Reds in the Hedge

There was a lot of activity at the end of the street.

In fact, I tend to think that what I could see was actually a Police cordon.

That was definitely a first for the area. Not just one officer on duty but three, edgy and nervously glancing at the cars and pedestrians as they either passed by as a matter of fact or were just a bit inquisitive about the unusual goings on. A few brave persons on foot were poised to ask that inevitable question about what was up but a stiffening and bristling of those on guard duty was enough to deter them.

The reason for the formal roadblock was not, obviously, down to a leaking gas or water main. I could not see a glow nor smell the distinctive odour attributable to an outbreak of fire. I suppose it could have been a murder or a domestic incident.

The traffic had slowed enough for me to glance past the street end. In the cul de sac beyond there was a fleet of squad cars and those big black, unmarked vans often referred to as Marias  (mer-rye -ers) used to cart off the naughty boys and girls to the nearest police station.

More of the local constabulary could be seen chatting with some quite ominous looking para-military types in full combat gear and casually swinging machine pistols on their hips as they hung down from heavy duty canvas straps slung over their padded shoulders.

It was a couple of days before the local  paper realised the newsworthiness of the event. They speculated wildly on the first front page account out of desperation to beat the free weeklies to the story.

Gradually some semblance of professional journalism emerged and in the following days an incredible tale was recounted.

The target of the attention of the authorities had been a single semi detached house in that quiet suburban road, Kirkham Drive, Hull, HU5.

It was just an ordinary red brick built place with a rosemary tile roof, tidy woodwork and a neat front garden. In the windows hung those detestable net curtains giving just enough privacy and an implied  message of 'there's nothing worth looking at or to be bothered about here, thank you very much'.

After the initial assault on the house and whoever its occupant was a good proportion of its contents had been removed by the task force. The local newspaper had published some grainy internal photographs to pad out its now top running feature.

The source of the pictures was not clear. They may have been acquired in a plain brown envelope from a person in an official capacity. In fact, one of the neighbours trusted with a key for those emergencies that always occur when the owner is away on a trip was responsible either willingly for a cash consideration or had been duped by a young, attentive reporter type.

Again, there was nothing remarkable about the house. A bit plain and drab to the décor and furnishings but nevertheless functional and comfortable. There were, however, a lot of shelves packed with weighty books in every room, lavatory included.

This was not the norm from my experience of the typical residents of the street. They usually had a small collection of those thick volumes produced with regular monotony by Reader's Digest on such subjects as Heritage, General Knowledge, The Royal Family and of course the Book of The Road. These themes were all that was required to answer the persistent queries of small children or settle a dispute after a Pub Quiz Night.

The shelving was stout and wall to wall, firmly fixed to the masonry and not flat pack or unstable if overloaded. Most of the horizontal surfaces of tables, window cills, kitchen worktops and even either side of the staircase treads were covered with files and loose papers and more were protruding out of a great variety of cardboard boxes distributed under and around the furniture.

I had seen similar ordered chaos in the homes of academics and those of respectable and apparently harmless eccentricity.

The former was applicable in this instance.

The owner occupier was a lecturer at the city University. One of those small columns on an inner page of the local paper gave a potted biography of the man. Born up North, State School educated but bright, earned a Scholarship to a prestigious southern place of learning, excellent First Class Degree , a gap year of letting rip on a global circumnavigation, a stop off in the Soviet Union, post graduate studies to Doctorate level, teaching posts at a number of worthy establishments, then what to me appeared to be a bit of a breakdown in that he ended up here in a good, steady but lower league of academia.

The high flyer appeared to have hit one of those glass ceilings.

His subject had always been Economics and Social History. In his first Uni year he had joined the Communist Party. It was a small branch of disaffected sons and daughters of the wealthy. His motivation was primarily to meet the volatile female members who were like nothing else he had encountered in his previous life. They were an active group, mainly because being of limited numbers they only required the hire of one mini-bus for a campaign outing to attend picket lines, support striking comrades or attend regional and national conferences and gatherings.

The highlight of each successive year of being a Card Carrying Communist was a visit to the Motherland. These were officially received and he had built up quite a network of contacts in a number of State Departments in the USSR.

