Airside v Landside

As a broad rule I do not volunteer for much . I do have a willingness to help out if the request comes out of a difficult situation or where an organisation is left in the lurch through no fault of their own. I am a supporter of promoting my profession in Surveying as a worthy pursuit and at least to woo away those who may otherwise end up as lawyers or accountants. So, I suspended my rule by agreeing to take part in an overseeing role at the local High School for what was called an 'inter schools airport challenge'. I had no idea what to expect although was assured by the organisers that I would be part of a team including professionals who had experience of what was likely to be involved in something called an airport challenge. I had, at that time only actually been to a couple of airports myself and half of these occasions were simply to collect someone from arrivals without even entering the main building or indeed seeing or hearing an aircraft. I put on my smartest suit, brightest shirt and clean shoes for the day and felt reasonably confident to be playing an assisting role to those who knew what they were doing. It was a day out of the office, in some form of public service and with the promise of a buffet lunch. I expected to coast along quite nicely basking in the glory of others and to be revered by association by the participating students. The competition was between 5 schools from the area and over the age group 15 to 17. Each team had  brought along a member of their own staff as leader and supervisor. The assembly hall was quite crowded and noisy in anticipation. I was quickly taken to one side upon my arrival to be informed that I was to be the only professional attending following a series of unfortunate events and double-bookings by the real experts who, at very short notice, had cancelled. I was mortified. I was going to be rumbled, found out and exposed as the fraud that I truly now accepted to be the case. One saving grace was that the competition was being run simultaneously in other county schools and as such did have a formal briefing pack and rules of playing. It was a bit like Monopoly but with runways, terminals, control tower and concessions. My role was to be on hand to advise on any queries or design aspects from the students. I would have a roving brief being centrally based in the hall and able to respond to any calls for assistance. The competing schools were all from affleunt areas so I reasoned that the students had regularly holidayed abroad and would be very familiar with the larger UK and continental airports making my job much easier. Equipped with a huge sheet of paper, about advertising hoarding size, and multicoloured pens the teams had first to sketch out a plan of their proposed airport from the carpark to the boarding gates. This was under strict budgetary controls and allowances for each sub-element. Interestingly but not altogether surprising for the age group a couple of the teams were nearly bankrupt from the start by blowing a good proportion of their budget on landside facilities including games arcades, record and CD shops, fashion and coffee shops. This was to the detriment of providing adequate airside customs facilities, baggage handling areas, check-in desks and duty free outlets. The terminology of landside and airside did initially cause some confusion in my mind and to the majority of the students. I ranged about the hall, by now trying to look like a politician amongst his electorate with jacket off and shirt sleeves rolled up. Just as seen on TV it was not at all cool.
Progress was good by lunchtime and I had been able to fudge most direct questions quite well. There were not quite gasps of admiration from those assembled but my comments on waste bins, or more particularly their absence from airport concourses because of security considerations went down as though I knew what I was doing. I was off duty for the lunch-break but was approached by staff members curious about a career in the world of aviation which, to outsiders, may look quite an attractive job but I assured them that it had its downsides but I was very non-specific about what these were. A roll of the eyes and a wink is a good substitute for actual meaningful conversation. The afternoon session flew by and by 3pm I was asked to summarise the challenge to date before final submissions and presentations by the teams. My final role was to adjudicate and determine an overall winner. There was not a lot of difference between all the teams in their submissions and rationale so my decision would be quite difficult. My final order of merit actually came down to tidyness and neatness of the plans and written workings. I made a final speech about how well everyone had applied themselves to a complex project and that if I did ever get asked to design and build an airport I would have no hesitation about sourcing a team from those present. I did not hang around at the conclusion of the day. As I drove out of the school gates dodging the hordes of homegoing pupils I found myself having a running dialogue with the control tower as I was cleared for take-off.

Pointer Sister

I know, I know, I know......we did have another dog, Toffy, a German Pointer so I apologise for letting Elsie have all the limelight but two such different canine characters you could not expect to come across in a lifetime. We moved from Elsie's first house only a couple of months after she moved in and settled in Lincolnshire in another damp proofed and replastered cottage in another commuter village. By now we were both working so we thought in our wisdom that Elsie needed the company. Our new next door neighbours' daughter had a litter of Pointer puppies from a purebred mother but a rather mischievous and frankly not-to-be-trusted -with -your -back -turned black labrador. The puppies were really cute and at only a few days old could sit easily in the palm of your hand. For some financial consideration we acquired an almost all white one save for a Caramac chocolate coloured blob. Elsie did not at all appear put out by the new arrival and soon conducted her ritual to establish the hierarchy in the house as she had with me only months before. Toffy ambled about in true puppy clumsiness and was so small, although not the runt of the litter, that she could easily walk under and through Elsie's legs without contact. Training with Elsie had been quite straightforward but Toffy represented a great challenge by her rather superior opinion of herself and the fact that her mum and sister lived on the other side of the hedge. On the frequent occasions that she disappeared from our house and garden we only had to look into next doors back kitchen to see Toffy quite at ease by the fireside or eating amongst her relatives. Her growth was rapid and she soon towered above Elsie. We did witness a few stand-off situations between the two adopted sisters with Toffy throwing her weight and Teutonic breeding around but more than matched by Elsie's guile and streetwise nature. Toffy had been weaned onto a dry dog food mix which came in large 6kg bags from the agricultural suppliers in the area and was suitable to adequately fuel her madly active and frenetic behaviour. Elsie who had started on tinned Winalot and mixer had to fall in line with the Pointer Diet and although she competed for her food we felt that she never really took to it. The dry food was interesting to inspect and disect. In the days prior to the awareness of mad cow disease I would marvel at the range of organ parts and offal that made up the ingredients. With a basic and practical knowledge of human physiology I am sure it would have been possible to assemble a viable but mutant bovine creation from the contents of a typical bag. Toffy regarded us as a lodging house and would make every effort to abscond and wander around the village. On the leash she pulled and pulled like a cart horse so we used a halti type collar to try to train this out of her. It did not work. The combination of her size, erratic movement and steamroller aggression together with the halti gave her the appearance of a muzzled beast which was so very far from the actual truth but did serve to frighten and intimidate small children in particular. In a matter of a few months the two dogs excavated and destroyed the rear lawn and flower beds. We paved it. We soon moved again and the decision making process for the choice of house was not so much 'Location, Location, Location' as 'Sunroom for the dogs' above all other attributes. In retrospect it was not really that suitable a residence for us human occupants and with the arrival of our first two children we rapidly outgrew the place. The dogs were in a good position to guard the back of the house and did deter one opportunistic approach by potential perpetrators when my wife and infant daughters felt at some risk. Toffy continued doing her famous runners and we dreaded the discovery of her empty bed upon being alerted to the fact by an ever considerate and attentive Elsie. The Pointers' sense of road safety was non-existent although at her fully grown weight of around 6 stone she could probably survive an impact and cause considerable damage to car bodywork in the process. My favourite two photos of Toffy do cause me to smile. An early one shows her in an almost angelic aura with her white coat catching the sun on a bright afternoon as she stands belly deep in a meadow. The other, standing on the top of a narrowboat wearing a full lifejacket, during a memorable week on the Leeds-Liverpool canal. The dog was still infuriating and stressful to have around the house although I do feel some guilt about not having enough energy to cope with her constant demands for a long walk or a prolonged throw and fetch session. At 10 years old she faded away very quickly after, I am convinced, she contracted Weils disease from one of her swimming sessions in one of the seasonal water holes in the local Country Park. I was sat next to her increasingly frail form at the moment when she drew her last breathe. I was devastated by her demise but Elsie took it well and indeed really enjoyed, that evening, her first full tin of Winalot for a decade.

Dog Day Evening

Our Elsie was a lovely dog. Out of the ranks of residents at the local RSPCA shelter she was the only one not putting on a bit of a show under the gaze and exclamations of 'oohh' and 'aah' from visitors and patrons. Understandably, really, given her abandonment with her brothers and sisters in a hole in the eastern part of the city only days before. The idea of taking on a dog had been in our minds for some time. I had been brought up with one in the house and as part of my chores although my wife was more of a cat person to tell the truth. We had just moved into our first house together, a very small and newly damp-proofed and plastered old cottage on the busy through road of a village. The location was close to the first junction of the M62 motorway at its eastern end and we often felt that users just ignored the need to moderate their speed from 70mph to 30mph on passing our front door. This made for some interesting night time sounds of frantic deceleration, braking, invariably a skid and an impact either with the bridge parapet at a turn in the road or the display window of local shop just beyond. We were however out in the country with an open view to fields behind and good walks just at the end of the garden. A dog would be a nice compliment for our new life. Elsie, duly named loosely after a Coronation Street character and because we donated £10 to the charity's costs, therefore and tenously Elsie Tenner, was brought home after completing her course of innoculations in the spring of 1987. My wife went out that first night and did not witness the truly frightening and intimidating incident that, in retrospect, was me and Elsie setting our territory and establishing our respective roles in what was a 17 year relationship. As Allison left for a meeting I sat quietly on the settee with the diminuitive terrier type hound just sniffing around familiarising herself with her new surroundings. We were not sure what breed Elsie was. Rough, coarse multi coloured coat, long muzzle, bushy tail and huge paws. Perhaps an Airedale puppy or a sheepdog collie,but more likely a cross with anything loose on the housing estate where she came from. I was sat quietly watching TV when suddenly Elsie went berserk. She crouched down on her front legs, hind quarters in the air and growled ferociously at me. I laughed at first at the performance but Elsie was determined and intent on a showdown. She pounced at the settee and tore around me in a whirlwind of fur, tail and ungainly paws in a series of ever decreasing circles. I feared for my extremities and gradually edged off the seat cushions to end up sitting on the floor with the settee at my back. First ground won by Elsie and she knew it. I was now literally cornered against  an immoveable object. The demented dog then shot out into the darkness of the front room obviously for a few victory laps before resuming her kettling of me. I assumed the position of a hedgehog in a tight ball which only served to annoy Elsie now confident in her dominance but deprived of her equivalent of a definitive kill. She pounced around me growling and with a good imitation of a snarl but comical for something so small and clumsy. I was firmly rooted to the seated position, unable to drag my sorry carcass up and for an escape to the nearest refuge afforded by the lobby to the downstairs bathroom. I had to distract the dog and hopefully diffuse the situation which was becoming uglier by the minute. Being a new arrival we did not have a ready supply of dog treats or chews in the cottage with which to bribe Elsie nor any squeaky toys or bouncy balls to turn the conflict into a play opportunity. In the days pre-mobile phones any call for assistance to Allison or the Puppy Pound were not an option. The house phone was in the front room,but as far as I was concerned, across the border in Elsie controlled territory. I decided to play dead and see what happened. Elsie continued on her rise to power but soon became either bored or tired. Some 30 minutes later she was calm and concentrated on licking away hair-balls from between her chunky paws. By the time Allison came home the natural colour had returned to my face and circulation was restored to my folded limbs although not without much discomfort from pins and needles and cramps. I gave a short version of the evenings events. I had considered keeping quiet but Allison sensed that something had kicked off . Whatever had transpired it had been necessary for me and Elsie to go through the rituals and establish the ground rules and pecking order for what was to be a tremendous relationship and sense of mutual respect and understanding that can only really exist between one man and his dog.

