal like, that if I mixed with others, I would get fed. Of course I had forgotten about my parents like, you know what they say, out of sight, out of mind, I am still like that I am afraid, and I never remember birthdays. The police found me delighting the locals by eating lava bread, bread made out of seaweed. Among those warming to me was the sad little girl who had just lost her father, I was special, and didn’t the police know it.



      The next day my parents said nothing to me except to get in the car. Mum was proud that her brain damaged young son was praised by a whole town, and my father was angry because he had wanted to go back to Barry and the beach.



      Who needs empathy? It was events like the above that made me understand life even without ever really understanding it.



      I shall leave this as top entry for a few days, I have a busy week in many ways coming ahead.



      Pop hwyi i ti.



    ————————–



    “Lord Pineapple”

November 7, 2003

  • sometimes I just feel like killing myself. I try so hard to make friends, but I have Aspergers Syndrome, and so have one tone, one voice, and what to me could be a stab at friendly banter, usually what someone directs at me, could to another be very insulting.


    I am so pissed off with life, 56 years I have suffered with this lack of empathy, but it never gets any easier.


    I left this comment on someone’s guestbook, but let it serve also as my own millstone. Perhaps I should give up, perhaps I should kill myself. Life has been shit for me, a fiction writer with no empathy!


    I learn by rote, from books, from everything, I learn to show I care, “pretend I care” some will say, as if a person can’t care when he has no empathy?


    I am flesh, I am bone, I am mind, I am soul. I understand, and I try to love, but at the end it all comes down to the fact I really AM a loser.


    Terry.


    Another Entry Sunday, If I don’t pack it in, and God I feel like doing so, packing it in, not the blog, but life.


     


    Terry.


     


    And this blog is my truthful  blog.


     


    Our lips in a liquid pilcher

    Are so gently rolling

    Sleep in a corner

    Chiseling away the sharp walls

    From around our secret whispers.





    You drop a smile

    I pick it up, place it on a

    Passing cloud,

    It rains softly

    Throughout the morning.





    I drop a tear,

    You swing on it like a child

    Your coat open to

    The moments of another hour.





    Even rain can be a blessing

    To a man in a desert.

     

    ________

    ff % 243

     

    _______________________

    Cut & Paste.


    Asperger’s syndrome was first described by a German doctor, Hans Asperger, in 1944 (one year after Leo Kanner’s first paper on autism). In his paper, Dr. Asperger discussed individuals who exhibited many idiosyncratic, odd-like behaviors (see description below).

    Often individuals with Asperger’s syndrome have many of the behaviors listed below:


    Language:



    • lucid speech before age 4 years; grammar and vocabulary are usually very good
    • speech is sometimes stilted and repetitive
    • voice tends to be flat and emotionless
    • conversations revolve around self


    Cognition



    • obsessed with complex topics, such as patterns, weather, music, history, etc.
    • often described as eccentric
    • I.Q.’s fall along the full spectrum, but many are in the above normal range in verbal ability and in the below average range in performance abilities.
    • many have dyslexia, writing problems, and difficulty with mathematics
    • lack common sense
    • concrete thinking (versus abstract)


    Behavior



    • movements tend to be clumsy and awkward
    • odd forms of self-stimulatory behavior
    • sensory problems appear not to be as dramatic as those with other forms of autism
    • socially aware but displays inappropriate reciprocal interaction

    Researchers feel that Asperger’s syndrome is probably hereditary in nature because many families report having an “odd” relative or two. In addition, depression and bipolar disorder are often reported in those with Asperger’s syndrome as well as in family members.

    At this time, there is no prescribed treatment regimen for individuals with Asperger’s syndrome. In adulthood, many lead productive lives, living independently, working effectively at a job (many are college professors, computer programmers, dentists), and raising a family.

    Sometimes people assume everyone who has autism and is high-functioning has Asperger’s syndrome. However, it appears that there are several forms of high-functioning autism, and Asperger’s syndrome is one form

November 6, 2003

  • Today lets look into the future of my fiction blogs, three of which have gone premium. This is the truthful blog (ignoring the poem below plucked out of an old diary!) And so let the truth be out to the few who does not know. The first Xanga blog I begun was Three-Headed Sarahs’ merely to collect all the poems together, recently there’s Tiffy Witherington and Wee Duncan Douglas.


