February 9, 2005

  • I had closed this site, so maybe this won’t stay here long. But here is an entry from my reporter’s notebook. A few months after writing the below (ALL true) I was in a coma.


    Wrote on the island of  Iona (“Iona” linked to an outside page)

    (ps, can’t find the original publication, but this is my “copy” ie before I made it presentable and corrected the grammer and any spelling mistakes I may have made.)



    August 25th, 1993.



    I come here for silence, my marriage is failing and my mrs and the kids are with their in-laws at Hathersage. Our Italian holiday cancelled I drove to Oban to visit the isles. I have already wrote about the island of Kerrera and wrote a poem and two texts about that island. I did not expect drama here in Iona.



    I realise that my mind is changing, I’ve been warned about a stroke and so on, and of course I am susceptible to anything, but this takes the biscuit.



    I do not believe in God, my readers know that, but I do believe in the power of Earth and it’s people. Anyway, I had come out of Iona Abbey Church and had walked to a lonely part of an island. There I saw the grave of a child, a boy who had drowned. I looked at it with tears in my eyes when I felt someone behind me. It was a monk, he had his cowl up so I could hardly see his face, but he did have a white beard.



    “Do you believe in the devinity of God” he asked.

    I meant to lie, to say yes; my manners always made me say yes to any believer, for I consider it rude to disagree in public with a stranger that I may never see again, but there was something about the monk.

    “No” I replied “only in the devinity of man, sorry.”

    “That’s alright” the monk smiled “that was my son there, got washed out to sea, my wife went insane so I took Holy Orders.”



    “I too lost a child” I sighed, “I understand.”

    “There is one higher than us” he said calmly.

    I could see his smile, and I muttered bitterly “maybe so, but what has he ever done for man?”

    “What has man ever done for Him?” was the reply.

    I gave him his point.



    “You are a good man” he said, “do not let anyone say you are not. This cross I wear is not only for Jesus, it’s for the whole of humankind. Look at the date on the grave.”

    I did, it said “Colin McHenry, 1548-1559.”

    I turned sharply around, and the monk was gone, vanished into thin air. There was no place to hide, and an Olympic gold medalist could not have ran out of sight that quick on that windswept rock-edge.

    I searched in vain for the man and then went back to Iona Abbey and asked one of the Abbey gardeners about the monk who spoke to me. He sent me to a priest who explained that there was recorded such a death at the time stated but there is no remaining gravestone, and though I am not the first to see the stone and the mysterious monk, I must be blessed, for I am only one of five people to have seen both.



    I could not wait to leave the Priest and ran back to the gravestone, but of course there was none.



    I did not want to catch the last ferry back to the Mull coach, so I rang up my hotel and told them I had met friends and would be back in the morning.



    The night was chilly but dry, as I sat just staring at the waves and the bracken and the dog-daisies and thought a thousand thoughts about the concept of reality.



    The strange thing is that the abbey itself had laid in ruins for 400 years to 1938, and that no friars of monks were reported as living on the island in that time. But there was monks in the 16th century.



    —



    Ps I wrote a poem later but missed out the gravestone, at the time I wrote the poem, gravestones were not my thing.



    The poem missed out a lot, but the above essay said it all.



    “The Holy Man.”





    There’s one higher than us”

    Said the Holy Man

    Pointing up to the sky.



    Such was his calmness

    That I refrained from sneering,

    Such was his smile.



    I nodded and said,

    “Maybe so, but what has He

    Ever done for man?”



    “What has man

    Ever done for him?”

    Was the reply

    From a thousand voices.



    He had a point there

    And we bid each other farewell,

    I -

    And the ghost of a long-departed monk.



    —



    Terry Cuthbert.


    Thanks Becca! Fixed that link now!

January 24, 2005

  • Hinksey Park, Oxford.



    This is a part of Hinksey Park used only by fishermen, of which there are none today, I am thus away from everyone. Surrounded by bramble and by a lake (once a reservoir). Getting here, I nearly fell in the lake twice. But at least the sun is out and I am alone with the water fowl, the ducks, swans and two geese, in a January day, a day quite warm as New York and Ohio are covered with snow.



    If I survive my way back without falling in by a a “No swimming” notice, then maybe I’ll use this scribble in my Clowne blog.



    The only none nature sound is not traffic but the railway line yards across the other side of the lake (or pond, as the park calls it). Train after train goes past mostly hooting because of the sidings and (I find later) some track-men. If this was the days of steam , then it’ll be a frustrating spot as dead trees hide much of the railway.