History of a Family in 6 objects. Part 2

The BBC recently ran a radio series with the help of the British Museum on 100 objects that shaped or contributed to the history of the world. These ranged from statues to coins and from toys to modern technology. I have tried to achieve the same sense of significance but in relation to our family for a few objects lying around the house currently or remembered from growing up.

Part 2- Nautical Chart

The true environment for a Nautical Chart would be rolled up cocooned in others on a table in the wheelhouse of a seagoing vessel. Whilst treasured and meticulously preserved each chart would be able to convey its own story through signs of wear and tear, wind whipped edges, pencilled scribblings by way of observed amendments, the faded stains of a well earned fortified cup of tea, salt spray, sweat and tears and perhaps a few traces of fish entrails. It was a hard decision to make but the May 1974 Gnonomic issue for England-East Coast at a scale of 1:50000 is now framed up and takes pride of place in our dining room.Whilst produced under the Superintendence of Rear Admiral G P D Hall, Hydrographer of the Navy, the chart belonged to George Brown, my father in law. He knew the area of coverage extremely well as it figured significantly through his lifetime. The northern landfall extremity of the chart shows just above the town of Withernsea and with the bottom right hand corner the dunes and marshes of the Lincolnshire coast below Grimsby. Farthest west is an inset panel of how to navigate up the Humber to Goole and below that a further extract of the entrance to the River Trent. The course of the river meanders mightily as befits its role of draining one fifth of the landmass of England. To the east, the North Sea with navigation guidance as far as the former mooring position of the Humber Lightship. George was born in the port city of Kingston upon Hull in 1929. In his teens he was working on the river on low slung commercial barges which plied between the thriving Hull docks and the inland riverside towns. These vessels were the HGV's of the time carrying coal, fuel oil, grain and bulk goods in large and regular shipments. George was on the river during the early part of the second world war and will have witnessed and indeed been exposed to the incessant airborne bombing raids on the docks and wider urban area in the peak blitz years of 1941 to 1943. His maritime experience, even though he was still under the age for conscription to the military was important and he was soon to be working much more hazardous waters on the lifeline provided to the country by the Arctic convoys. After the war George took again to the sea but in a much warmer climate and was stationed in Malta in RAF Air Sea Rescue aboard what will have been former motor torpedo boats and also as flight crew on the Sunderland Flying Boats. George was a grafter and provider for his family working, in civilian life in the large industrial plants of Hull and also on the Blackburn Aircraft production line at Brough some 7 miles west of the city. The 1974 navigation chart was acquired by George to go with his ownership of a sea-cobble fishing boat maintained and shore-berthed at Tunstall on the Holderness Coast. The North Sea was still a very productive fishing ground at that time and the vessel provided access well offshore to reach the stocks of fat fleshy Cod, in particular, now very sadly depleted and emaciated by comparison. Beach angling was also a favourite pursuit of George and the chart illustrates the sheer size and scale of the annual competitions which would attract participants from all over the country, europe and the world who would draw pegs at regular spots along the full length of the Holderness Coast from Spurn Head to Bridlington. The chart is a technical document essential to an understanding and safe negotiation of a major and very busy watercourse but for George it was also the key to a very active and enjoyable lifelong association with things maritime.

Day One

Day 1 of 6787 working days to date, by my rough calculation.did not start very well. I had completed my final exams in my four year course grandly titled 'Urban Estate Surveying' but had little confidence in passing as, frankly, I had lost my way and interest somewhat in the last crucial part of the degree. There was no particular reason for this. I think I had just grown up and could see and hope that there was perhaps more to my future than just work. In the third year of the course I had been out on a placement and this had been quite miserable as I was a bit isolated and struggled on a pittance of a wage, so much so that I did qualify for a rent rebate on my accommodation, a damp shared house down near the racecourse in Lincoln. The work was however interesting and I did learn a lot which stood me in good preparation for my later entry into my first real employment. On returning for my final year I no longer enjoyed the company of those on my course. My previous housemates had all found a house together. I ended up cycling with all my worldly possessions in panniers to Nottingham for the start of the final year and until I could find proper accommodation I slept on the floor and took temporary board and lodging with a family from the local cycling club. The academic year dragged through to Christmas. In the early part of 1985 I had a couple of job interviews through my course. The first in Leeds was with a large Corporate. Posh central offices,large brass plaque with multiple Directors, about 3 floors of busy offices. The interview went well and I was provisionally offered one of two graduate positions. The second interview was in my home city, Hull. A stark contrast from the Leeds organisation in that the firm was very traditional and entering their centenary year, housed in a Listed building right in the city centre and now whittled down to just 2 Partners who, I gathered hated each other. I was interviewed by the very senior Partner. We got on well and I was offered a job straight away subject to passing my degree. The Leeds job promised the most but the Hull position was convenient. The final choice was out of my control. The job offer in Leeds was withdrawn as they decided they only wanted one graduate and it was not me. The summer between finishing the course and getting my results was idyllic. I signed on the dole. There were no jobs on offer. I cycled just about every day and all day with my weekly total of distance covered usually exceeding 400 miles including some 8 hour efforts to to Scarborough, Helmsley, Thirsk, York and back. I was the fittest I would ever be and had some good racing results. My sun tan was the usual for a keen cyclist with part arms and legs bronzed and covered parts just bright white or pink. I resembled in my racing kit, a neapolitan ice-cream. The envelope I had hand written and provided to my course tutor for my results turned up on the doormat one bright sunny day. I held it for a few moments before opening making a mental note to check when it would be possible to take the final year again. I had scraped through with a lower second class degree. Relief was followed by some muted elation and a bit of disappointment that I had not made more of a go of the course. I had for the first time in my life intentionally done the minimum required for something. Some whistling and singing was heard on the subsequent cycle run. Things were now ramped up and serious. The lazy summer had to be prolonged and I held off ringing for a start date with the Hull firm for a couple more weeks. When I did finally make contact with the senior partner he thought I had left the country or died because of the lack of communication. In preparation for Day 1 of work I bought a blazer and light grey trousers from the factory shop of a large clothing manufacturer. The items were seconds which had been part of crew uniform for British Airways. This was evident from the part removed branded labels. I was the lightest and sleekest I had ever been following my almost professional cyclists existence for the previous 3 months. I was to drive myself to my first day at the office in the 1966 red Mini that I shared with my sisters. On the way down the by-pass, some 4 miles from the city centre it ran out of fuel and I had to walk some distance to buy petrol and a container. Consequently I was very late for my initiation meeting. I had missed the senior partner and just sat in the reception area, more like a living room, not sure what was to happen. I was shown to a large empty office and waited again. Some time later a small, slightly built man came in and sat down without noticing me and was quite startled upon looking up to see that he had company. He was the other Partner and had not been informed that 1) I had come to start a job and 2) That there was a job on offer anyway. That did not bode well. Perhaps I had been used as leverage between the two warring Partners. I persisted and some 6786 working days later I am still in the same line of work although for the past 21 years self employed. The centenary year of the firm was sadly just about its last as it got acquired and swallowed up in a larger brash practice as a means for the adversarial Partners to retire and escape each other. I was thrown straight in at the deep end of work with a good team of Surveyors and quickly developed my own style and procedures. The best thing to come out of working for Chas Charter and Co was meeting and marrying one of the girls from the rental department and we are on about day 8765 of that great adventure.