     


    Fiction blogs: Are they an insult to the comment books the “user” signs or are they an exciting new art form in emergence, an art form that under better hands than I would rock the world.


     


    We have all read of blogs that lie, that pretend to come from heroes and not wimps, and even I was foolish enough to start one in pretence of childhood (though of course in the innocence that is my broken mind). But what if there are blogs that really WANT to be works of fiction, and don’t tell me that all blogs on Xanga are fully the truth!


     


    Anyway, fiction blogs, an insult or an art-form, this comment will be repeated another time if necessary. So WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS?


     


    Terry, Lord Pineapple.

November 3, 2003

  • “Auntie Velda” poem I wrote in college, well, a seedy little dump for lost teenagers who hadn’t a f***** clue!

    _____________



    You know that in theory

    Her heart is in the right place,

    But you did wish that Auntie Velda

    Wouldn’t clean your

    Pokey little college room

    (Where those who arrive late first term

    Are sent to live)

    And a thousand bugs roam.



    Here you are living in College

    And your Auntie Velda arrives,

    “Your nanny told me to clean up for you

    You untidy little bugger!”

    She grins

    Before giving you a bloody Mcdonalds

    And there’ll she be,

    Her bum in the hair

    And there she would spray

    Poisoning the air!



    “It’s good for you nephew”,

    She grins with a lipstick mouth

    “I know, I’ll light a cigar,

    That’ll get rid of the smell!”



    You mean, who the f*** is she?

    Your mother mutters “sorry,

    It is a long story Charles”



    The other students are gigging,

    Say that we are “‘avin it oof!”

    God God, don’t let Lucy know!

    That would be a bitter blow.



    She gave you a hand job yesterday

    And kissed you on your lips

    And left you in the middle

    Of your wrecked room.



    Are they in league together

    Is this some ghastly show

    On bloody Sky telly?

    Oh no!



    “Good God, Auntie Velda!”

    “It’s bloody six o clock!”

    “Got to go to cousin’s granddaughter

    Over at St. Hughs”

    She quite fancies you really?

    Is she in it for the sex?

    Have you got some condom’s handy?

    “AUNTIE!” you cry

    “Jump up on the bed!”



    She sniffs and looks down

    Then said “she saw stiffer pricks

    In Russia,

    And go and put some clothes on!

    Tell your messy girl friend

    To bounce up and down on you!”



    She’s still cleaning, poor lady,

    You creep out at 7:30

    “She’s in there Charlie!”

    Peter would cry,

    “Cor, bit heavy old chap,

    But if it suits yer!”



    Have you died and entered hell,

    Are them imps in her bottom,

    Why are you so unwell!



    You’re only one in for breakfast

    At eight on sunday morning,

    The chef and kitchen porter

    Swear insults into the hall

    “I have young family,

    Please Sir, don’t sign on again,

    Get your Auntie Velda

    To cook your birthday pie!”



    You guessed he meant something rude

    You sit in zero degrees,

    Your breath has steamed the windows

    You are living death!



    “Please no more God!”

    You’ll wake up shouting

    To swearing all round the thin walls

    “Charles is knocking the pecker again

    Dreaming of Auntie Velda!”

     

    —

    Terry.


November 2, 2003

  • You know, whatever else I do, I must keep this blog open. This is the truth, this is the pain.


    I must return to my childhood, so much left to say, I have not even mentioned Cyprus.


    But other truths some days drag me out. Sophie Lucy Morgan, there was a blog which was doomed to failure, if I had any sense at all, I would have realised that blogs do not work like newspaper columns. My column was famous in the way it helped children. The old ladies who no longer visit my sites are not the same old ladies who wanted me to get a Queen’s gong for helping children.


    Funny world, I just think I am understanding it, my aspergar’s (that came with my stupid brain) just feels as if it’s going, and a new lot of people hate me, and as usual I haven’t a fucking clue why.


    But I must not feel sorry for myself, I am a writer, I write, I will not get upset because people who liked my blogs no longer visit them, I have a new lot of readers, until I upset them in some mysterious way!


