We took my granddaughter to the library today.  

The book is "Singing in the Rain", a picture book based on the lyrics of the famous song and musical. 

Naturally after the first few pages my grown-up daughter and I started happily and heartily performing the song, much to the delight of the little one and the amazement and amusement of other library users.

50 years on...

Fifty years ago today, Ann and I first met on Notting Hill Gate tube station in London. We went for a drink in a now vanished pub in nearby Portobello Road.

Blast you, Phil Rickman. Why are you so good?

I used to call them “layers”.

They were the layers I tried to describe to my friends from Australia and Canada as I showed them around my old stamping grounds – the various layers that I saw superimposed on the picture postcard English villages and their surroundings.

I wanted my friends to look beyond the quaint “Olde Englishe” theme parks that some of the villages were turning into and to see them in a more real and interesting way.

One layer was the almost invisible aristocracy still sequestered here and there in their private bulwarks against the modern world. Another was the landed gentry and their families going back generations who formed a more visible upper crust in the communities. A few agricultural workers remained alongside the artisans and trades people who supported the rural industries. There were retirees fulfilling a dream or needing to downsize and stretch their nest-eggs. Another layer had cashed-up people from the cities seeking a country idyll or setting up their weekend retreats, plus a shifting population of city folk occupying the growing number of holiday lets.

Then there were the service-providers, the camp-followers attracted to the growth of newcomers as they tried to recreate bits of the lifestyle they previously enjoyed in their city suburbs. As the former High Street butcher, grocer, ironmonger and green-grocer were replaced by the new supermarket on the edge of town, their vacated premises were being refurbished and occupied by coffee shops, bistros, bijou craft shops and fashion boutiques. Ironically, such “improvements” risked spoiling the very things that drew them there in the first place.

Infrastructure was stretched to the limit by the relentless surge of tourists and newcomers while local authorities were torn between development and heritage, and between the conflicting needs and demands of the various layers in the community.

“But it’s more than that,” I told my friends. “There’s something else underlying it all, something less tangible.” I was talking about the whole ambience and character of the place; the ‘feel’.

At a casual glance, you got an impression of a genteel, polite Anglicanism or, here and there, a similarly unassuming Catholicism. Or at least a sort of vaguely Christian, nonchalant agnosticism.

But, I suggested, come the Equinox, Solstice and other significant dates, there’d be ceremonies and festivals that had their origins deep in the past, even if their present-day manifestations were now very much sanitised, and family- and tourist-friendly.

And if you dug deeper, I’d tell them, I bet you’d find a few private rituals; some would be new-age hippies in their endless quest for enlightenment and some might be middle-class thrill-seekers hoping to spice up their sex lives. And, I reckoned, here and there would be some who took it very seriously indeed and truly believed that they had secret, arcane knowledge and could command hidden powers. They would behave accordingly in their public lives.

“Just imagine the stories you could create, playing off the tensions and interactions between the layers,” I said.

“Well, why don’t you write a novel about it?” was a frequent response.

I told them I was thinking about it.

The setting was easy. Although I’ve lived in Australia for many years, I grew up on the very edge of the Birmingham conurbation with one foot in Warwickshire. The countryside through Evesham, Stratford and the Cotswolds was my playground. I’ve been fortunate to have been able to return and stay there many times, often with other overseas friends for whom I was privileged to act as unofficial tour guide.

The narrative was not a problem either; stories almost told themselves.

But the main protagonist was a challenge.

The stories were going to be mystery thrillers, but were they going to be police procedurals or amateur detective whodunits? Was the central character going to be a brilliant but eccentric police figure in the Barnaby and Morse/Endeavour mould, or a talented civilian somewhere in the Thea Osborne, Father Brown and Agatha Raisin tradition?

Was mine going to a policeman/detective - a bit of a rebel against authority with a past of playing in a rock and roll band? Or was he going to be a reclusive ex-rock star who gets drawn into investigating local mysteries? Either way, music was going to play a role both in providing narrative plot points as well as reflecting various themes.