Honey Monster Bus

Rest one buttock on the edge of the seat towards the aisle, do not look out of the window or allow yourself to be seen aboard what was referred to as 'The Big Yellow Honey Monster Bus". During the academic week the brightly coloured bus was on the school run, no particular attachment to a specific school or age group and with no great problems or stigma attached to being carried as a passenger especially if in uniform. However, on a weekend when the bus was used to take us to Youth Orchestra practice it attracted the attentions and ridicule of otherwise quite normal and placid pupils or just members of the public who would gesticulate and hurl abuse at what they considered as a busload of remedial or somehow retarded kids being taken out for a saturday trip. As far as I was concerned  this treatment by my peers was bad enough but to actually surrender half of a precious weekend to musical practice only added further insult to the verbal and demonstrative injuries. I was having trumpet tuition as an extra-curricula subject and a condition of taking up school time and resources was to reliquish some of my own leisure hours in the pursuit of a coming together of district musicians with the ultimate outcome in any one year being a grand concert to which Civic Dignatories and mums and dads were invited. I was understandably miffed at missing out on saturday TV on the bi-monthly incarceration on the dreaded bus and then at some massive comprehensive school in the nearest large town. Anything to do with playing my trumpet always made me quite hot and sweaty so as well as a feeling of indignation about the practice days I was always very uncomfortable and by mid afternoon probably not very pleasant to be down-wind of. There were some very talented individuals attending who had the ability and inclination to actually take up a career in music. I hated them. They were always sat up front as the lead players in their particular brass, woodwind or string sections and flaunted their current level of Royal School of Music gradings. They also looked better dressed, composed and probably had excellent packed lunches as well, you know the thing- Pate, croissant, freshly squeezed juice, home made fairy cakes and nutritious healthy snacks. I had usually eaten my peanut butter sandwiches, crisps, marathon bar and flapjack before the bus even arrived at the practice session. I had no Grades and no hope within reason of actually attaining any. The day dragged on incessantly. The morning session was usually in sub groups working on a musical piece. I could seek refuge in the third or back row of the trumpet section and get away with miming or just getting enough air down the tubes to eke out a semblance of a tune if really pushed to do so. The only real fun in playing a trumpet was building up a massive amount of spit and bile which accumulated in the bottom tubing. When the tubes were full there would be a bubbling and gurgling sound signalling the need to vent and evacuate the trumpet of its bodily fluids by pressing a small valve key and blowing. The third row, known for its excess spit, soon took on the appearance of a bunch of incontinents sat amongst their own pools of waste. The afternoon session was a combination of all orchestral sections to work on the concert pieces. Early on in the academic year the sound was excruciatingly bad and showed only very slow improvement for many months. The tutors had great ambitions and enthusiasm but must have been hearing something very different to what I was exposed to on the back row. The imagination of the noise made by the mass strangling of cats came to mind. With immense relief the day would finish with only the bus journey to be survived. In the winter months there was some security provided by the cover of darkness but in the summer we were an easy target for what would today be regarded as wholly politically incorrect behaviour by all those who encountered the bright yellow bus on its usually slow and laborious journey back to our starting point.

The Earth Moved

All that was left was a framed and autographed photo of Nicholas Cage, a plastic replica Wehrmacht hand grenade and a drinks mat endorsed by the film crew of Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

We had been starstruck by the novel and film of the book of Corelli and in pursuit of something or other we had set off to holiday on the island of Kefalonia, to the west of the Greek mainland.

The settings for the key scenes of the film could not be found apart from the main geographical and physical topography of the island. All the buildings in the film had been fabricated from wood with a stone-effect exterior moulded from plaster of paris and, if surviving the many nautical miles in transport, were now probably stored in a studio warehouse in Hollywood or a suburb off. The island had been devastated by a massive earthquake in the 1950's and the classical Venetian influenced buildings of the main city, Argostoli and the main provincial towns had been lost in the main tremor, rattled to dust in the aftershocks or demolished on the grounds of instability and a hazard to the public.

Up on the hillsides we had seen hundreds of abandoned villas and farmhouses which were not cost effective or legally permissible to remove and lesser structures including garden and retaining walls were ripped and scarred by the ravages of the earthquake.

We, in the UK , are truly fortunate not to be in one of the volatile tectonic regions of the world as there is nothing like an earthquake to set you back a few years in the pursuit of a normal life. The early hours tremor of February 27th 2008 therefore created absolute terror and a great sense of humility when it rocked our corner of East Yorkshire.

Eldest daughter pre-empted the actual sustained vibration of the quake, measured at 5.2 on the Richter Scale , by screaming out "Errrrrrrrrrrrrrttttttthhhhhhhhqwwwwwwwwaaaayyyyyyyyykkkkkkkkke" just seconds before the rest of the family were shaken out of our beds.

 I have no idea how she sensed that the earth was shifting but you do hear of such things as an eerie silence, the barking of dogs or the flight of wild birds as constituting a natural alert in such circumstances. I think that she was already in our bedroom when the sounds and sensations were experienced, being totally alien to UK inhabitants, but very familiar through graphic TV reports from around the world, disaster movies and, from a family visit to The British Museum, where they had a Japanese Earthquake Experience consisting of a gyrating hydraulic platform to attempt to simulate a lesser tremor from the 1995 Kobe City event.

The strange noise lasted about 30 seconds and the impact was akin to having your seat back kicked in by unruly kids in a cinema, dramatic but persistently annoying. Then, immediately after, just a perfect silence if you discounted the cacophony of domestic security alarms going off in the neighbourhood. First thing in a Civil Emergency situation is to switch on to local radio. The graveyard shift presenter was already receiving calls about the shaking although from the diplomatic tone of his voice you could tell he was quite used to receiving crank based calls from drunks at about the same time every day on similar earth-moving topics.

Gradually the news machine took on the story and by the 8am TV news there were eye witness accounts of chimney pots falling to the street, cracks appearing in walls and ceilings and a few incidences of structural weakness causing concern to the Borough Engineers. I could see no tangible worsening of my own collection of masonry and plaster cracks over which I conducted regular monitoring on a casual interest basis.

Over the following weeks I did get commissioned to advise on a few cases of earthquake damage from concerned homeowners. These did start to form a distinct pattern. The western side of the Hull urban area where becoming elevated above the floodplain has a chalk strata. The quake, whose epicentre was some 40 miles south in rural Lincolnshire, had potential to rock and jar the chalk casuing damage as opposed to the induced jelly wobble of the clay based soils further east.  Any old Victorian plasterwork, the dry horsehair bonded type forced onto willow latts, was particularly vulnerable from working loose and my analysis attributed two large ceiling collapses and associated damage directly to the eathquake rather than just age related or poor maintenance led wear and tear or heavy handed paper-stripping by enthusiastic DIY'ers.

The strangest incident was in an older house just to the north of Hull city centre. The owners, a nice elderly couple had splashed out on new fitted carpets for the staircase, landing and front bedroom and these had been put in place professionally just two days before the quake date. They then went away for a weeks stay-away with relatives. On their subsequent return to the house, an end of terrace two-up, two-down example, they discovered that there had developed a uniform gap of two centimetres between the inner face of the gable end wall and the new carpets for the full length of the wall. Sighting in line along the gable wall did indicate a very slight bellying and slumping just at corresponding first floor level.

 In the absence of any mitigating factors the homeowners were successful in their insurance claim for damage arising from an earthquake and inspite of strong resistance from their insurers to accept that, in the UK, such a peril could actually be experienced. We should be thankful.

What the Dickens

As another street urchin was trapped in the spokes of his hired Hansom Cab and thrown headlong into an adjacent town house basement well, Josiah Raskelf mused to himself on his good fortune in discovering a most interesting document which could be to his ultimate gain. The acquisition of the document had been undertaken with much stealth and guile from a second hand book seller in the less celubrious part of Fish Town, the bit which moved around on the ebbing tide of the all dominating muddy estuary. The flickering coal gas mantles had made the scouring of the display shelves for any antique book treasures problematic but there was no mistaking the sound of good quality parchment slipping from the pages of a weighty tome entitled ' Marrying for Financial Advantage in Victorian Society". After some undignified scrabbling around amongst the flotsam and jetsam on the semi submerged and rotting timber floor of the shop, the intriguing paper was retrieved. In elaborate copper plate handwriting Josiah found to his interest a detailed schedule of the widows of the town and what appeared to be a figure of their net worth in cash and property assets. The proprietor of the shop had finished his victuals of a large mutton bone washed down with warm ale and could be heard preparing for a stock taking visit to the inner sanctum in which Raskelf was encamped. In a deft sleight of hand the moneyed list was eased into the pages of the book and in a flourish he offered the grubby and insanitary shop keeper a shilling in return for the said book. Immediately suspicious of the well dressed and evidently affluent visitor to his very humble premises the owner, one Herbert Sprakeworthy insisted that the retail price was in fact nine shillings and sixpence including bookbinder tax. Raskelf showed no emotion in forking out the vastly inflated price again arousing the curiosity of the seller who now regretted not coming in at a considerably higher figure. So in due course Raskelf and his exciting find were on their way across Fish Town . Being a man of means and leisure he would enjoy a very prolonged period in which to deliberate a strategy to attain maximum exploitation of the bereaved womenfolk for minimum effort and entanglement. Alighting at his own residence he was fussed over by a small retinue of domestic servants who between the cab and his front door managed to provide him with a complete change of clothes and a good close wet shave and manicure. He dined alone and the fifteen courses were relished with extreme delight in anticipation of his forthcoming course of action. He slept fitfully, however, as befits a person with no soul or conscience and on a very full and bloated belly from the excesses of his dining table notwithstanding a tangible volume of his best Port wine. In the morning, sat at his study desk he considered whom he could recruit to undertake the shabby elements of his masterplan. Various brigands and thieves had served him well in the past but he doubted whether they had survived the onslaught of cholera, the attention of other competing villains and the complications of childhood ricketts. His Manservant, a threatening figure even in traditional attire, was a veritable human directory of the criminal fraternity and could provide contact details for any perpetrator for any requirement whatsoever. The task in hand, considered Raskelf, was rather specialised in that each of the potential victims would have to be wooed into relinquishing their fortunes rather than bludgeoned and beaten in the conventional manner of the time. It would be a long term project, there was no doubt about that. The targets would have to be carefully selected. It was entirely conceivable that the prettier ones would re-marry quickly being very sought after and particularly in the light of the guidance and instruction of chapter headings in the book in which he had first discovered the detailed list. He feared that he would be left with the dowdy matrons and righteous shockers and no amount of incentive or reward based proposals would entice an unscrupulous Player or Beau to partake in the scam. Perhaps, on reflection the project was destined to be just too arduous and fatiguing and not for him, whose aim in life was to enjoy the better things and reap the rewards from, as far as possible, the labours and tribulations of others. He felt there was little scope to pass on the information to another scallywag for a small consideration or even a profit share. Regrettably, but in his mind, entirely fittingly, he pushed the parchment document into the glowing embers of his fireplace and as it quickly scorched and curled into flame he ignited his most favourite brand of cigar and planned his next despicable endeavour with a most unflattering grin and escape of gas from the excesses of the previous evening.