    I was not on the newspaper job long, when someone rang the office asking if the editor wanted to judge a “Bonnie Baby” contest. He didn’t. Muggins here, (who had just became a father again) went.


    Well, there were only ten babies, most of them looking identical, but there was a cute little boy who melted my heart, a ten-month old black child. I judged the black child to have won.


    I forgot about the fascism of certain country women.


    “What’s that little nigger got that my child hasn’t?”


    “Sorry?” I said, not believing my ears.


    “Well, I’m judging now, and no little chocolate drop is going to win!”


    I said nothing, I started to write though.


    “Who said you could take part anyway, take your monkey to the trees!”


    The racist was not some trashy common woman, this was a woman whose husband had wealth.


    In the end I took the poor black lady and prizeless baby to her house, and I wrote the whole shite  into a column. The editor publised it. Someone tried to get the editor to fire me, the NUJ said there’ll be a national strike if they did…


    The racist “lady” made a grovelling apology to me, the paper and black people.


    But I never judged a baby competion again!


     


    Terry.


     














    Isis Lock, Oxford


    I made some powerful enemies working for the rag (newspaper) and now I have a blog that contains the truth. A few people out there, maybe even MI5 (Our FBI) are out to silence me! (More of this to follow, though I do promise a lot of laughter too!)







    “Who will remember you when…” (For my late Great-Uncle Frank.)



    Who will remember these flowers

    When we are dead,

    When the last of us comrades

    Lie asleep in our bed?



    Who will remember your dreams

    Your names or your faces,

    When our last farewell’s

    Leave these cold places?



    Who will remember you Jack,

    Bill, Tom or Fred,

    Or the war that you fought for

    Or where you lay dead?



    Who will remember you then

    When our little band

    Have gone from this world

    And this uncaring land?



    Who will weep for you when

    All your brave souls

    Are just the silent history

    That nobody knows?



    Who will remember you, brothers?

    Who will remember you, friends?

    Who will stand here and weep for you

    In tears without end?



    ——————–


    Comment: Finally wrote this poem in 2002, over thirty years after I accompanied my dying Great Uncle to the Flanders poppy-fields, where under heavy rain we spent a hour looking at identical stones, and Uncle Frank turned to me and said, “When I am gone, there will be no one left to cry for my friends who died in the First World War.”



    This poem serves as such a memory.

     

    Lord Pineapple.







    More poems

     

    to come!

     

    More of everything!

November 1, 2003

  • What is “Well-Dressing?”

      Lets ask a guide-site first shall we? Google…



    http://www.peakleisure.co.uk/well_dressing_in
    _derbyshire  will do.



    Well dressing is thought to have originated from Pagan times, a ritual performed to give thanks for the supply of fresh water. Another school of thought claims that the Romans introduced the custom into Britain, the philosopher Seneca ” where springs or rivers flow we should build altars or make sacrifices.” Another suggestion connects the celebration with various outbreaks of plague, certainly the wells at Eyam were used as a means of outside contact during the 1600′s.



    Whatever the true origin, the ceremony of well dressing is peculiar to the County of Derbyshire and the fringe areas. Tissington, recorded as dressing a well in 1349, is the oldest authenticated instance of well dressing in Derbyshire. The well dressing programme starts in early April and runs through until mid September.



    A mosaic picture, built up from natural materialsflower petals, seeds, grasses, leaves, tree bark, berries and moss  is pressed into a 1 inch base of puddled clay, which is held within a wooden frame. The shape of the frames is almost as varied as the choice of theme. Some frames are sectional or recessed and have additions made over the years, the size is roughly 4 to 5 feet wide and 5 to 6 feet high, pinnacles and embellishments can add to this height.



    Some well committees abide strictly to the rules of natural materials whereas others are more flexible in their approach to ” natural materials .” The themes for the well dressings were more usually of a religious nature, but recently, more modern themes have been adopted. For the 2000 Millennium year Derbyshire County Council asked the various well committees to adopt a literary theme.



    There are no hard and fast rules of constructing a well dressing, but within the following guidelines, the well dressing takes shape.