I’d just about decided on the former and began sketching out some of the introductory scenes.

And then I stumbled across the Merrily Watkins mysteries.

Blast you, Phil Rickman*. Why are you so good?

I ploughed through the first 12 novels in the series in the space of a few months.

He had nailed it – the lot – and with two additional touches of brilliance.

First, the location and setting: what a stroke of genius to set it in the Border country where the various ‘layers’ and transformations that I had observed in the Cotswolds were in their early stages, where the tensions were newer and more recent, and emerging conflicts were rawer and unresolved.

And rather than just the layers, the focus was on the ‘borders’ between the layers, encapsulating in extended imagery both the layers themselves and the tensions between them.

The geographical setting of the border country between England and Wales becomes a metaphor for many of the borders that I described and others that Rickman perceived: past/present, rural/urban, environment/development, Christian/pagan, spiritual/mundane, sacred/profane, good/evil, this world and the next. The borders between them are very thin in Rickman’s Border country.

And his second stroke of genius is his main protagonist.

Leaves mine for dead, figuratively speaking.

Merrily is an astonishing creation, brilliantly reflecting various themes in the novels as well as exploring contemporary issues in society: the role of women, the diminishing influence of religion and the church, the quest for and nature of spirituality, the balance of life and work, the pressures of society and expectations, the parent/child relationship, the search for love and meaning in the modern world, the experience and value of belief, and the grey areas between certainty and doubt.

And then there is his use of the scenery and the environment almost like additional characters (OK that’s three strokes of genius). The whole border region comes alive with meaning as the stories move through it; sometimes of comfort, sometimes menace, but always strengthening the emotional impact. Add to that his subtle use of the weather and changing seasons; they not only provide plot points but also act as a backdrop that reflects the shifting moods of the narrative, reinforcing elements of the storylines. It’s a 21st century take on the Romantic poets’ “pathetic fallacy”.

And the thing that gets me every time is the “not-quite-knowing” at the end of each novel.

Yes, a crime has been solved, a culprit has met with some kind of civic or karmic justice, an underlying mystery is explained, various characters have learned from their experiences and grown a bit more, relationships have progressed and continuing sub-plots advanced.

And yet…

And yet, you are left wondering whether the heart of the mystery has really been resolved, and sometimes whether it was even real in the first place. You are not quite sure whether it was Merrily’s spiritual or physical intervention that uncovered the heart of the matter. Did her Deliverance practices reveal the truth of a past or recent tragedy and lay unquiet spirits to rest? Or was it her intuition, perception, courage and dogged persistence that helped her untangle a vexed situation?

I think that is one of the great things that helps make Merrily believable and memorable. Her self-doubt and mistrust of her own abilities helps us empathise and relate strongly to her character. In spite of her ongoing struggle with belief in the reality of what she is doing, she still continues to pursue a course of action to the bitter end, earning her our respect and admiration.

It keeps coming back to Merrily. She’s an Everyman, the protagonist in a Hero’s Quest, a seemingly ordinary person caught up in extraordinary events that reveal inner strengths and abilities in spite of fears and self-doubt. And the author has captured her many facets flawlessly.

Blast you, Phil Rickman. Why are you so good?

-------------------
*Note: Phil Rickman is the author of numerous novels, including the Merrily Watkins mysteries published in the UK by CORVUS/ATLANTIC. He lives near Ross-on-Wye in the Border country where the series is set.

Digital Native.

My two-and-a-bit-year-old granddaughter is fiddling with her gran's iPad looking for ABC Kids iView.

She is not familiar with the layout so she activates the voice control and tells the device, "Siri, I need Peppa Pig!"

Siri responds with her unfailingly cheerful voice, "This is what I found for you."

And displays the Pink Pig Wine Bar.