    Dead trees. Funny I should say that, what was I told once “they are not dead, they are only resting” umm, just wrote a Sophie poem, (see LordPineapple ). The leaf-less trees are covered with ivy, well, the bigger of them are.



    The ducks and pigeons and the cold wind provide the only noise when the trains are gone, at least to my one good ear. I’ll be getting avian flu with these birds and the wind, wonder if the Sarahs’ can give out avian flu?



    I should pack up and walk the (just over a) mile to the pub, but it’s so peaceful, so serene, and in a way I am scared of falling in on my way back. I can imagine my ex sneering about me entering my second childhood, writing in such a lonely spot, but after weeks of depression I can use the excuse that this is therapeutic! Any bloody excuse!



    I wrote about Sophie, yes just wrote a long poem as her, no wonder some nutter on Xanga accused me of being a nonce! Still, that is what some sad people think about, sex sex sex and of course they believe everyone else does too. Such people do not understand creativity or imagination or the delight of writing serious fiction, all they think about is one thing, no wonder such sad little losers believe everyone else is as nasty and as dirty as them.



    My grandson slept here last night before going off to see his nanny, that’ll please the nonce-screamer no end! But there is a lot more to life saddo, there is trust and beauty and immortality and the eternity of the universe.



    Two more trains are passing, this is a busy railway. Ah well, back along the path!



    —

    It was a lovely walk on the long footbridge over the lake and the railway and the ballast sidings and more ponds and brooks and a long narrow empty path to the village of South Hinksey.



    What a sad village though, no shop, the pub is closed Mondays and the church is locked. (Keys from the Vicarage. When I was a reporter I’d have gone and got the keys and perhaps a cuppa; now, with my hard-to-understand voice, and my deafness, I chicken out.)



    Ah well, it was a lovely walk back, if a thirsty one. There used to be two pubs here, but the other, The Cross Keys closed five years ago.



    Back onto the main road beyond the park and into “The Berkshire House” for my pint of Ruddles Smooth.



    Few wild flowers seen, the daisy is about, but that is not exactly the flower to cheer me up even after 28 years.



    So, at least I have covered up the last depressing blog on this.



    Terry.


January 14, 2005

  • This is about as much as I can stand. When I threw my boy out I promised to keep his stuff but he put all his private papers bankbook passport and so on in a black sack and me thinking it rubbish, threw it out.


    Now I am on the point of a nervous breakdown with no one to turn to. So if I am not on this it is because I have turned insane.


     


    Terry

January 5, 2005

  • Psycho Al has gone!

          Bye bye.



    Psycho Al

    Had given me hell

    Smashed all my doors

    Ruined all my floors

    And stole my stuff as well!



    But now he’s gone,

    Psycho Al has gone

    And at last I can be

    Both happy and free

    As I haven’t been for so long!



    Bye bye Psycho Al

    Glad you’ve gone away

    The neighbours will now get some sleep

    And here America can stay!



    T.D.C.

December 10, 2004

  • Thanks all, put your well-wishers on Frends Toterry’s site on the Three-Headed Sarahs’ fan club! http://ourfavouritepoems.homestead.com/fan30.html


    I should have known better than to start a novel when I am in ill-health, it might be a great work of fiction but much more likely it’s crap!


    http://halfhead.homestead.com/index.html


    Sorry not been on this much, it’s not the novel, it’s illness. I was in bed most of Thursday, but I will battle on. I’ve survived the two years doctors gave me to live in 1996, I’m not going to die now, I want to go to Texas!


     


    Terry.

December 4, 2004

  • After all

    Is not the one

    To hang in the sky

    Like wet balloons

    And oh, love this poem

    It has put me in this mood,

    the poet with no empathy

    but for poetry!



    And I miss you poetry

    I miss your charmes

    Like a lover,

    A connerseer

    Or whatever,

    Time is short,

    My novel is long



    And darling please

    Come on home

    Sweet Poetry

    To me.



    I do not need empathy

    For anything in words

    I have empathy in words

    In acting sort of

    I just have no empathy

    In people.



    I am a nurd like Bobby


    Though I am not gay

    Just this link to a

    Wonderful gay man I knew

    But not sexually

    Just we were both bonkers,

    We looked at couples

    Man and Woman

    “Mine’s better than yours.”

    “Fuck off you gay bastard!