Eyeballs Out

Ask someone to touch their own eyeballs and the common response would be nothing short of disgust, outrage or complete disbelief. Yet to those of the population who are contact lens wearers this is an everyday practice. I admit that on first being fitted for contacts nearly 21 years ago I found the process very, very unnatural and difficult. Some dexterity and patience is needed to go through the extraction of a new lens from its foil sealed saline solution packaging and balancing the floppy disc on the tip of a finger before careful negotiation onto the eyeball. There is a split second when the elasticity of the actual lens switches allegiance from fingertip to eyeball followed by a slight antiseptic type stinging and smarting before sight is returned in full definition and clarity. I do not mean to discourage those thinking of taking up lens wearing because it is a great and liberating thing and the progress in the technology of lenses has been remarkable. I remember a conversation with a former colleague who had some of the first commercially available lenses. These were hard and inflexible discs made out of perspex. The manufacture was crude and rough with a thick cross section of plastic and a wide outer edge so much so that they had to be hand finished in the factory by abrasion with emery paper to improve the fit and comfort. I cannot imagine how uncomfortable these must have felt attached to the eyeball but many wearers will have endured the pain and suffering just to be in the first new wave of fashion. My first lenses had to be sterilised between periods of use in a small portable plug in unit and with regular check-ups for any irritation, damage or infection which tended to be an inevitable feature in those early days. Within a few years the concept of daily lenses was introduced and the next generation were light, permeable and also with UV protection. I did exploit the advances in technology by keeping my lenses in for very long periods and also, inadvisably, sleeping with them still in place. Being an emotional person my frequent welling ups and tear production obviously helped to keep my eyes moist and the lenses firmly adhered to allow me to ignore the explicit instructions of the manufacturers and my Optician. I have very rarely lost a lens either from it simply falling out or from a mysterious disappearance where I suspect it just curls over and shrivels up and retreats to that space between the back of the eyeball and the brain. The latest lenses are not at all discernible when worn and on a couple of occasions I have actually tried to put in a new lens on top of an existing one not realising that there was one already in position. In the two decades of wearing lenses my regular check-ups show that my vision has remained fairly constant which is impressive given the potential for age related wear and tear and other medical and physiological influences to impair sight. My former optician, or whatever specialist term now applies, championed the cause for the study of the health and welfare of the eyes as an indicator of other bodily ailments and although he did not flag up any warning signs in my case he was able to alert other patients to problems of cholestrol and potentially debilitating illness to be brought to the attention of Physicians and other Health Sector practitioners for further diagnosis and treatment. The gift of sight is very precious and only really appreciated when it starts to become noticeably impaired or compromised. Sat in the opticians waiting area just today I was entertained and informed by the screening of a short presentation on the miraculous and wondrous composition and operation of the human eye to an extent that I had not really realised or appreciated. Perhaps I will take out my longstanding current lenses tonight, after all they are about 4 weeks old and a bit crusty although being a great fanof this optical marvel I am reluctant to admit to this readily or in polite company.

Like Herding Cats

The principle behind herding cats works very well with dry leaves on a blustery day. Of course, the idea behind herding cats is to gather them up which is in direct contrast with my intention, with a front garden prone to collecting leaves, to get rid of them all. This is the third successive sunday that I have tackled the leaf problem. Both previous spurts of energy had been on calm and still days. The process of raking out a mass of dry, brown leafs from beneath the bushes and shrubs, throughout the flower beds, around the base of the magnolia tree and from their resting place at the base of the front boundary wall had created a carpet of crispy, brittle foliage that ran from the front door of the house to the garden gate. Another pile was formed on the lawn. It was back-breaking and knee-aching work to then scoop up the debris to fill three hessian garden bags and an overflow dustbin. The source of the leaf debris is a huge Plane tree on the roadside verge. It is a magnificent example providing privacy for the front facing rooms of the house and some welcome shade in the height of summer.There was a bit of a panic when the 66 Bus, a double decker had collided with the tree some years ago and we feared for its future as the impact had caused some injury to the assorted loose passengers and damage to the front upper corner of the vehicle. The tree survived and has been regularly maintained since in terms of cutting back any branches protruding over the carriageway. There is a trade-off for the retention of the tree however. The shallow, snaking roots are visible from their distortion to the pedestrian pavement and a crack through our front boundary wall. The tarmac driveway to our house is also quite rucked and ridged from the course of roots and although I have composed, in my mind, a strong letter to the Local Authority to redress the damage, I have held off sending an actual ultimatum for the sake of the welfare of the tree. Any correspondence from me would certainly represent a three strikes and out you're down scenario. The leafs of the Plane tree are joined by many other surrounding deciduous sheddings with our front garden obviously being a swirly wind backwater and depositry for the neighbourhood vegetation. On this third attempt to clear the garden I had the greatly appreciated assistance of a gusty and blustery gale force wind. On hearing the storm force whistle around the back of the house and down the driveway in the early darkened hours of the day I had hesitated about venturing out to do any garden chores at all. The small recycling bin had been heard tumbling towards and coming to rest under the front bumper of the car. The wheelie bins, three of them, were unable to roll anywhere being full to the brim with appropriately allocated and sorted contents but jostled and nudged each other by the side door to the kitchen. In spite of two full loads of garden debris having been transferred to the tip there was still quite a volume of leafs in the usual positions. I dragged out a good proportion of these onto the driveway and was thrilled as the pile rapidly diminished with the wind whipping the bone dry fragments away down the street. Not wanting to be accused of freeloading or exploiting the street-sweeping budget within my Council Tax payments I stood a garden bag and the old plastic bin by my side and estimated that if I actually gathered up about 30% of the debris then the balance, lost to the howling gale was permissible wastage. I looked busy and diligent as two ladies approached from opposite directions and paused in conversation just at the tree. The dialogue, covering the calibre of respective Sunday Church Services, health and welfare of relatives and the good form of Hull City did drag on a bit and although not directly eavesdropping I found that I had only picked up and bagged about 10% of the target pile. The ladies found themselves in a maelstrom of debris and airborne foliage as the wind picked up more speed and more materials. As they moved off in their original directions I forged ahead with my re-distribution plans. Two large bushes were cleared by my coyly lifting up of their lower skirts and dragging out the leafs with the expandable rake. A surge in the wind threw many of these up into the air and to my dismay they just caught and settled on the line of heebies and shrubs running paralell to the front door approach path. My operation moved to the pathway and soon the concrete strip was covered in a layer of debris but continously moving and agitating. Quickly I gathered up and coerced the leafs towards the front gateway where they were caught up in our local East Yorkshire equivalent of the roaring forties and just disappeared.

The pathway was now just covered in dry soil and twigs which had settled to the bottom of the pile and could be swept back into the flower beds for ecological decomposition. I was quite satisfied with the outcome of the chore and felt considerably less guilty of my intention to spend the rest of the afternoon stretched out on the sofa watching television.

Yamaha

It is always a rendition of chopsticks. Given a keyboard in any place and circumstance and for any level of musical ability or not, it is always the grating tune of chopsticks. I can forgive the player on this sole instance as he was quite excited about the delivery of my mother's Yamaha organ. His wife was almost speechless to have the instrument in her own home. It was, for her, the end of a long search for the very organ on which her father had taught her to play many decades earlier and thanks to the facilitator that is E-Bay the organ had reached its new home. I had struggled to lift the bulky instrument from the load bay of my estate car. Earlier that day, The Boy and me had comically edged it out of mothers house and across the busy road, half panicking as a car turned into the bottom of the road and started to move towards us. Those clever Japanese manufacturers had provided hand holds in the rear wooden panel which combined with a further convenient flat edge just below the lower range of keys for those very, very rear occasions when the organ required to be moved in its lifetime. We had shuffled along the route from house to car in small dainty steps interspersed with cursings and profanities.The E Bay description stated 'Excellent Condition' and we were very conscious of upholding this category. The organ, carefully laid on its back and eased into the flat loading bay had survived any scuffs or more serious damage. It was then draped in a tartan travel rug and dust sheets which only exaggerated its size and shape but made us feel that we were carrying something very special. It was. Mother had purchased it in the early 80's with an inheritance from her own father, our Grandad Dick and it was a poignant reminder of his own love of music through many years of playing in a Brass Band. It was however a hard decision to pass it on but it had felt right and appropriate to do so in mother's plans. In sharp contrast upon arriving at our destination some 63.8 miles distant, the husband, a farmer, took up the opposite end and like leading a calf to feed he effortlessly dragged the organ along with my clinging, breathless form to the farmhouse door. Manor Farm sat at the foot of the Hambledon Hills in North Yorkshire. Just around the corner of the towering moorland slopes I had caught a glimpse of the chalk bright white horse grubbed out of the slopes which can be seen well into the flatlands around Thirsk, Herriott country. A couple of raised stone steps provided slight obstacles on entering the Listed 18th Century  built house. It was a close thing to avoid the grazing of knuckles on the door jambs and further into the narrow garden passage, the tongued and grooved wainscot boarding. A graceful but timid lurcher dog sniffed the air in my wake as I struggled past. A diminutive Jack Russell dodged between my legs. I made a mental log to try to avoid running the small dog over on leaving the farmyard. The recipient of the organ fussed around in a nice way. I apologised in case I had brought any mud into the house on my townie brogues but I was jovially reminded that this was a farmhouse and mud was a part of the fixtures and fittings. The garden passage was traversed without damage to the organ or injury to its hauliers and then a sharp right turn into what appeared to be the dining room. I was a bit out of breathe by this stage and welcomed the request to set the instrument down just in front of the south facing window. The view was astounding. Sweeping fields and a few hardy windswept trees stretched into the far distance. The molehill pockmarked meadows competed for a foothold with the moorland slopes, a purpley heather colour with sheep grazing on any greenery in such a sparse and harsh environment. The sunlight streamed through the low clouds and a very faint arch of rainbow ebbed in and out of brightness. Inspirational for playing I commented to the proud new owners. Then the chopsticks started as part of the due diligence for something bought from a stranger from a global internet market place. Everything appeared to be in working order and 'Caveat Emptor' was waived amicably. We shook hands as though we were lifelong acquaintances. I again reminded myself not to run over the Jack Russell as I made to leave the farmyard. I caught a glimpse of Snowy in my rear view mirror as I turned the corner into the high hedge flanked lane. It had been a successful organ transplant.