    To prevent the clay from drying out, a week before the scheduled date of the well dressing, the wooden frame is immersed in water for about 7 days. The clay is then hand picked to extract all the small stones and other debris from the mass, water is gradually added to the clay which is contained in an old bath. The technical term for this operation is ‘puddling ‘, the resulting revolting looking potage is trowelled to a depth of an inch into the previous soaked wooden frame



    The weight of the puddled clay in the frame averages around 3 cwts, again, this weight depends on the size of the frame



    An outline of the chosen picture is enlarged to the same scale as the intended well design, which is then laid on the puddled clay and pricked through with a needle. This results in an outline of the design being transferred to the clay base.



    This pricked out outline on the clay base, is then either marked out with peppercorns or with black wool inserted along the lines of the design with a knitting needle.



    Working from the base of the frame upwards, the outline of the picture is gradually filled in by pressing the chosen natural materials into the clay base. As a guide for those working on the well design, a coloured interpretation of the intended finished picture is used for colouring guidance. On average, depending on the size of the design, it takes about 20 people about 7days build the picture up to completion.



    Some well committees are secretive in their choice of theme, only unveiling the finished well dressing on completion, whereas others welcome watchers, even advertising their venue and inviting bystanders to watch the well dressing frame being made up into the finished picture. Bystanders can be encouraged to press in a few petals.



    The finished well dressing is transported to the site either by flat trailer or brawn, to be blessed by the local clergy. The completed well dressing usually stays in place for a week, although the weather can play a big part in the longevity of the dressing, hot causing the clay to crack, spraying gently with water can prolong the life of the local ” work of heart”.

    ____________________________



    Sounds so simple doesn’t it? But my first job as a young married reporter of 22, was to help to create one with the local schools and write about my experience.



    A piece of cake! Standing around and watch clever little children make a picture out of petals and berries and so on. But the poor kids hadn’t a clue, and nor had I. The teacher who did know had just been sacked for breaking a boy’s arm. And I, having moved in the area one week before had no idea of this.

      And nor did I, (who lived in this area until the age of 14 then aged 16-19) know anything about flower-arranging.

      “Sort it out!” the editor snapped on the other end of the phone. We found an old lady, she proved the only one among us with any artistic talent. The two girls and the boy were 15, and had won art competions in school. I felt sorry for the poor kids at first, until they forgot to turn up again. The old lady was a dragon!



      “Terry, i said MAUVE petals, they are purple!” I couldn’t tell the difference, in fact I still can’t.

      “Shirley, have the box-leaves blown away?”

      “No, I took them off, your tree looked like a house!”

      Her style of art though was more Klee and Kandinsky than picture postcard, her baby Jesus had three legs. “The other one is God’s” she explained.



      With wind, incessant rain and night-time vandals attacking us, we finished an amazingly good picture, a nativity scene, not one for the puritans though, I still don’t see why a cow should have been pissing on the cradle, and yet I was not allowed to write MY views, (“who cares for the views of a moronic cup-reporter?”) We had to pretend that it was all made by the kids, and the woman was getting a newspaper-bribe to stay tight-lipped.

      Tight-lipped? She had not stopped moaning the whole bloody week!



    The children got the blame though, and soon television was on the scent. And the Bishop Of Derby himself was on his way to the village angry and demonic.



    In the end, it was such a wet summer, no one cared. People still gave money, there was still a church cervice for the dressing, and so on.



    The British Way had won in the end. Just saw it all as the work of bright young kids who had a modern love for God, and everyone carried on as if the village well had been decorated by Goya.

     

    —

     

    Lord Pineapple.

October 30, 2003

  • More poems from my first notebook.


     


    (from) Tresaith Beach, March 1963



    I’ve walked from the rocks of the hills,

    Down a pipe of echoes,

    Down to the sea,

    The Welsh sea.



    I sit

    By the frozen waterfall,

    Stalitites, petrifiction,

    A paradise for me

    As cold as it may be

    As the snow meets the sea

    And turns to grey sand.



    This will be

    Part of my history

    If in years to come

    I am sitting with a blanket and thinking

    What was good in my life?



    ___________________________



    I think a better poem from my 15th year was Sarnau.



    “Sarnau. 1962/3″.

    _______________



    A milk churn of water

    Dragged over belly-full of snow,

    Under crystal stars – no haze

    Of city lights to blur.