    “Bet you was looking at the woman!”

    “Bet you were looking at the man!”

    “Gay bastard!”



    Got killed, did this chap

    I saw him about once a month

    Drinks all night in a pub

    Pissing each other off,

    Me calling him a

    “Gay Bastard!”

    He saying he saw me admire

    “That man’s bulge.”

    (“Was big was it!”

    I laughed

    “Straight bastard!”.



    Chap got killed in Africa

    Another dead reporter

    He visited did the gay bastard,

    From 112miles away from me.



    Another dead reporter.



    No one knows where or why

    You just went missing

    Didn’t you George…

    You gay bastard!

    O, and on my new harsh thriller is on  

     

    Read…

    Or else the Three-headed Sarahs’ will get you!

     


    “Spread your wings

    To New Orleans

    Kentucky blue birds

    Fly away

    And take a message to Martha”



    The Pineapple Kids having a party?

    What’s in store?

    They had just killed a bloke

    Did a 13 year old girl

    Plastered brain

    Over her brother



    But they are having a party?


    Why?

    See the link above.

    WARN YOU NOW THOUGH,  IT STARTS OFF VERY HARSH, FULL OF ANGER, NOT EASY READING.

     


    Yes, Bobby in the novel is based on my friend not as the person, only my friends cleverness with gagets and his great wit and great tenderness.

December 2, 2004

  • On LordPineapple ‘s site are poems. I will only visit you all from one of these sites else I’ll won’t have time to write any more of the novel!


    I am eagar to leave the past post because all your wonderful replies have made me feel strong. So here is part of the novel wrote some years ago (updated this morning!) that was the basis of my user name “Lord Pineapple”


    _____________


    Chapter 1.



    Few people knew he was rich, one of the richest people in the world, he was not on any Times list, not on any real records but he was rich and all the money was earned legally.



    He had no one to leave it to, and he was buggered he would leave it to the State, he had to get a name from somewhere. After much searching he came across one, Peter Halfhead. Poor bloke, with a name like that he could deserve a break.



    Lord Danials, aka Lord Pineapple, (he had earned his money from the fruit and had built a massive pineapple on his house in the centre of Bristol.) Lord Danials had had a simple funeral, and still few people knew of his riches despite his vast house and grounds.



    …



    “What?”

    “767 million pounds after all legal costs to a Peter Halfhead. But there is a problem, a big problem.”

    Having told the extent of the problem, Will Harding rubbed his hands with glee, “we are going to milk this one Stanley, we are going to be rich!”



    …



    “Hoi, Halfbreed!”

    Peter gritted his teeth, one day he was going to get even with some of this shit. He was nicknamed “Halfbreed” because he had a white mother and a black father. He was also nicknamed “Halfbrain” because of his poor school record. Peter was eleven years old.

    Peter lived in a crappy old council house in St. Pauls Bristol. His father had been murdered last year for drug-dealing, his mother spent most of the time looking at tv. His sister Jenny, aged 13 was quiet and clever and not at all like many had expected her to be considering her envionment. Peter also had a seven year old sister who was negletted and slighty backward.

    Peter was making a name for himself, he was selling hash-bars, he was buying them and selling eighths off of them, he was becoming quite rich, but it was dangerous, some white men in dark suits were looking for him, and they were not the police.



    —



    “What now? I told you, my late husband left nothing here!”

    Stanley was glad he had contacted Life Security, a dodgy firm, as bodyguards. Stanley and his two assistants and his guard all shriveled up their noses, this place stank.

    “Well, come on, “Neighbours” is just starting.”

    “We have come to see your son, Peter.”

    “What the fuck for?”

    “Personal matters.”

    “Jenny, your brother been selling his shit again, call him on your mobile!”



    —



    Peter frowned. They had caught him, he could run, but his father never ran, his father was a man. His father didn’t carry a gun, he did.

    He walked into the living room, his sisters were there, he told them not to be afraid as a woman pushed them out of the room.

    “You have come into a large fortune.”

    “Oh yeah”

    “Yeah, you are a very wealthy boy.”

    “What the fuck did my dad do?”

    “Not your dad, a fairy godfather left you er 500 million pounds and a large house.”

    The man was lying somewhere, but Peter could see in the hatred on the man’s face that it was not about the money.

    “We will advice you for the first three months then I strongly suggest you retain us.”

    Peter had no intention of retaining this pair of racists, but just smiled. He clearly thought all of this was crap, they were going to take him away with them, that shifty man carried a gun too.