His profile in the newspaper column all pointed to one outcome.

He was eventually recruited as a Spy.

It was not at all glamorous or hazardous. A job in London had enabled him to mix and fraternise with women working in Ministry positions. His handlers seemed pleased with the non-specific information that he was able to gather.

It was then a period of upheaval and political activity in the eastern states of the Soviet Bloc. Solidarity Trade Union in Poland had begun the process of  dismantling and then collapsing the Russian Empire. Their man in our city provided information of the level of support both collectively and from powerful individuals on his side of the North Sea.

A few in influential positions in UK Universities were exiles from behind the Iron Curtain and were befriended and quietly relieved of any matters of potential interest from their ongoing involvement with their beloved but imprisoned colleagues in the Old Country.

All of this was done with skill and diligence.

To the neighbours he was just someone clever who worked at the University and was away a lot.

His career in espionage had lasted for 12 years being curtailed only by the change in outlook and Regime brought about by the events around the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing domino effect.

I still glance up that street whenever I drive past the road end but nothing has come anywhere near to that series of events in terms of intrigue and excitement.

Science for Boys

It was, first and foremost a test.

If you, as the proud recipient of a childrens' chemistry set, survived the experience of playing with it relatively unscathed then there was really nothing left in the world to cause you trouble for the rest of your growing years.

The reason for parents to put their offspring in harms way and at risk of injury to life and limb in such a way was perhaps to arouse an interest in science and that this may perhaps lead to a career path and livelihood.

Science in the 1970's when I was young was a new frontier. The Moon landings spawned many technologies which gradually filtered down as commercial products into everyday life. A computer in the home was still some way off unless you could spare a large room for the hardware suitably insulated against the heat generated by its operation and the noise from the cumbersome spinning drives and mechanical connections. The breakneck speed of computer development would soon mean that the best equipment in their day would soon be superceded by something as small and portable as a mobile phone.

A boxed chemistry set was a good introduction to all things scientific.

I got one for Christmas when I was about 10 years old. It came in a very large, rectangular but shallow box, wrapped in cellophane and with images of goggle-clad youngsters marvelling at the contents of a test tube.

The opening of the box lid revealed a wondrous sight. In vacuum formed polystyrene lay phials of crystals and powders. These were coarse granular or very fine in size and of a range of colours from the distinctive blue of copper sulphate to reddish manganese and back to bright white alum and chlorides.

In other smaller containers were pieces of magnesium ribbon, petrified wood and charcoal. Amongst the regular shapes was the contrasting bulbous glass burner with a rope wick projecting through the top. When filled with meths or white spirit (not included) and ignited it would spew forth a noxious black smoke and apparently with no actual production of meaningful heat.

A few tools were included consisting of spatulas, scoops, measuring spoons and wooden tapers. A plastic rack could be extracted from the packaging and be loaded up with sparkling test tubes. It was very tempting just to open up all the chemicals and expose them to a flame or other forms of stress and pressure but a condition of receiving the chemistry set was to sit patiently and read through, thoroughly and fully understand and appreciate the safety manual and instruction booklet. It was not fair. If I had been given a bike as a present instead I could have been riding about on it immediately, but no. The contents of the box demanded respect and caution. After all, some of the substances were poisonous or at best highly combustible.

After a few hours of tedious attention to guidelines and practice notes the only initiation into the wonderful world of chemistry now possible with my bedtime imminent was dipping a strip of litmus paper into my mug of drinking chocolate to see what PH level it recorded. The box was firmly closed by my parents and could not be opened until the next day.

That night I dreamed of explosions, toxic gas clouds and mayhem, all created by my sharp scientific mind and the cocktail of substances now at my disposal. In reality the range of experiments possible was quite tame.

Holding a strip of magnesium in Mother's best eyebrow tweezers I ignited it and marvelled at its intense white radiance. That image must have burned onto my retina as I continued to see the same light in everything for the remainder of the day. That did seem to be the most exciting thing out of the whole assembly.