Bearing Witness to Climate Change

We've been bearing witness to Climate Change at the Adelaide Fringe Festival in the Garden of Unearthly Delights - a complete reading of the IPCC report on climate change with 100 readers over 5 days.

On now, Mark Butler, Shadow Minister for Climate Change.

Reading continues throughout Sunday and Monday at WOMAD. #1point5degreeslive

A joint presentation by Flinders University and Carbon Neutral Adelaide where my daughter is Co-ordinator.

Yes, nurse.

Our two-and-a-bit year old granddaughter has become used to seeing me with my arm in a sling. After eight weeks it has become a normal part of her world. She recites its history and rules of engagement: "Arrow break arm. Doctor fix arm. Arm very hurt. No bang Arrow arm."

Last week was the first time she saw me take it out of the sling to do some of the prescribed physio exercises. She stopped dead in her tracks, looked very worried, pointed to the sling and ordered, "Arrow, put hand in!"

Birth of a Legend

The day I come out of hospital after the broken shoulder incident, I'm sitting with our five-and-a-half year old grandson at lunch. He wants to ask a question.
"Arrow?"

I stop my one-handed food juggling as a thought occurs and I ask him, "What do you tell your school friends when they ask why you call me 'Arrow'?"
"I tell them it's your secret superhero name."
Near enough - it was my now-declassified code-name back in the day.
"Retired superhero," I correct him. "You've got two retired superhero grandfathers, Arrow and Jedda."
(Grandfather Karel is actually "Děda" which is Czech for 'Grandpa' but sounds as if it belongs to the same word group as 'Jedi' with its heroic overtones.)
With a suitably serious and thoughtful expression I say, "I wonder what your secret superhero name will be when you're bigger?" (I come from a proud line of straight-faced story-tellers and yarn spinners). "I guess you'll find out when the time comes."
"Anyway", I say, "what were you going to ask?"
"What happened to your arm?"
Suddenly I realise that although he was right in the middle of the mêlée, he is the only person who didn't actually see what happened. One second he was running around having fun, next second he was on the ground in a tangle of arms, legs, hosepipe and people screaming.
I say, "Remember when we were having a water fight yesterday, and chasing each other with the hosepipe?"
"Yes."
"And then we all got tangled in the hose and fell down?"
"Yes."
"Well, we were running very fast and were going to fall into the wall, so I put my arm out to stop us crashing into it. But we hit it so hard my arm broke."
He thinks about it for a moment, then his eyes widen.
"You sacrificed your arm to save us!"
For a moment I think perhaps I should unwind this a bit. But then I speculate on what he is going to tell his classmates when they return to school next year and are asked to describe what happened in the holidays.
"My superhero granddad Arrow sacrificed his arm to save me."
I think we can live with that.

Them's the Breaks

The family evacuated their home in the Adelaide Hills and came to stay with us during last week's catastrophic bushfire period. In the evening of the hottest day, after the grandkids had been cooped inside all day, we got outside when the back garden was in shade and were having one of the best water battles, chasing each other with the hose and having a lovely time.

In one skirmish we all got tangled up, tripped, and I put my hand out to stop us crashing into a wall. I straight-armed into the wall, my shoulder sort of imploded and I went down in a screaming heap. I do not mean that figuratively.

My family is amazing; elder daughter took charge and called triple 0 while getting me and everyone else organised.

Caroline and Mary, the two brilliant ambos, got the worst of the pain under control and it took them plus a couple of firies whom they called in from a nearby job to get me onto a gurney, out of the garden and into the ambulance

I was admitted to the ED at the new RAH immediately, no queues or ramping on what was a very busy night.

Could not fault the staff or the care I got - all were excellent. Perhaps it would be good if politicians, decision-makers and quick-on-the-draw critics were compelled to spend a night as an observer in ED to see just what the staff have to put up with and how they go about looking after all kinds of people calmly and professionally.

Long story short - I have a very messy fracture of the head and neck of the humerus with bits and fragments generously scattered here and there. As the doc said, "You made a good job of it".