    Terry Cuthbert.

    _____________

    to be con’t

     

    ___________________

     

    Thank you all again for all those lovely words. Terry.

     


     

    I am deeply honoured.

November 30, 2004

  • I think that the amazing response I have received from Xanga will last me through many a day, I have been overwhelmed and deeply touched by it all. You have more than given me a reason to keep right on till the end of the road. I am sorry now I posted this poem, yet the warmth I’ve received will keep me in hope-logs for all of this winter.

    Terry

    _______________

     

    Falling.

    ______



    i



    One does not go into a nervous breakdown

    Wanting one,

    Or even knowing that you are having one.

    You are just told one day that you are mad,

    Or you start to lash out

    Or burst into tears

    Over almost nothing.



    Perhaps someone says something

    Or writes something

    And instead of laughing off their ignorance

    You take it as an insult

    And start smashing things up.



    I am writing this because

    I myself is on the verge

    Of a nervous breakdown,

    From someone who steals from me,

    Threatens me, bullies me

    And smashes up my flat.



    I am nearly at that breakdown point.

    For behind my calm smile

    I am breaking up

    And breaking down

    And soon they will have to put me away

    And then what?

    What will become of my blogs,

    Loved by many

    Hated by a few

    Ignored by most

    For being what they are

    The notes of a failed writer

    A versifier pretending to be a poet.



    I am not on the verse of a nervous brakdown

    Actually wanting one,

    But it is happening,

    The signs are all there

    I can see dead people

    I can see colours on white

    I can see things that do not exist

    I can see the sunshine at night.



    I would not even know that I was having a nervous breakdown

    If the signs were not there

    And I had never had one before

    And so know what the signs were.


    ii.



    If I could get away from here

    Live with somebody

    Or start a new life somewhere

    Somewhere with a computer,

    Because sadly, you are now

    My only friends,

    You whom I cannot touch

    You whom I may never touch

    You whom drift in and out of my life

    So aimlessly.



    I am having a nervous breakdown,

    I feel it in my skin

    I feel it every time a certain person

    Pinches something else of mine

    Or threatens me with their fist.



    I wish I could run away,

    Take my CD’s, a few clothes…

    I’ll leave everything else behind

    For I can always print off the stuff

    From my site

    Whilst it is there

    By the curtesy of my pocket.



    If I vanish suddenly,

    If I do not appear on-line

    Do not think I am dead

    (Though I could well be)

    Just see me as mad

    In some hospital chattering, either to myself

    Or to an invisible three-headed bird,

    Else I’ll be on some bitter city street

    With only my broken mind as comfort.



    I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown

    And if you think I am lying,

    Just you wait and see

    See me licking the paint off the walls

    Whilst writing poetry that no one else will ever read

    Nor ever want to.





    —

    Terry Cuthbert.

    Any comments will be answered on the LordPineapple blog

November 17, 2004

  • One always hears funny stories from people when one is a reporter, some of them are made up, but sometimes you know that someone who always tells the truth. I heard this from a phone call, then our cleaning lady, (who couldn’t have told a lie to save her family) confirmed it. Both were passengers on a Chesterfield-Clay Cross bus, when this little boy kept putting his thumb in his mouth, his irate mother constantly told the boy, “remove that thumb!” only to it being back in his mouth in seconds. In the end the Mother smacked the boy’s hand, and in a loud clear voice the boy said “When I looked in your bedroom ‘other night, you had daddy’s willie in YOUR mouth!”



    I can just imagine the other passengers trying not to laugh, my cleaner said the driver nearly crashed the bus.



    ___________



    My editor was a progressive person and like I, wanted all races treat equal, but not so many of the more vocal readers. “Who cares about a lot of Africans? I want to read about my village fair!”



    We did a lot of international stories, which is why I got to Bosnia, but were they respected? Not really. Pictures of wounded children aside, I felt that no one cared about the Balkins, why? They weren’t English lives.



    In the end the paper folded, people wanted to read about how their little Harry won the sack race, not about “some “*****” in some god-forsaken rat-hole”. Morons.



    _________________



    (Also on racism)

    A left-wing female councillor was getting romantically attached to a right-wing racist business-man; (I called them “the strangest pairing since the owl and the pussycat”). Anyway, the business-man sued me for calling him a racist, and he took me to court.