History of a Family in 6 objects. Part 1

The BBC recently ran a radio series with the help of the British Museum on 100 objects that shaped or contributed to the history of the world. These ranged from statues to coins and from toys to modern technology. I have tried to achieve the same sense of significance but in relation to my family for a few objects lying around the house currently or remembered from growing up.

Part 1; Africa

I never really knew and have great difficulty actually remembering my Grandfather on my father's side of the family. He died when I was about 4 or 5 years old. My only recollection is of a very strong smell of cigarettes in his presence and how he would produce from his cardigan a packet of sweet cigarettes for us when it was time to leave and go home. Other fragments of information came from my late father and a few bits of furniture or inherited objects that came with Gran when she moved in for the last 10 or so years of her long and generally healthy life. My grandfather worked for the Bank of British West Africa which helped to introduce modern banking to that part of the African continent. He travelled widely and had associations with business and trade in Liberia and I think Sierra Leone. Two objects that fascinated me as a small child epitomised the myths surrounding my grandfather.

The first is actually a pair of crocodiles. I am not sure if I contributed to loss of the lower jaw of one of the figures but I was not to know that carved ivory was quite brittle when roughly handled in play. They are about 6 inches long, perfectly straight, and with a girth of about the middle finger. The jaws have cerrated teeth and a gaping hole of a mouth that served well as a rest for a pencil or rolled up balls of plasticine but for which it was never intended. The reptiles had a flat belly underside and could sit flat and level on display. The tail tapered to a sharp point and the whole body had a raised series of scales. I would usually head for the crocodiles first in visiting the rather dark and grim inter war semi detached house where my grandparents lived.

The second object of fascination is a carved upright figure, standing about eight inches tall. It was skillfully carved by a native African out of a single piece of light, almost balsa or cork wood. This will have been sourced from what remained of a once extensive equitorial forest but decimated under a two pronged attack to clear land for farming and to provide fuel for a village hut or smallholding farmstead. The figure is very much a caricature, comic but authoritative, of a Colonial Officer, perhaps a Civil Servant or even a Missionary or Teacher. I liked to think, when young, that it was loosely based on my grandfather. The uniform includes a pith helmet in white pigment but now very much faded to a pale washy hue. The hat is removeable and has done well to accompany the figure through many Spring Cleans and a few house removals.  His facial features are sharp with a regular but dominating nose starting well up on the forehead. The eyes are almond shaped, almost feminine in apearance. Thick fleshy lips sit above a proud chin. There remains some trace of a sunburnt skin tone but with bleaching and blotching from catching the sunlight after close to a century of exhibition and play. Attired in a khaki safari suit the figure is quite dapper. The skill of the carver has produced faint folds of linen and the suit is well tailored but cool for the sweltering climate. Incongruously the man is wearing boots with quite a Cuban heel and retaining a bright burnt-umber shade to depict leather. The pose is sitting or rather perching on a bench and at a desk to symbolise a position of relative powerand control in the Colony. The desk is typical for a Board School furnishing. Stout vertical supports, low bracing bar doubling up as a footrest, hinged heavy lid, inset ink well and a groove for a writing implement. The front face of the desk has symbols of a circle and triangle, almost masonic but not thought to be of any significance or menace.

The figure is a personalised souvenir of Empire because it was individually carved with patience and artistic understanding. It may well have been one, however, of thousands of similar brought to the river bank or quayside, city square or hotel steps, railway platform or other embarcation point to be thrust into the view or hands of departing Civil Servants, Financiers, Businessmen, Private Tourists and my Grandfather.

Confucius he say.......

I have not, for many years, heard of any contemporary applications of what used to be the first perception of measuring for a child in the use of fairy steps.

I can remember many games and pastimes at home or in school, usually those played with real or imaginary friends, where the fairy step came in very useful to define space, allocate territory and segregate participants. The distinctive heel- to toe-to heel -to toe movement, often with an exaggerated throwing out of the leg or if done rapidly more like a penguin walk, was regularly used as an integral part in  pre-school or infants school play activities . Even in senior school it was adopted to set out the distance between coats and blazers for a goalmouth for a break-time soccer game. If the match deteriorated into a brawl or mass scrap close to the goal-line then the fairy step was used to mark out the position of the penalty spot. The end of year and spring terms were mostly football but with the final school term before the summer holidays it was cricket or rounders with the fairy step returning to prominence as an easy and widely accepted medium of measurement to set out the pitch.

I have started to tentatively explore the viability of the wider adoption and use of the fairy step in business and commerce. I am fortunate in that my adult size 10 feet, when shoe'd are exactly 1 imperial foot or 12". This of course is confined to sensible and stout work shoes of a Clarks, Hush Puppies or budget Brantano calibre and not winkle-pickers, brothel creepers or those flat ended fashion shoes of Italian style and panache. Experiments in the accuracy and reliability of a size 10 fairy step over relatively short distances have proven very successful against a Swiss precision made laser device, the stalwart of a reinforced vinyl tape and an antique wooden measuring stick. There are some inevitable disadvantages particularly in the implementation of fairy steps where items of furniture form an obstacle for a clear run across a room not otherwise a problem for a red-spot laser beam or a tensioned tape. There are severe limitations in outdoor areas where ditches, rivers, lakes, seas and oceans are encountered.

The general public may also express some distress at the sight of a practitioner in the process of fairy stepping as this involves a head down stance, mutterings of counting consecutively and of course the often comical body movement which is an inevitable feature of the process. Ideally, the presence of an assistant would be required to attend to the counting and also to offset any public animosity or aggression but that could have severe implications for the financial viability of the system. I can see that its application for long distance measurement is rather limited as it takes a lot of concentration to keep in a straight line particularly on a windy day and the actual physical requirements are quite exhausting. It is very possible to incur an injury through a clash of ankles, pull a muscle or even throw out a knee or hip joint from inattentive or careless actions.

Standardisation of the fairy step would also be difficult. I have a vested interest in advocating that only size 10 shoe wearers should be elegible but that would be open to criticism for elitism and also prejudice against those of other shoe sizes. Another field day for lawyers certainly.The whole thing may just decline into a free for all along the lines of Cinderella's beauty challenged step sisters with self mutilation and severance of toes or those of petite feet buying up stocks of clown shoes. Other aspects for consideration would be conversion rates into the metric equivalent and the Statutory Legislation required to enforce the system for acceptance into the UK economy.

On reflection and at this stage in my considerations the fairy step may actually have only limited practical application but would be great fun to implement anyway. The actual numbers involved are quite interesting along the lines of ;

The Great Wall of China- Twenty nine million, forty two thousand seven hundred and fifty five fairy steps

The Andes Range- Twenty three million, two hundred and thirty two thousand fairy steps

Route 66, USA- Twenty million, eight hundred and twenty nine thousand and six hundred fairy steps

Around the world- One hundred and thirty one million, four hundred and eighty two thousand, five hundred and sixty fairy steps ( This would involve continuous fairy steps on board any water crossing vessels)

John O'Groats to Lands End, a mere Three million, one hundred and eighty three thousand , eight hundred and forty fairy steps.

Hobbiton to Mount Doom- Five Million, eight hundred and eight thousand fairy/elvish steps

By way of encouragement just recall the wisdom of Confucius, slightly paraphrased ,that "every journey begins with a fairy step......"