    Everywhere whitewashed lonely

    Roads; Caerphilly hedges:

    Snow-blindness to H-Masts

    Magnolia houses around bare trees.



    Was the snow so thick

    On that December of 1256

    When Llywelyn ap Grufudd

    Marched into Caredigion?



    So speedly he travelled

    This lane to give the shire

    To Maredudd ab Owain and

    Mock the Norman barons.



    Now English Helicopters purr

    Above this conquered land

    Where Welsh is now spoken

    As an excuse of desire.



    And over the omo-washed

    Sheet of crusty snow

    I drag this argent churn

    Away from the Norman Foe!

     

    ____________________________________

     

    Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

    ___________________________

     







    1954-6



    Born on a mountain top in Tennessee,

    Greenest state in the land of the free.

    Raised in the woods so’s he knew every tree,

    Killed him a bear when he was only three.

    Davy, Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier.



    He fought single handed through the Injun war,

    Till the Creeks was whipped and peace was restored.

    And while he was handling this risky chore,

    Made himself a legend, forevermore.

    Davy, Davy Crockett the man who don’t know fear.



    When he lost his love, and his grief was gall,

    In his heart he wanted to leave it all,

    And lose himself in the forest tall,

    But he answered instead, his country’s call.

    Davy, Davy Crockett, the choice of the whole frontier.



    He went off to Congress and served a spell

    Fixin’ up the government and laws as well.

    Took over Washington, so we hear tell,

    And patched up the crack in the Liberty Bell.

    Davy, Davy Crockett, seein’ his duty clear.

    (Serving his country well)



    When he come home, his politickin’ done,

    The western march had just begun.

    So he packed his gear, and his trusty gun

    And lit out a grinnin’ to follow the sun.

    Davy, Davy Crockett, Leadin the Pioneers.



    Well, he heard about Huston and Austin and so,

    To the Texas plains, he just had to go

    Where freedom was fightin’ another foe

    And they needed him at the Alamo

    Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier



    His land is biggest, and his land is best

    From grassy plains to the mountain crest

    He’s ahead of us all in meeting the test

    Followin’ his legend right into the West

    Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier

    King of the Wild Frontier.



    —————————————



    Yes, as a small boy I was an obsessve Davy Crockett fan, and all you who think that tie-ins are something new, I had a Davy Crockett rug, a bearskin hat and a lunch box.

      There was (as well as a film) a Disney series on the telly, and I was hooked. I had a real bear-skin suit. All this would have been a great nest-egg if my father wasn’t such a job-mover. I also had a large selection of lead soldiers, of which only one remains, a Scotsman playing the bagpipes, and cast-iron animals, and hoards of pre-war comics and even my own brass bed. All gone. I would have kept the lot and would now be quite wealthy. The best thing I owned was my grandfathers 1902 very detailed Europe maps. My persian cat Fluffy used to sit on them.



    Back to Davy Crockett, when I saw the film version and Crockett died, I cried. I never saw The Alemo until my thirties.



    Only a small bit on what in a part of my childhood was my life, I used to hunt rabbits and pretend they were bears, and girls pretending they were Indians!



    I am ending the prose with a joke with an American in it. I like this joke, because the American speaks as I used to think they all spoke.



    A Scotsman, an American, the Irish “Mastermind” winner and an English schoolboy was on this light aircraft when the pilot had a heart-attack and died.



    “Bail out!” The Scotsman said. But there were only three parachutes.

      “I am a master of industy!” snapped the Scotsman, and grabbed a chute and jumped out.

      “And I am the winner of the Irish Mastermind Contest!” cried the Irishman and too bailed.

      The American sighed “hell son, I couldna live with myself if I jumped off and let you die, take the last parachute.”

      “It’s ok mister” said the schoolboy, “the Irish Mastermind winner has just jumped with my schoolbag!”

     

    _______________________________________________

     

    COMING UP SUNDAY:

     













    Well-Dressing

October 27, 2003

  • If only the sky could tell the truth. I have been looking at what I have ready for my blog, and frankly, little of it is worthy of genius. But what can I do but write, to remember those odd snatches of my childhood, like snipplets of great films, and miss out the parts too boring to remember, to forget the reality like I once forgot my dreams.