    There I was, surrounded by a law team from the National Union Of Journalists, when the judge walked in, got on his high seat, looked at the business-man and said: “I remember you, I was at an hotel with my wife, you were there, and I heard you call a black waiter a “filthy little n*****”.

    My solictor whispered to me “you’ve won already!”



    ________________



    Yes, as a newspaper reporter for a one-horse town paper I had a job to find news, but old people always had stories, and often old photographs too. I gave them their moment of glory (and they were paid too) and I filled up my paper with the most beautiful pieces. “When I started down pit, I got sixpence-halfpenny a day, and there were no bonuses just twelve ruddy hours a day six days o’ week…”



    Some of the folk died not long after telling me their stories, I liked to think they died feeling a little more worthy than they had.



    __________________



    I placed a piece in my paper about a small village police station being manned by a new constable straight from training college.



    Two days later the “rookie” (not called them in those days), was at his desk when this man came in and said he had come about the typewriter and gave a letter-head from a well-known local firm.



    The constable let the man take away the typewriter before ringing up the firm to check. The firm hadn’t a clue what the constable was talking about.



    Neither man nor typewriter was seen again. In the aftermath I got a nasty “warning” from Derbyshire Constabulary, to say that I had six faults on my car and had a week to put them right.





    (One for “Charlie The Copper” there!)



    ____________________





    Proofing. As my editor used to say “Ok, so the word is foreign, but if you are too lazy to check the spelling and the proof-reader is too lazy, you can bet your bottom dollar (sic) that one thousand bloody readers are not too lazy!


    ——-

    picture: Well-dressing, from a village near Chesterfield. (my work-town).

November 14, 2004

  • My last blog-entry was rather mis-understood by Portia and others, it was meant to reflect the lies I was told at the time I did not even know that people could lie in that way.



    My father NEVER discussed the war, he just said he had to kill people and he would never want to kill again. He was angry when a son of mine joined the army.



    Anyway, from a blog where I keep some comments, largely because my memory of events comes and vanishes, I would like to repeat some of my newspaper-story pieces.



    ____________________



    Ah, I remember calling at an old ladies house once, to seek comments for my “Day’s Of Yore” page, and she said to me “my toilet’s blocked, can you unblock it?” Sure it was blocked, that hadn’t stopped her using it, fancy cleaning out a toilet full of s***? It took me twenty minutes. Then the old lady refused to give me the interview saying she never read local papers.



    —–

    The media in the United Kingdom is only “free” when the government and it’s bogeymen wish it to be so.



    Newspapers need firms to advertise, firms give money to the government, criticise a firm or upset a government and advertisers pull out. The only papers that do try to get away with the truth are the alternative lifestyle press, and years of trashing such papers and sueing them and raiding their offices have forced them all to the wall.



    I once had a lot of my private papers taken away merely because I had troubled someone high up in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and asked them awkward questions about an army-led killing.



    —–

    a reporter from another coal-area newspaper found proof that some of the so called scabs were not strike-breaking but going in to wreck the coal-faces and pit-heads, so when the strike was over the coal miners would be laid off. The reporter was knocked over by a hit and run driver whom the police seemed rather uneager to search for, and at the reporter’s funeral, his house was broken into and the only things missing were his notes and the “proof”.



    ( note, the above was true. They can kill me if they like. Screw CGHQ!)



    ——

    I learnt language as a reporter, if a woman is telling you how she got beaten up, you can’t just guess what she said or re-ask her.  You have to get it right else you will upset her more (and your editor) “be teff ‘e wanted mon fair tallyman lad” I had to write in shorthand as “To be truthful, he wanted the dept-collectors money sir” though in the paper I would put her saying “tally-man” and “lad” but not as saying “teff”.



    ——-

    Before my stroke I could type at least 60wpm, though my copywriter did most of my typing. Now I am down to one finger with another ready for the capitals.



    —–



    Our paper was a small one with few staff, we had dedicated amateurs writing for us, but because the pay was low or non-existent, they never bothered to write most weeks, so Joe Muggins here became all sorts of people, old-young-male-female… (which is why I can write as a blackie fortuna one day, A Rev Toby another, Tiffy Witherington another and Sophie Morgan another. The newspaper trade demands it in both verse and prose!) Quite often I wrote the gardening column, the Prayer for the week column, (so much for being an athiest) a children’s column (which I’ve wrote about before) as well as country matters and “stories”.



    —–

    (To be continued)

     

    Poems of mine are on my LordPineapple site