Play Away

The all white ,unblemished van, excepting the logo of the Local Authority, sped past my line of vision at the roundabout junction. I did not catch sight of who was sitting up front but upon reading the small print below the logo of  "Play Area Inspection Team" I half expected to have seen two burly employees wearing clown suits or at least with their faces blathered and stained with the coloured pigment from high sugar content Chupa-Chups lollies. A jolly single balloon on a string flapping around the back doors of the van would also have been a nice and fitting touch. I can appreciate the need for such a service having experienced some frightful recreation grounds, public parks and play areas during my most attentive parenting period with the children when they were very young. The graffitti covered climbing frames, swings, roundabouts and see-saws were a testament to poor attention to spelling although the general gist of who was willing to do what to whom and for how much was quite clear and unambiguous. It took some very vague and non-commital explaining to distract curious young minds. The surrounding area was also a minefield of discarded lager cans, shattered cider bottles, crisp packets and confectionery wrappers. It was a relief to find that alcoholism had taken over as a career ambition from that horrible nicotine drugged smoking lark amongst the local teenagers. I challenge anyone to deny that their local recreation ground figured highly in their courting habits. The current trend appears to be as a sordid venue for sexual exploits given the amount of prophylactics adorning the place like stalactites. I was understandably shocked to read in the local newspaper that my local Reccy was a major market place for drug dealing. So, in summary the play areas of today accommodate everything apart from being a venue for actual play. A posh housing development in a nearby commuter village boasted in it's marketing literature that it featured a fenced children's play area. Not so much a philanthropic gesture as a means of securing concessions from the Planning Authority  in terms of a higher volume of housing, euphemistically termed Planning Gain. The development was in high demand and a good number of off-plan and pre-sales were agreed with a handshake and a non refundable deposit. Unfortunately, under the due diligence of lawyers acting for individual purchasers, the open ended liability for any injury or worse arising from use of the play area would leave all the residents jointly and severally responsible for any civil actions and damages arising. Clients were advised to pull out on the basis of the nightmare scenario. Panic ensued, money and jobs were on the line for the developer. The Council stepped in and took over the playground. Peace, tranquility and order were restored to the universe. My own childhood memories of play areas are reinforced by a few persistent scars on knees, elbows and face. They were rough and tough areas. Use of a particular item of equipment was strictly on a first come, biggest kid or scary mum basis. There were frequent injuries and maimings for those who unwittingly or intentionally wandered into the reach of an occupied and high impact swing, on either the forward sweep or the back-climb. Trying to get onto a high speed roundabout, without any comprehension of physics, momentum or understanding of giroscopic motion was foolish but a challenge. Use of the stainless steel slide could be sticky and slow or unbelievably fast and this could vary very much on a visit to visit basis. Who could predict what would happen? The see-saw was equally hazardous and many a spinal column injury , snapped collar bone or skull fracture was indeed an expectation of play. My wife had a problematic tustle with a piece of play equipment as a young child with a consequence being that one of her eyeballs popped out of its socket. I hospitalised my younger sister in exercising a dramatic dismount of a see saw. Many a time a playmate cascaded through an array of monkey bars like a ball bearing through a pin ball machine. In all circumstances, barring paralysis and coma , we just picked ourselves up, I usually cried a bit, tied  a clean handkerchief onto any abrasions or blooded areas and moved on to the next apparatus, if it had suddenly become free. My last supervision at a commmunity play area emphasised the impact of a health and safety culture. The surfaces under what remained of the apparatus were in a soft rubberised matting. Anything that swung, propelled, slid or elevated had been removed and replaced with a spring mounted caterpillar figure that rocked back and forth. That was it. I have observed a welcome return to activity based play in more recent years with basketball courts, 5 a side football courts and all-weather pitches but the spirit of unrestricted play has been lost for ever. I expect the main role of the Play Area Inspection Team is to sit menacingly in their van and discourage any children from coming anywhere near the play area.

Measure for Measure

It was a phone call that I received 'Hands Free' in the car that caused me to contemplate a new unit of measurement for the 21st Century. The duration of the call was certainly a few minutes and I sort of went onto automatic pilot as far as steering, pushing the pedals, changing gear and indicating were concerned. The shocking realisation was the actual linear distance that I had travelled. I simply cannot remember how I got from my position at the commencement of the call to the location I found myself in at its end. I would like to apply the term 'mobimetre' to this phenomena of distance travelled, but with no comprehension of how, during a mobile telephone conversation. I can already see the media furore for the first reporting of a fatality under the new unit of measurement as a 'mobi-killer-metre'.

This new unit would sit nicely with what is termed The English Customary Systems of measurement for length and distance although these are based on the dimensions and conventions of the human body from well back in the mists of time.

The imperial unit of an inch relates to the width of a thumb. The term digit is approximately 0.75 inches and can be guaged by the width of a finger. A nail is the distance between the 2 joints on the middle finger or equivalent to 3 digits, therefore 2.25 inches. In natural progression the palm is a measurement of 3 inches and a hand at 4 inches. Not content with small dimensions in a rapidly developing economy and market place the hand based units were expanded and in a more animated and expressive way producing the rather double-entendre of a shaftment consisting of the width of a hand and up to an outstretched thumb equivalent to 2 palms or 6 inches, the term span being the width of an outstretched hand and the popular builders measure of a cubit equating to a forearm length. Beyond the cubit is the yard which is taken as the distance from the tip of the nose to the end of the middle finger of the outstretched hand.

Not to exclude the nautical fraternity is the length of an full arm span from fingertip to fingertip at a Fathom or 6 feet. I can envisage some poor ships crew member being dangled over the side and encouraged to take on the shape of a star to ascertain the available depth to cater for the draft of the vessel. 

There will certainly have been a great laying on of hands and limbs in the process of early business using the body originated dimensions but what allowances were made for the improved health, vitality and bodily dimensions of successive generations? A good example of changes in body shapes and sizes is illustrated in the definition of a foot. The modern unit is of course 12 inches but with some variation from the Roman foot of 11.65" which persisted through to the Anglo Saxon invasions of England. The Germanic tribes brought their own scale of size with the foot increasing to 13.2 inches but this was superseded by the late 13th Century with a bit of a compromise but establishing the standard measurement at 12" which persists to today.

The early forms of measurement must have seemed like pioneering science at the time with practitioners amongst the architects and engineers of the pre-history and later civilisations being held, understandably, in great esteem. In my early years of Surveying the older members of the profession who trained me up did use measuring sticks in their daily workload or could accurately pace out a field or garden boundary to within a very close tolerance to a tape measure and over some distance. The unit of a pace was a mainstay of the Roman Empire being one full stride or two steps. The Roman Mile was a walked distance of 1000 paces. I would question the accuracy of this on the basis of the intricacies of the method of counting which towards the latter stages of the mile must have been a slow process of much muttering of 'CMXCV, CMXCVI, CMXCVII, CMXCVIII, CMXCVIX followed by a very satisfied M or even a very satisfying MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM! unless of course the route march had just started from Rome to Hadrians Wall. The historic and iconic origins of the English Customary Systems of measurement are one of the main attractions and worthy of defending against all-comers. The imposition of the metric system failed in this country because it is based on a cold and emotionless set of principles. Measurement in the metric unit does require a ruler or tape measure when we are otherwise physically equipped and able to apply the imperial measurements simply by sticking up two fingers, the middle finger and a palm or looking down our noses and finger pointing at those wanting to know how big it is or how far there is to go.

Model

The Humbrol Airfix factory in Hull is no more. They took away the Hawker Hunter jet that sat just inside guarding the gate some years ago. As the factory site lapsed into adandonment someone vandalised the plane by smashing the canopy over the cockpit, molested the flight-suited dummy and spray painted ' I love You John' all over the fuselage. It is a matter for much speculation who was behind the attack. At face value, and looking at the protestation of love it was either a lone and love-struck woman who had reclaimed her beau from his own infatuation with model making or a coming-out gesture for a long time but closeted admirer of John. The Hunter aircraft had been brought to Hull on a low loader lorry in three parts. I imagine that the tube of polystyrene cement used to assemble the wings to the fuselage was about as big as a road tanker. If my own model making efforts were anything to go by I would also have expected to have seen a huge elastic band around the body of the plane as extra encouragement for the parts to bond together. Wing attachment was always the critical point of making up an Airfix kit plane. The full scale version had the advantage of some bona fide heavy lifting gear. I usually had a couple of upturned beakers with which to balance the heavily glue covered pieces until that magic moment when they adhered and could be worked on further. An important decision just hovering in the background was always whether to attach the landing gear or not. Most of my aircraft were destined for suspension from a shelf or the ceiling in my bedroom and so the very fiddly parts of the landing gear could be completely ignored which was a great time, labour and anxiety saving thing. If however, I had intentions of actually playing with the completed plane as part of an elaborate battlefield diorama then the intricate web of parts had to be used. Extraction of the flimsy parts was prone to failure. Any inattention to separating the moulded parts from the sprue (yes, a real word) using a Stanley knife could be fatal for the future of the model and destine it to a life of cotton dangling rather than high value playing. The landing gear was usually in three or four parts. A main strut with axle, a smaller bracing strut, the fuselage cover and the fat wheel. The skill in assembly was to get the wheel to spin on the axle but this, for my efforts, was very rare given the excessive distribution of the adhesive which was a consequence of my nerves and self imposed pressure to do a good job. Frustration was at such a peak that many models got abandoned and trashed at this stage. There was always a place in my battlefied scenarios for a downed and crashed plane although explaining why only part built aircraft were being sent to the front would take some doing. The real life Hunter was mounted on an authentic display plinth and at a jaunty angle to suggest motion in flight. I rarely used this as a means of display with my assembled planes because I could never find or form the short slot in the base of the model in which to insert the plinth. I am pleased to say that the Hunter did find a good home after the demise of the Airfix operations and is on display at a nearby museum attraction. As for my own creations they rarely survived. The cotton supporting the hanging planes usually stretched and snapped. The dioramas were scrapped as they became too expansive for my bedroom or the dining room table. A number of aircraft got buried in the garden after simulated crash landings. The toxic emissions from a burning plastic plane were an unpleasant but very necessary part of playtime. The majority just got regularly overpainted in alternate camouflage, silver or RAF blue-grey and were thrown away as they were just plain messy. I still look forward now as an adult with the same anticipation and excitement to assembling a model plane on the occasions that they are given to me as a present at birthdays or Christmas. About half way through the process I get the same old feeling of inadequacy and doubt. At the age of 48 I can gracefully concede and confine the part built plane to the box as I have other more important things to do. I may come back to it later however.