    I still remember some childhood dreams, the most famous, as it was reoccurent, being lost in a vast factory inside a spaceship, and someone telling me this is how I came to Earth.



    Of the vast amount to say about my life in Matlock, I will have to first record another dream. That Matlock Green’s main road was flooded and I had to get on a rowing boat to Starkholmes Road and St. Giles Church School which I attended after being expelled from the Bank school for tying all of the school chairs together and for smashing a school window in temper.



    Years later, I had to go to that Matlock Bank school to do a little bit about a new Eckington school head. “You were a pupil here I see” snarled some woman.



    I did some dry-stone walling with a farmer in Matlock, and soon got friendly with his son, Ian Paine, one of the only true trusting friends in my childhood. Ian and I went everywhere together, to catch geese for Christmas, up to Riber Castle (more anon) over Lumsdale with it’s massive heap of plastic socket plugs and it’s sheep. Near there was a school for the children of unmarried mothers. My mother told me never to play with them, later on in her life she said that was one of the most evil rules she had made. I did make friends with one, Elaine, lovely girl, and at ten(?) I had my first dreams of marriage!



    A dafter girl, aged 15 but with a mental age of eight was Margaret Smith. She had two older brothers one was deaf and morose who Margaret feared, the other nearly blind and friendly. Once, Margaret accidently set fire to a tent I and some other kids were in. I dragged out a little girl and for that “bravery” (yeah?) the girl’s parents took me on holiday with them to Scotland, starting my love affair with that country.



    With bonfire night coming up, I must add that in the old drill field (now a housing estate) we had big bonfires and real-looking guy fawlks burning. The fireworks we had in those days like catherine wheels and jumping jacks are now banned from public sale, and Margaret did burn her hand on a “hand held” roman candle. Hand held! We used to cook things on the fire, thanks to the Scottish couple and the girl I had pulled out of the burning tent.

     

    _______________________________


    PARKIN – CAKE FOR THE DEAD

    by Ariane



    Ingredients:

    6 oz. flour

    2 oz. medium oatmeal

    3 oz. brown sugar

    4 oz. molasses

    3 oz. butter

    1 egg

    1-1/2 tsp baking soda

    1 tsp. ground ginger

    Milk



    Sift dry ingredients into a bowl. Melt sugar, molasses and butter in a pan and pour over the dry ingredients. Mix in enough milk with the beaten eggs to make a soft consistency. Pour into a well greased and floured square pan and bake at 325 degrees for approx. 1 hour. Cool and cut into squares.



    Ariane’s NOTES: My friend HesterNic from the Crone’s Cottage Club posted the following. I hope you can covert from ounces to regular measurements:



    “Here is my friend Cerridwen’s recipe for Parkin.”



    ‘Parkin is traditionally eaten around Samhain and the British “Guy Fawkes Night” (Nov. 5th). It’s similar to the Lancashire Harcake or “soul mass cake”, which is also associated with this time of year. Har is the Norse name for Odin so it seems likely that the origins are pagan. Both Parkin and Harcake were placed on the graves of departed family and friends so that they would not go hungry in the after life.’



    “Since my friend was born and raised in the north of England, her traditional recipes are in pounds and ounces. I’ll have to make the conversion to cups before I bake this.”

    __________________________________










    (c) ff % 243

    Childhood Home, Mornington House, Matlock.

October 25, 2003

  • My ex-wife burnt most of my photos and private papers, denying the chance to entertain you with them. But not my old diaries, they were in a heavy locked trunk in the actic, so I saved them.



    I have about 300 page-a-day diaries, none used as diaries, all used as note-books. These days they last less than three months despite me typing a lot straight on line (as this), the first one, started at 13 and a bit lasted nearly two years. In it is a lot of rubbish poetry, and a few passable poems, some even since published, one in the “New Yorker”



      The one below was wrote in October 1961, at the age of 14 and a month, it was wrote in Sarnau, a tiny village near Cardigian. What was I doing there? If you carry on reading my blog, you’ll find out sometime shortly. This poem contains dubious philosophy, but still feels fresh. As yet, I had not perfectionated my now famous surprise endings.