The bad news is that there is no procedure to fix it, just a collar and cuff sling, time, gritted teeth and occasional pain relief when it gets too bad.

Sleeping is a challenge, as is standing and sitting.

I was discharged the next morning with my sling and prescription and am now home. I think I am in for an interesting Christmas and New Year.

The Blues

Our five-and-a-half year old grandson is sorting his coloured textas into groups.

He picks up the bundle with every shade of blue. He can just about get both hands around it.

"Look at all these blues", he says.

"My goodness, that's an awful lot of blues", I say. "I don't think I've ever seen that many blues before".

He heaves a sigh and says, "Sometimes you can have too many blues in your life."

Piano Rolls Update

Well they didn't arrive. And the longer I waited, the more they didn't turn up.

The vendor tried to track them down but with no luck, so refunded the money before being asked to.

Somewhere in Australia there is a lonely box of Pianola rolls looking for a good home. I wonder if it will surface one day?

Kindness of Strangers

I am amazed and delighted at the kindness of random strangers.

Last week I bought some vintage pianola rolls on eBay - as you do. Saturday afternoon I got a message saying the order had been sent.

Sunday lunchtime I got a phone call from a complete stranger in Sydney who was standing next to a mail box in a street in Cremorne. On top of the mail box was a large parcel addressed to me. It was in full public view, just sitting on top of a mail box in a busy street where hundreds of people were walking past, many eyeing the parcel with varying degrees of curiousity or caution.

It had my name and address clearly showing and the unknown Good Samaritan had gone to the trouble of looking up my phone number online and calling me to see if he could help.

Once we'd worked out what it probably was and that neither of us were hoaxers, we tried to figure out a way we could get it back on track. Being Sunday, the post office was closed and wouldn't re-open until Tuesday because Monday was the Australia Day holiday. The anonymous helper couldn't hang around and didn't know anyone in the street with whom he could leave it until I'd sorted out the next step. I asked if maybe he could leave it in a nearby shop if there was one open and let me know the location so I could follow-up later.

That is how we've left it. Meanwhile I've messaged the vendor via eBay asking if it actually is the parcel meant for me, and how come it ended up sitting on top of a public mail box in Cremorne.

I'll keep you posted when I know some more about what's going on.

Coming to Australia part 2

I counted 78 forms I had to fill in during my application period in order to get to Australia.

On several of them I answered "No" to the question "Do you need accommodation on your arrival in Australia?" And on dozens of them I put the address where I would be staying.

Nevertheless, as I disembarked the aircraft, there was a very nice woman waiting at the bottom of the steps to take me to the migrant hostel in Woodville.

I explained that I didn't need to go to the hostel and my accommodation was all arranged.

She was quite insistent, to the point of grabbing my arm and trying to pull me towards a waiting van. I stood my ground. Pointing to a group people waiting at the gate I said, "See those people over there? That's my wife's family. I'm going to stay with them." And much to her consternation I walked over to join them.

About five weeks later, in my new teaching job, I got talking to one of the other new teachers and we discovered we had arrived in Adelaide on the same day. He and his wife were staying at the hostel while waiting to move into a new house that was being built.

I told him about the incident with the welcoming party and the attempt to drag me to the hostel.

He said, "Oh, you're that Ian Short! They are still laying a place for you in the dining hall."

Coming to Australia part 1

On this day, 45 years ago, I arrived in Australia.

It was a stinking hot day and after 36 hours in the air from London via New York, Los Angeles, Hawaii and Fiji, I met my wife's Adelaide family for the first time.

Immediately, my new brother-in-laws whisked me over the road to the pub. One asked the barman, "A schooner for our Pommy brother-in-law".

"Oh, you're a Pom", said the barman. "How long have you been in Australia?"

"Twenty minutes", I replied.

"What do you think of the place?"

I must have given the right answer because not only did I get an ice-cold beer, I'm still here in this astonishing country forty-five years later.