Lord of The Manor

Head down and seeing red I charged across the kitchen towards my sister and her friend. I was like a human bowling ball seeking to knock away the last two stubborn skittles than had enraged me. Deftly, and at the very last minute the two girls moved very slightly to the side and I blindly butted the blank drawer plate just below the kitchen sink. The impact, pain and shock of hitting best quality melamine and enamel rather than my intended target of soft flesh left me stunned and somehow caused my whole animosity to evaporate. The reason for my blind rage was football based. I had just watched the 1971 FA Cup Final on television. My team of the time, Liverpool had just lost after extra time after initially taking the lead. The whole build up to the day had heightened my excitement and combined with an overdose of sugar enriched soft drinks and fizz bomb sweets I was, to say the least, a bit high, as much as an 8 year old could legally be . The girls had simply commented on the result but that had been enough to cause my stupid action. I was football mad. Nothing changed much over the coming years and even today, now, I am listening with casual interest to a sunday afternoon football match commentary. The head-butting incident led to a parental chiding which was understandable. I got into trouble over other things football at school after an essay I had submitted was subsequently marked down and brought to the attention of the whole class. I had written it one evening as a set piece of homework whilst listening to a match on the radio. Unfortunately my concentration on the game was more than my diligence for the essay and the two words 'Tottenham Hotspur' found their way into a completely unrelated sentence in my submission. I had not proof read the essay which would otherwise have spared me the ridicule of the class and a duff grade. I was a very keen player but always seemed to be on the edge of the usual team picked to represent the school. If we had adopted a squad and rota basis as they do in the Premier League today I would certainly have been somewhere in the second string. The very modest secondary school team of the time could only fit 12 players onto the coach to away games as the remainder of the seats were allocated for other year teams . I did tag along on a few away trips on the pretence of just supporting the team but secretly had my full kit and football boots in the bottom of my sports bag under my cagoule and a snack based packed lunch. On one saturday morning trip to a distant town to play a cup match I went along to give some encouragement. It had been arranged to pick up two of the players from their villages on the way which was a bit unusual but their parents had not been available to drop them off at the school at the quite early start time. The first lad, our goalkeeper was waiting shivering at the bus stop on the village green. The second lad, a midfielder was nowhere to be seen at the pick up point. The bus driver was impatient to keep to the schedule as he had obviously promised himself a full English breakfast at a cafe between dropping us off and later picking us up. The sports master agreed that we should go and as he strained around to keep the village green in view, as we pulled away for any last minute appearance, he noticed me. I actually think he had done a double take but did not understand what I was doing on the bus in the first place. It did not take much persuasion to enlist me in the team. I was a fast runner and a reasonable ball player so the vacancy in midfield could be filled. I was now very excited and it took some effort to remain calm and collected with the prospect of playing the match. The venue, a large and imposing Grammar School was quite intimidating but the evocative sound of my boot studs rattling and scuffing the pathways on approaching the pitch for kick off gave me all the impetus and confidence I required. I had been given an opportunity to impress through a combination of freakish logistical events and might not get another. In the first half I ran around a lot keeping up with the play. I got in a couple of good tackles and interceptions earning some acknowledgement from team mates. Then, I received a pass out from defence and saw our striker making a good forward run towards their penalty area. Opponents were closing in fast to get the ball or just me. I executed the pass of a lifetime, a perfectly struck and weighted ball inside their full back and in a seamless continuation of his attacking run our centre forward latched on and hammered the ball into the net. In my minds eye I could see the action replay. I still can now some 35 years later. A one in a million move. Unfortunately, only the competing teams, respective sports masters, a handful of home team parents and a disinterested dog witnessed my contribution to the goal. It's funny but my action replay has me playing in front of a crowd of 100,000 including a well attended Royal Box and with the affirmation of John Motson and a panel of former players that my place in the team should be assured and my future as a professional football player bright and rosy. We lost the game 6-1. A couple of years later some kind patron of our school donated full kits and equipment for two teams for each school year group and I got into the second team for my final year before moving away. The Adidas strip was exceptionally smart and the trademark three paralell bars on shoulders, arms and shorts gave an instant boost to the team although our poor results soon emphasised that we were largely posers and the kit was all top-show with no substance. Tragically, an enthusiastic volunteering parent put the brand new team kit on a hot wash and all the colours ran into the white stripes and we looked like a grubby Manchester City. At my next school the year group was a lot smaller and football actually took a second place to Rugby Union so I got into the first eleven more by default than skillful ability. If I had any very distant aspirations of progressing my football to any higher level these were swiftly shattered in a match against the Old Boys of the school. Amongst the protruding bellies and grey or balding pates of the assembled Old Boys was a slight, athletic figure who I noted, in his warming up was quite at ease with ball juggling and tricks. I had some confidence in being informed that I had to mark him closely in the game, after all he was advanced in years, at least in his late 30's. In the next 90 minutes I spent most of the time sat on my backside or flipped off balance in a rapid and persistent succession of very subtle but professional fouls. My shirt was tugged, ankles tapped, toes stood on, character and confidence assassinated by a display of utter speed and skill. I did, out of frustration, just leg him up in a clumsy tackle but he literally bounced up running and went on immediately to score with a text book volley. I learnt the hard way that my adversary and fast developing nemesis was Malcom Lord, a former Hull City player from the notable 1960's and early 1970's campaigns in the English league. I was emotionally and physically battered and bruised by the experience but it served to concentrate my thoughts and efforts on an academic rather than a sporting path from thereon-in.

The Vinyl Solution

Vinyl records are, I am amused to read,  very much back in vogue. I contend that as someone who has never really embraced the technologies of magnetic tape, CD's, MP3's , mini discs (who has?), digitalisation and downloads they never actually fell out of fashion. They were just downsized and confined to a cupboard or the attic, a bit like a disgraced relative or fallen idol. I remember my first actual purchase of vinyl. Embarassingly, now, it was 'Remember You're a Womble' in 1974. A single, 45 rpm which to the under 30's age group who are obsessed and make judgements on the basis of abbreviated terminology means 'revolutions per minute'. LOL, gr8, etc. It cost 15 new pence, a small fortune and enough to exhaust two weeks worth of saved up pocket money, from Woolworths. The record was a birthday present for my big sister. Even more embarassingly I now admit to the world that my first actual purchase for myself was 'The Streak' by Ray Stevens also in 1974. This was a comic song about the popular practice of the time for either political statement or infamous celebrity, of running about in the nude in public.I was not being a rebel or in any way non-conformist as the record was a simultaneous number 1 smash hit in the UK and US.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxXEd2RKjYc

The packaging of a vinyl single was minimal. A flimsy paper sleeve, or a stiff cardboard sleeve either plain or coloured and branded with the record label logo, with round cut out so as to be able to read the label. The vinyl had to be handled with extreme care so as not to be scratched and regularly wiped with a felt cloth to remove the static charge attracted dust and fluff. Storage had to be upright, ideally in a purpose made box in strong odour plastic with a clip catch lip. Heat sources had to be avoided as vinyl was easily melted and distorted even if some distance from a radiator. It was quite a performance lifting the disc out of the sleeve by only touching the very thin edge. Fingerprints persisted on the outer grooves through any lapse in procedure. There was a certain technique of angling the disc up to the light to check for any tell tale signs that siblings had been playing your records or had not followed the strict handling procedure. It was a feeling of great distress and the onset of swift and fearsome recriminations at the sight of a fresh deep gouge or scratch .Before any thought of playing there was time to be spent reading the small print details on the label. The song title and composers, record company details, publishers, a date for authenticity, group or artists names , corporate disclaimers and the recommended speed at which to be played. Our parent's record player was a large piece of equipment, virtually an item of furniture.It was still described however as being portable. Grey textured finish with large hinged lid, main controls on the upper front panel and a sole mesh covered speaker with bronzed grille. For those obsessed with Wattage output, I would say it was about 10 but any attempt to maximise volume caused massive distortion to the sound. The turntable was balanced on raised screws so as to float. In other words, it wobbled easily and rattled if the bulky record player was jolted or moved. The anticipation of playing a record was heightened by the preparation required. The record was lowered on to the turntable. This could be on its own or in a stack of singles depending upon the type of spindle. Settings were checked to allow the arm and stylus needle to be compatible in operation. Size of record being 7" single or 12" album, speeds 33 and a third, 45 and 78 rpm. Finally, the switch on using automatic or for those with nerves of steel and a very steady hand, in manual mode. The arm would then, hopefully and mesmerisingly swing across and lower onto the outer rim and the lead-in grooves. Industries have grown and flourished in the pursuit of noise suppression in things audio but the very essence of playing a vinyl record is for the background hiss and crackle of analog as the band starts to play. In fact the accompanying soundtrack of atmospheric noises gives the impression of a live performance. The resounding clunk as the arm returns to the start position is one of my favourite sounds in signifying that the whole procedure can just be started up all over again. The range of speeds also provided much entertainment. There is nothing more hilarious for young and immature minds than playing a 33 and a third rpm album at 78rpm so as to make international and global recording artists sound like Pinky and Perky or Alvin and the Chipmunks. Conversely, much cavorting about in slow motion action can result from playing a 45 at the lowest speed. I dread to think how much vinyl was lost to landfill as a consequence of the onslaught of digital sound. In my own straw poll of inspecting loft spaces over the last 27 years of surveying I am comforted by regular discoveries of stacked and stored albums and singles but equally disturbed by the presence of pornographic magazines usually in close proximity. I do look through them regularly, the albums I mean, and can confidently say that the records are obviously being saved for another day and not hidden out of fear or bad taste, well mostly. Me and The Boy do dwell on a saturday amongst the vinyl of the indoor market and have recently purchased some 1970's classics from Kiss, Led Zeppelin and Hendrix . The range and choice of very well preserved vinyl is excellent. I often think that I should have taken more care to keep my own, modest collection in better condition based on the prices that these items now command. As with most retro things there can be no place for such regrets. There is infinitely more fun in the persistent playing of and singing along to a vinyl record , nursing the track through its battle scars of scratches, each with a story to tell or where the record just plain gets stuck from inevitable wearing out by a poorly maintained stylus needle. I challenge my own and older generations to resurrect their vinyl collections and authentic record players to the amazement and fascination of the younger elements of the population. Through this route there will be a return to the world of a sense of well being, values and perspective as long as Coldplay do not reproduce any of their back catalogue for vinyl which would be just too much heartache to bare. Crackle, Crackle, Hiss, Hiss, oh,they've started already.