In the proceeding days I misused all of the contents. Test tubes, pristine when new, became blackened with soot from being held with forceps in the pungent flame of the meths burner. The chemicals with the lowest melting points did just that - melted and solidified to such an extent that I had to throw away the spoiled test tube and residues. There was some interest in the fizzing expansion of bicarbonate of soda but to be honest I had seen a better reaction from a teaspoon of Andrew's Liver Salts stirred into orange squash.

I did try to grow some crystals in the recommended solution of Waterglass which my grandparents told me had been used in the war to preserve eggs. This entailed trying to find the stuff in the local shops. The tin of Waterglass that was eventually found in Liptons Stores in town  looked as though it had indeed sat at the back of a shelf since the early 1940's. The first step in crystal growing was making a concentrate with the blue copper sulphate and boiling it down until small crystalline shapes could be seen. The best ones were then meticulously tied up in a length of cotton and suspended in the Waterglass in a jam jar. Talk about watching paint dry. That would have been positively dynamic compared to the slow development of anything resembling a classic crystal shape in that jam jar.

It was not long before the inside of the chemistry set box resembled a complete mess of broken and stained glass , scattered or missing items,  It was a complete mess.

I lost any interest in a career in chemistry at that point.

A few of my fellow pupils persisted in their home experiments and a couple of them went on to much greater things.

It was not too much of an advance for one particularly bright lad to start to develop a line in hallucinogenic drugs which was never going to end well for him.

Another of my contemporaries used his Father's credit card to purchase large amounts of seemingly random ingredients which arrived by post and carrier on an almost daily basis to his house. When combined and refined in exact quantities in his garden shed they became a most potent explosive. His persistence in encouraging chemical reactions displayed itself in his frequent late arrival for classes with a pockmarked, scabby or freshly blooded face and minus his eyebrows as a consequence of the timber shed being blown apart with him in it. I am not sure what he eventually went on to do with his life, if indeed he actually survived his dangerous adolescent years at all.

Coasting

It was a dull April morning in town.

Dull from the point of view of the weather and my job list which was less than inspiring in that it comprised;

9.00am, a visit to a house to advise its occupants on measures to combat their chronic dampness,
9.45am, tip-toeing through a vandalised property avoiding holes in the floor and booby traps,
10.30am, dodging freshly painted surfaces in a new-build project, and 11.30am sneaking a photo over a garden fence without alerting the neighbourhood watch to my rather dodgy behaviour.

The motivation to get through the first part of the day was the tantalising prospect of a drive up into North Yorkshire to the evocatively sounding address of "Sea View Gardens, Scarborough".

Most great road trips are exciting enough but if there is the prospect of a panoramic view or breathtaking vista at journey's end then that excursion is elevated to classic status.

The misty and moist low cloud was held firmly in the tight city environment and the usual landmarks of industrial smoke stacks and wind turbines only loomed into sight at the last moment in ghostly silhouette. It was not until I had turned westwards onto the by-pass that the density of the vapour shroud began to thin out with watery sunlight and I could make out the residential tower blocks on a large estate in my rear view mirror. Within a couple of miles I realised that beyond the city boundary it was actually a bright and increasingly pleasant spring day. My standard issue company jumper in which I had earlier been mistaken for a Prison Warder and/or Tesco Security Guard began to feel a bit over-warm although I had welcomed its 100% wool mix earlier on in the day.

The daffodils were resplendent on the verge and embankments of the busy trunk road although their previously dazzling radiance was now a bit speckled with exhaust particles and spray from HGV's. Most of the traffic headed off, at the main roundabout junction towards York, and I was left heading up coast with just a few straggler caravans and fast paced, chubby leather clad motorcyclists. The route is one of the most notorious for causing the demise of the 40 to 50 years age group of menopausal bikers and every couple of miles is marked with signage warning of the perils of speed and unrestrained behaviour through tight bends. These appear to have caused no pangs of conscience whatsoever although there was a slight slowing as a mark of respect at each of the flower bestooned shrines marking the accident sites from the early part of the years run outs..