     


    “Kicking Up The Leaves”

    _____________________



    Kicking up the leaves

    Can be at times, so sad.



    But I must not remember

    How they were

    Growing into a summer

    With thoughts of my holidays.



    And instead know

    That they are only leaves.

    And when they have turned

    Into a brown mush



    Then it’ll be cold frosty mornings for me,

    And boring indoor nights.



    The colours of the leaves are beautiful,

    But they are still the colours of something dying,



    Like old people with walking sticks,

    Slipping over in the snow.

     

    —

    “Lord Pineapple” I961

     


     

    Sarnau. 1961

     


    multimap



October 23, 2003

  • Let’s change the mood slightly.


     


    It was a Homegate, Clay Cross, where I was part of that important week for the glorious British Empire.

     

      We were the only people in the hamlet to have a television set when the Queen was crowned and Edmond Hilary (with others) climbed Everest.



      To a six-year old, the mountain was more exciting, and I thought of climbing “The Shivering Mountain”, Mam Tor, in the Derbyshire Peaks. (I shall return to this if only as an excuse to put in a photograph.) I did though, plant a tree for Her Majesty, and “In Homegate/in 1998/ The tree/Of Majesty/ Was as tall/As I was once small.



      Yes, it was the same tree, never one, despite my total lack of charisma, to pass a chin-wag, I met (and had tea) with an old lady who remembered us, this was spoilt by the fact she was the mother of Nicolas (“don’t be so ridiculous”) my five year old friend who had polio the same time as me (brain damage, stroke, polio, whooping cough, yellow jaundice, even malaria, I’ve had them all) I lived, Nicolas died. I remember my mother saying she gave the lady a photograph of him and I playing together. I saw the photograph, on her mantlepiece. That night, back in my Chesterfield guest house I wrote (always fiction I write, except for this blog) “Ethel and I”



    Here is the story, inspired, (if that is not a callous word), by Nicolas Hogett, 1948-1953.

    (Americans: “fag” is a cigerette)



    “Ethel and I”

    ___________

    When I got home from alloutment, I saw Ethel by yon window.



      You know, some folk move about a lot, and their memories get diluted in new realities. Ethel & I, we’ve lived in same house nigh on 55 years, that is a lot of memories, a ruddy lot of memories.



      On the mantlepiece, at last over a gas fire to make it easier for us in mornin’, is a photograph of whom were the pup of our three sons; David on his motorbike. Why is it there? For it were same ruddy bike that had ended his young life, that it were, weren’t his fault they say, charlies found the stolen van what did it some mile ahead.



      Twenty-two were lad, David’s bike had hardly a mark on it, and I expect as poor pup lay dying he noticed that his pride & joy were still A-One.



      Ethel, house-proud in most ways, didn’t like dusting, said dust were bits of those who once walked the Earth. Said we make the dust & we will become the dust, dust were sacred like.



      Royt sentimental Ethel be, suppose I were too. Anyroad, I came back from digging, with two cabbages and a few parsnips, I put veg in kitchen and walked to window. “Alroyt me duck?” I asked.



      “Just thinking Fred,” she sighed, “thinking of the past.”



      Later on as she were cooking the parsnips and the smell flooded house, belonged to railway, house did, I bought it, rest in row is private too.



      Now railways gone, pit gone, steel-works all but gone. We get fair bit of trouble from youngsters, but they only be bored with Renishaw.



      Anyroad, Ethel were cooking parsnips in kitchen when I heard her go upstairs.



      “Royt strange” I thought, and I followed her up. She were bleating on bed.



      In the distance were sound of motorbike reving up, only other sound were Fluffy, our cat, snoring on bedroom mat.



      “Come on luv, make you a nice cuppa!”



      Lass looked at me and lit a fag, “Hab thou forgotten what today be Fred?”



      “Nay lass” I said, “Would have been pup’s birthday, I ain’t forgotten.”



      The motorbike roared past our house and melted into the distance, when it were gone, birds were singing on our garden tree.



      “Better see to dinner” Ethel said, smoke drifting up towards the ceiling.

     

    (wrote under the nom de plume “Horace Smith Esq”)

     










    Clay Cross Miners (From the author’s collection)