Conversations with a four-and-a-half year old

1. Looking for a snack.

"Can I have a fritzle?"

"A what? What's a fritzle? Show me."
"This is a fritzle. It's shaped like a loveheart, and it's got salt on it, and it's colour is browned."

2. Playing with a book of stickers.

"Have a sticker, Mum". (He hands one over shaped like a star with a face). "I've got a rock star one".
"How do you know it's a rock star?"
"It's wearing glasses; I can't see through them".
😎
"Yep. Rock n Roll!"

Where else would a boy from Birmingham start his working life but in an iron foundry?

It’s fifty years this month since I started my first full-time job at Rood End Foundry in Oldbury in the Black Country.

Iron founding is hot, noisy, dirty and dangerous. And the worst job in a foundry is repairing the lining of the furnace where the iron is melted.

Every morning at 8 o’clock you climb up inside the cupola – that’s the furnace – where it had been 1500degC the day before.

The cupola is a vertical steel cylinder ten metres tall that squats a metre off the ground on four short steel pillars. It is lined with fire bricks 20–30 cm thick, leaving a hollow shaft up the middle like a well 50 centimetres across. You have to crawl in from the bottom and climb two metres up into that well to repair the lining.

There is barely enough room for a big man to fit into the well. It’s difficult to bend your knees to climb the ladder. You can’t stick your elbows out to work until the shaft widens slightly in the melting zone two metres up. The firebrick lining holds the heat from the previous day’s melt so it’s like being in an oven, and that heat causes a tremendous up-draft carrying dust, grit and fumes that make it hard to breathe.

First you chisel off the lumps of solidified slag from the walls, then you plaster the eroded spots with ganister – a special kind of fire clay. Your buddy outside has a wheel-barrow full of the stuff. He forms a big dollop into a ball and shoves it up the well as far he can reach with you inside – hopefully near your crotch where you can just reach it without bending - you can’t bend, there’s not enough room. Then you work the ball of ganister up your body until it reaches the slightly wider melting zone level with your chest. Now you can get your arms up and plaster the walls of the well. Then you grab another dollop.

The black and white photo gives you a bit of an idea. To take it, I crawled in through the charging hole one floor up and pointed the camera down the shaft of the furnace. You can see the top of my offsider Sam’s head as he patches the lining. Earlier, that was me down there.

   

 I’ve kept that photo near me through every job I’ve ever had since then; all through teaching, as a speechwriter, policy adviser, public servant, consultant and writer. It’s next to my computer now as I type. Whenever work threatened to get a bit overwhelming or colleagues were being awkward, I would look at that photo and remember that things could be a whole lot worse, and some people have to put up with much more difficult situations throughout their whole working life.


In other photos, you can see Big Joe Winston standing at the bottom of the cupola. He is holding a steel rod (a “bott stick”) to chip out the plug that releases the flow of molten metal. He offered to teach me how to do it; he’d been doing it for years. But I passed on that one – make a mistake and people can get killed.

Below, round the side of the cupola, slag is blowing off through a vent. On the foundry floor, molten iron is flowing from a drum ladle into a floor mould. Munsih Ram is using a spoon ladle to pour iron into moulding boxes while his workmate uses a larger two-handed ladle.

 

 

Conversations with a nearly-four-year-old.

1. Watching the RAAF Roulettes aerobatic aircraft team from our back yard:

Him: Are they coming back?

Me: I don't think so. I can't hear them. I think they've gone.

Him: Yes they are. They're coming back. I can hear them!

Me: I think that's a truck in the next street.

Him: No, I can hear them.

Me: I think they are a long way away. They are too far away for you to hear them.

Him: I can hear them. I've got very sensible ears.


2. On a pedestrian footbridge high above the river:

Him: That's a long way down to the water.

Me: I've got an idea. Why don't we find a stone and drop it in?

Him: No, don't do that. Don't throw it in.

Me: Why don't you want to throw a stone into the river?