The countryside above Beverley is open and rolling between the large cultivated fields and dispersed hamlets and villages. If not in a hurry and savouring the prospect of Sea View Gardens it is nice to idle along listening to drama or comedy on the car radio. However, I am not complacent in my driving as I well recall my momentary dozing behind the wheel and the ensuing surprise of finding, upon stirring awake, that I was on the opposite side of the road heading into oncoming traffic. I have ever since avoided any programming involving The Archer's. Just too soporific even at 10am in the morning on that potentially fatal morning.

The road climbs gradually north of Driffield over the chalky Wolds and with views either side to sweeping and dry valleys. The radio reception ebbs and flows through the deep set and sleepy settlements of Langtoft and Foxholes usually at a critical moment of the reveal in the murder mystery. Never mind, BBC4 Extra do repeat the schedule at least four times in a day and I can catch up and assess my own powers of deduction on the return leg of the trip. I am almost word perfect on some of the episodes of Steptoe and Son, Dad's Army and Flywheel, Schyster and Flywheel from the saturation coverage on a day of particularly long driving distances. Yes, I know there are other channels available but fiddling with the tuner is also, I understand, a common contributory factor to road crashes.

Staxton Hill is a twisting descent of 1 in 6 gradient. Engaging a low gear, as advised by the warning notices, is painfully noisy and cumbersome but essential to comply with to avoid the very public spectacle of losing control and ploughing through the deep sand of the escape lane at its base. I have never witnessed a runaway vehicle although it still surprises me to see fresh tyre ruts as though the very crude speed retarding measure gets regular use.

After the ups and downs of the previous 20 miles the flat plain from Staxton into the suburbs of Scarborough is depressing. People must like it on the evidence of the large static caravan parks although I attribute this to the close proximity to a Morrisons Supermarket and a McDonalds restaurant, both important considerations for a vacation stay in the UK.

Scarborough itself, I liken to Rome. They could be candidates for twinning with both being built on a series of hills, some quite steep and imposing with housing clinging on against gravity and resisting the Scarborough-centric phenomenum of soil creep. This is where, usually following heavy and persistent rain, the natural stickiness and amalgam of the clay soils usually good factors for foundation stability just gives up and the consequence of buildings making their way down hill unaccompanied makes the newpapers and national TV coverage.

I skirt around the large natural feature of Olivers Mount, sometime motorsports race circuit but everyday panoramic viewpoint to get onto the Filey Road which leads to my appointment. There are some tremendous properties along this prestigious axis ranging from large Victorian and Edwardian villas to inter war red tiled detached in expansive landscaped gardens, again hugging close to the closely packed contours. Scarborough follows a typical urban expansion plan and the age of housing becomes progressively younger the farther from its centre. My destination is part of the 1960's growth of by now rather plain and boring dwellings. predominantly retirement bungalows and semi-chalet style houses.

I turn into the series of cul de sacs that make up Sea View Road, Sea View Grove, Sea View Avenue and Sea View Gardens. I feel sorry for the postal service on the basis of potential mayhem and confusion over any vaguely addressed items. Still, they have a one in four chance of delivering to the correct residence. The community spirit amongst the locals must be good if they are for ever popping around the estate making sure the mis-delivered correspondence reaches its rightful recipients.

My destination is one of the uninspiring semi detached houses.

The only potential feature to salvage a bit of character would be that promise of a sea view.

From the driveway the only aspect is onto other properties with no distant azure haze. Slightly elevated in the ground floor living room the prospect of an outlook onto clear ocean and the horizon balanced profile of a large vessel plying the lanes to and from Teesport or any of the world's great shipping nations is still thwarted by the rest of the cul de sac.

I make my way up the 1960's open tread, almost ladder like, staircase and peer out of the landing window. I am now looking out onto the ridges of rooftops and a few aerial festooned chimney stacks. Still no joy of white caps and sea swell.

There is a large double glazed window at the back or the house, facing north and therefore back towards the main Scarborough Town.

Just as I am about to give up ever spying the ocean I come across a rooflight set up high and paralell to the roof slope in the bathroom, obviously a modern alteration to improve natural light and ventilation. I do have a set of ladders in the boot of my car but on I just couldn't be bothered to trail down to get them.