Playground

I did not fully know or comprehend, at the age of 10 and in a new school the process of getting to go out with a lass. Up to the age of 10 I remember vaguely a girl who was a friend but I had never put the words together to constitute a bona fide girlfriend. At that age girls were just playmates and playground friends. If you were told to pair up and hold hands to go into school assembly or on a trip beyond the school gates you did not have a second thought about whether your walking partner was a girl or boy. Sure, we did play games revolving around the now very non politically correct role playing of doctors and nurses, wounded soldiers and nurses ,cowboys and squaw nurses, six million dollar man and wonder woman nurse or various characters from the Onedin Line but there was no hidden agenda of gender or suppression of ambition. It was quite alright to be invited to a girls party and sometimes I was the only lad who bothered to have his parents drop him off. I was a regular attender in white pressed shirt, blue 'V' neck cardigan, casual but smart short trousersand my trademark fashion statement of an elasticated dickie bow tie.  After all it was only being polite and I had been brought up proper. The under 10's party calendar was the highlight of social activity whether at someone's house, at a church hall or in the function room above a public house where, afterwards we always stank of second hand cigarette smoke and stale beer. They were innocent times. Thinking about girls on an actual relationship basis started to be a bit more serious from age 10 onwards. The move to a new town and junior school meant starting again in making friends. It was always difficult to assimilate into a class where the recumbents had forged friendships and developed arch-enemies right from pre-school. Desk positions were already allocated.There was a defined hierarchy of kids in the class and in the playground. There was suspicion over where you had come from. It was not the done thing to appear too keen to be accepted or too clever in front of teacher. You knew when you had been accepted by being invited to play kiss catch at playtime. Sociologists and Psychiatrists write volumes and make reputations on studies of human behaviour. The game of kiss catch is the perfect illustration of human behaviour. The fittest and strongest are the elite group able to run and run and choose their partners at will. Those of average ability have to settle for average. The chubby kids were soon exhausted and stood around on their own, wheezing or lost concentration and stared up at the sky. I was reasonably fast at running and was able to catch and kiss Lesley Whitehand. Of course at the bell to resume classes the adapted adage applied, "whatever happens in the playground, stays in the playground". I did not realise at the time that my capture and kiss of Lesley Whitehand constituted some form of  contractural arrangement to make us a boyfriend and girlfriend. Apparently this was the status of our relationship for the next five years, right through to late secondary school although we never spoke, hung around together or had any common ground in all of that time. It was obviously an open relationship as we both dated other people. We eventually agreed, aged 15, to call it quits as it was not working. I think that was the longest conversation we ever had to the effect;
Me, blushing and flushed  " I think you are my girlfriend from 5 years back"
Lesley, non-plussed,  " Yeah, it's not working out very well is it- you're chucked".
So, after a short time of forced laughter at our folly and misunderstanding we were both able to move on. It had been a quickie divorce after all that.
In junior school as I gained confidence and a reputation for catching and kissing, another girl let it be known through her friends and then my friends that I should ask her out. This terminology confused me on a number of grounds.
1) Was the asking out a formal invitiation in a form of words or did I just catch and kiss her?
2) Did we actually go out somewhere because at our age and in a small town there was nothing to do.
3) Did I have to lay out any money for a gift or token of going out?
4) Did we have to hold hands out of school?
We did go for a couple of walks around to the recreation ground and sat talking and tight lipped kissing on the pile of out-of season goalposts overlooking the cricket pitch but the relationship was doomed from the start. Oh, and I did swap her for a packet of rainbow drops with my best friend and she was not best pleased when she found out. It was very difficult keeping track of who was going out with whom either officially or not. There was very little opportunity otherwise for social interaction. School disco's were usually just after school hours at 3.30pm. The teachers were of the opinion that the disco was strictly a non-contact event and patrolled the assembly hall forming a defined line of segregation between boys and girls. We were not that bothered at that age. Anyway, smoochy records were stupid when you could leap about and work up a sweat to Slade, Sweet, Wizzard, Suzi Quattro, wholesome and whacky Gary Glitter and Simon Park Orchestra. After junior school came the all Boys Grammar and with very little opportunity to meet and even talk to girls until co-ed classes from age 15. This was definitely a retrograde feature of an all boys school and made the later re-introduction to girls that much more difficult and traumatic. I did not have, or in fact actively seek, a girlfriend for the next five years, after all I did have  Lesley Whitehand as back-up anyway, allegedly.

Practical Parenting

What can be acheived by the spit dampened corner of a cotton handkerchief you would not believe? Our Mother pioneered wiping the faces of a progression of offspring in a swift and, to the rest of the world, invisible motion which left us all sparkling clean for public display. Yet a mere few seconds before we were well coated in chocolate, marmite, orange juice and ice cream. We were never hungry or wanting for refreshments in our house. I do not know or understand, now that I am a parent on a budget, how our Mother managed to feed, clothe and maintain the five of us in pristine condition.We were after all, the children of a Bank Manager and that did involve some social standing and responsibility. I distinctly remember a teacher at the grammar school requesting my presence on a dinner table of unruly pupils because I was civilised. I promptly had the misfortune of spilling the whole contents of liver and gravy down my trousers which made for a very unpleasant afternoon of lessons. On the way home after school I was conscious of being followed closely by a number of dogs. There was always the wonderful aroma of a chicken soup in the house on a monday using the leftovers from a sunday lunch feast. This was in competition with the warm soapy odour of steamy clouds of Fairy Snow being emitted every time the lid of the twin tub was raised for a mass of kids clothes to be hoisted out and transferred to the spin dryer. On the occasion of a home perm day we would be further immersed in an evocative smell, faintly chemical but very comforting. The completion of a perming session resulted in the availablilty of a small squeezy bottle which made a great weapon with which to squirt water around the house and at brothers and sisters who dared wander into range. Breakfast was always on the table. Ready Brek kept us glowing all day in the winter or we would squabble and bicker over the contents of a variety pack. Competition crept into our sitting down for meals. The first child to open the jar of peanut butter claimed it with their christian name initial carved with the end of a knife. The second child on the scene would scoop out the top of the jar with a teaspoon and eat it ceremoniously. We drank, between us, gallons of orange squash. The tall and slim Tupperware beakers could hold about half a pint at a time but were very unstable and an orange squash tidal wave across the table cloth was a regular hazard. We felt like millionaires with the arrival of the marvel of gaseous technology that was the Soda Stream. Instant fizzy drinks and to our innocent minds, completely free being based on tap water, a squirt of inexhaustible flavours and the press of a button. The cost of the carbon dioxide cylinders must have been prohibitive. Weekday meals and snacks were always in the kitchen. There was great comfort and familiarity in opening a cupboard and finding a large multi-pack of Rileys Crisps, for many years only available in plain ready salted. Our large family warranted some shopping from a wholesale Cash and Carry. The crisps, now in a large box, along with Bounty Mars and Marathons were stashed quite high in the top cupboard in the girls bedroom. A wise precaution to prevent light fingered pilfering without putting the required number of pennies in the honesty system receptacle of an old margarine tub.The actual consumption of the contents of the cupboard was a close run thing between us kids and a succession of field mice. Over and above looking after the five of us Mother was always glamorous and we would hang around at the foot of the stairs to see Father and Mother dressed up to go to a function of the Junior Chamber of Commerce or Banking Institute.These were usually held at the atmospherically named Corn Exchange or The Angel Hotel in the town. It was the 1970's and Mother seemed to float around awaiting the baby sitter in brightly coloured frocks and gowns with Father smart and shy in his best going out suit. I do not think that we ever heard them come home after a do, they were just always there in the morning when we were drowsy,and hungry or one of us had done a wee in the waste paper bin because, alledgedly the bathroom was occupied. One of the many great things about Mother was her sporting prowess.She maintains her slim, optimum weight to this day  which is not surprising as she was perpetual champion of the mums race at school sports day, hurtling down the track bare foot and outrunning all-comers. I often wondered what time she would have recorded given a pair of running-spikes and her own starting blocks. Mother drove and we would pack into the car, well exceeding any recommended loadings but that was in a different era of  motoring. I do remember us being in the Morris Minor on our way to Wisbech to visit friends when a passing lorry sent a huge shower of rainwater through the half open drivers side window. Mother carried on, soaked, but as though nothing had happened to divert her attention from the road. There were some sad times though. I remember the phone call to say that Nana Janes had passed away and all that then was required to look after Grandad Dick. There were some humourous times. We found out Mother had a pack of cigarettes in the kitchen drawer. A bit distressing was the combination of natural gas and a naked flame which left Mother's fringe and eyebrows scorched and frazzled. There is a very distinct smell to melted hair that tends to linger in the senses.  It must have been very difficult to provide 100% attention and 100% love for 110% of the time to 5 needy children and all at the same time without favouritism or exclusion in any form. For these and many other reasons I feel that we have all grown up with sound family values and a sense of responsibilty and conscience. We do not always remember to say thank you to the main influences in our lives but when we hit a situation or crisis we call on our own experiences and somehow, instinctively know how to get through.