Him: It might be a beautiful stone.

Conversation with a three and half year old.

We are in the car, on the way home after picking him up from child care. 

“Did you play any games today?” I ask.

 

“I did”.

 

“What did you play?”

 

“We played the wee-wee and poo-poo game.”

 

“The wee-wee and poo-poo game? That doesn’t sound very good. What do you do in the wee-wee and poo-poo game?”

 

“We push people down the slide”.

 

“You push people down the slide? Did you push anyone down the slide?”

 

“I did. I pushed Daniel down the slide”. 

 

“That’s not very nice,” I say. “What would happen if someone pushed you down the slide? That would be very difficult, wouldn’t it?”

 

“I can handle it.”

 

“I don’t like the sound of this game at all,” I say, trying to keep a straight face. “It’s not very nice.”

 

There is silence for a couple of minutes, then a small voice comes from the rear seat:

“The wee-wee and poo-poo game doesn’t exist.”

 

“I don’t understand. What are you trying to tell me?” I ask.

 

“The wee-wee and poo-poo game doesn’t exist,” he says again.

 

“Do you mean that you told me a made-up story? Did you just tell me a great big fib?”

 

“I did,” he says smugly.

The Devils' Boot

When the Devil came stomping through the Buckinghamshire countryside a few hundred years ago, terrifying the inhabitants and leaving destruction and chaos in his wake, a group of locals armed with clubs, pitchforks and an old sword gathered at the village of Soulbury to confront and stop him.

The Devil's Boot, Soulbury

In the ensuing battle, they succeeded in cutting off his foot. As the Devil fled from the scene his disembodied foot immediately turned to stone. They left the boulder where it lay and it became known as "The Devil's Boot".

Over time the village grew around it and today it lies embedded in the roadway in the middle of a T-junction.

In 2016 a motorist crashed into it and demanded £18,000 compensation from the local Council. The Council decided to remove the stone as a health and safety and risk mitigation measure.

But the local villagers, like their predecessors centuries before, took up arms against their modern day opponents and threatened to chain themselves to their special rock and fight the council through the courts if it tried to move the Devil's Boot from its traditional resting place in the village.

Like their predecessors they won the battle and drove off the enemy and the boulder still lies proudly in the middle of the road where it has been for centuries.

Less poetically inclined persons might try to tell you that it is a merely a "glacial erratic", a random boulder originating from Derbyshire and deposited by the Anglian Glacier as it retreated up the Vale of Aylesbury 11,000 years ago, but we know better.

Witch Marks

Three intriguing images are carved into the stonework of the doorframe of St Michael's, a well-preserved Norman church in the village of Stewkley.

They look like partial wagon wheels, each the size of a saucer or side plate. 

The one at the top at head height is a "mass dial". It's a miniature sundial; in medieval times the priest would place a small rod on the centre dot to form the gnomon and as its shadow fell onto the various radial lines it would tell him the correct times to conduct mass. 

The other two - one half way up on the right and one near the bottom at knee height are very different. They are witch marks. 

Something strange must have happened in the church or local area, and the superstitious villagers carved their rough versions of the priest's "magic" symbol to protect the church from evil spirits and ward off witches.

Is my grandson a time-traveller?

What are they teaching them at child care nowadays - quantum mechanics? Or is my three-year-old grandson some kind of infant Time Lord?

Having nailed the concept of space-travel (see my post dated 16 April) he is now contemplating its relationship to time-travel.

We were returning from a trip to the local library where he had been playing with another little boy.

“How old was that other boy?” I asked him

“Four”, he replied.

“And how old are you?”

“Three”.

“How old will you be next birthday?”

“I don’t know”.

“Well, what comes after three?” I hinted.

“Four”, he said

“That’s right," I said. "You will be four next birthday.”

“Will I get presents?” he asked hopefully.

“Yes", I said. "But you will have to wait a long time. Your next birthday is a long way away.”

"I will go in Daddy’s car then.”