Rather recklessly I moved a bit of the furniture from one of the bedrooms and constructed a platform from a single bed base, a wicker backed chair and an upholstered foot rest or as they used to be called, a pouffe. They sat well onto each other and provided a stable enough pyramid for me to climb up and ease open the pivoting Velux.

At full tip toe stretch and with my head protruding at an uncomfortable and unnatural angle I at last caught a glimpse of the North Sea in all of its murky glory.

The day had promised much but had then threatened to be a huge anti-climax but I am happy not to have to report the road naming committee of the Local Council to Trading Standards for gross misrepresentation.

Bagatelle

I wrote this before the introduction of the 10p charge for a re-useable carrier bag. The urgent need to reduce the use of plastics in eveyday use and the environment makes the multiple use of shopping bags more important than ever.

Choosing the perfect accessory to go shopping is a critical issue nowadays. I have been all ready to set off but have been thwarted by indecision and angst about the finishing touch to my attire.

I am talking about the selection process over what plastic carrier bag to take along.

I have a good collection of the things, always have but then that stems from the days of dog owning when a few bags squirrelled away in coat pockets were invaluable.Habits honed over 18 years of poop scooping do not get dropped overnight. On one very wet expedition with my two daughters, when they were very small we all ended up, dogs included, huddled in a steamed up telephone box awaiting the arrival of my wife in the car. In the mad dash through the storm to the place of refuge the girls had made good use of an extra waterproof layer in sporting fetching tabards made from Sainsbury plastic bags retrieved from the darkest depths of my Helly Hansen cagoule.

The big weekly shop was the opportunity to replenish the bag supply and the children were well trained in packing as few items as possible in each bag to maximise numbers. We were awash with the things briefly but they were soon used up and off we would soon be off again to restock under the guise of structured shopping.

We were regular customers at the local Sainsbury Supermarket but only because it was convenient and after a while we knew our way around the aisles which ultimately saved a lot of time in filling up the trolley.

It appears that there is quite an element of snobbery in the UK over where you shop and research in recent years has shown that more than half of Britons felt that their choice of supermarket was a reflection of their place on the social ladder. Just over 10% of those partaking in the same survey expressed a belief that you could appear more affluent by frequenting certain stores and to back this up the average UK citizen actually spends an extra £260 a year just to be seen amongst their aspirational peers.

Top of the tree in prestige is of course Waitrose with the distinctive green carrier bag displaying to casual observers that you are potentially a career professional, discerning shopper and one who places high priority on price as an indicator of quality.

Second in the league table of supermarket snobbery comes Sainsbury's in the orange bag corner followed by Tesco, Asda and Morrisons. The store whose mantra is "every little helps" is regarded as being of very broad appeal attracting families with large discounted quantities of everyday household goods, OAP's with frequent rotation of useful bargains and the price conscious which, under inflationary conditions in the economy, includes just about everyone else.

Tesco pride themselves on a store in every postcode district and it is said that every one pound in eight spent in the UK is through their tills.

Asda are the champions of hard working families originating from the former coalfields and heavy industry areas of the country and have also recently moved into developing smaller local stores to match the Tesco saturation tactics.

Morrisons in their yellow bags attract more close knit community types and since their integration with Safeway there is a widening of appeal to those defined as rural isolationists.

Of all the main supermarkets perhaps only the Co-Operative maintain an ethical and equitable image in their distinctive logo embossed bags.

After the big six come the pretenders who struggled initially to get recognition and acceptance mainly because of their European style and product ranges in spite of Brits not hesitating to go to a Lidl or Aldi whilst on their summer hols abroad to get those chocolate sandwich biscuits, Ritter Sports and strangely named crisps and savouries. Netto, the Danish supermarket, is regarded as being at the bottom of the pecking order and has suffered from many stereotypical misrepresentations. How much has changed in the last five years in the people's league table of preferred places to shop.

It is an undeniable fact that in our choice of regular supermarket we may argue the case for frugality, economy, ecological ethics and convenience when we, ion reality, base it on the desire to mix and match with "nice people just like us".

So next time you reach for a plastic carrier bag on your way out to the shops just give a thought as to how you want to be perceived by the public at large.

Best Dressed Man in the Moon

The spacesuit worn by Neil Armstrong on the first Moon Landing in 1969 has been painstakingly restored ahead of the 50th Anniversary of that historic event.

I am thrilled to have contributed to this through a Kickstarter Appeal a couple of years ago now.

Here are the newly released pictures of the iconic suit.

and in close up

Perhaps one day I might make that trip to the Smithsonian to see it. 

At least I have the T-shirt to prove it

Cliff Edge

Clarice Cliff the celebrated ceramicist, like many great artists and crafts-persons, did not really achieve the recognition she deserved in her own lifetime.

Born in 1899 she began work in the Pottery Industry at the very young age of 13 as a gilder. 

Her talents developed on the factory floor and at Art School will have been obvious to the owners and management at A.J. Wilkinsons, a ceramics business based in the heartland of British Pottery in Burslem, Stoke on Trent . 

Between the years 1922 to 1963 her designs in the Art-Deco style were a good proportion of the production line of Wilkinsons but were regarded by the buying public as more functional than collectable. 

It was a very labour intensive process particularly as the images and decorative embellishments were all hand painted, where before they had been of applied transfers, mainly by a female workforce who became known after the title of the Cliff Collection as the Bizarre Girls. 

The story goes that Clarice Cliff was an avid radio listener and evening broadcasts of jazz inspired her Age of Jazz earthenware. They were something new in that they were slabs of clay moulded into an outline which when painted became magical depictions of paired dancers doing the waltz and tango movements as well as accompanying musicians on such instruments as the jazz piano and banjo. 

It  is thought that their intended use was to be placed decoratively on a table top around the home wireless set as a playful visualisation of the music which would be well received in the pre-television age.

They were the epitomy of the decorative arts of the 1920's and 1930's. 

Cliff was also influenced by the French Ceramicist Robert Lallement and the Parisian retailer Robj. 

However, the Age of Jazz figures were not an immediate success in commercial terms. 

They just wouldn't sell. 

The production manager at the time was faced with the prospect of having to recall the unsold stock and in a state of desperation over 100 pieces were offered to the barrow boys at the factory for the knock down price of sixpence each. They were not of any interest even to the potential wheeler dealers and entrepreneurs so employed and what must have been a difficult decision in accepting defeat was made. 

A large hole was excavated somewhere on the Burslem site and in went the Age of Jazz figures. 

That act of industrial vandalism in fact contributed to the extreme rarity of the art works into the future. It is not known if the location of the dumping ground for the figures was ever recorded or if any made it back into circulation. 

Clarice Cliff Pottery enjoyed a revival amongst collectors in the 1970's which followed the usual pattern of a resurgence only after the passing of the artist. Cliff died in 1972. 

Wedgewood Pottery brought out Age of Jazz copies over a period of 4 years from 1992 to meet public demand.

To date the record price paid for an original has peaked at £15000 (2018) at auction with a guide price of £3000 to £5000.

Grime Scene

I have just been to a Brass Band Concert.

It is the first I have attended since my early teenage years as a Cornet player in a local band, therefore some 40 years ago.

I have many happy memories of those far off days although at such a relatively young age I am still not really sure where I actually played, be it in a competition, at a social event or doing the rounds of traditional band venues which was typically in a Miners Welfare Club somewhere in the English Midlands Coalfields.

I just got on the bus, ate my packed lunch within a few minutes, arrived at a practice room, waited nervously  to go out on the stage, huffed and puffed for a few tunes and then in a state of relief just waited around, feeling hungry, until the other competing bands had done their bit and the results were announced.

All of the above was experienced in a thick, tobacco smoke fug and odour of spilled beer.

The bus ride back was either raucous if we won or had a placing but in our lowly divisional status in the ranks of banding it was usually a hushed silence as if someone had passed away.

The Concert I have just attended was by one of the giants of the scene, formerly in the pre-Thatcherite era synonymous with a Colliery and a thriving community but now just known as Grimethorpe Band.

They were, to those movie goers amongst you, the core of the band in "Brassed Off" from 1996. Just three of that line up are still playing in the Grimethorpe Band of today.

More than that however they have an illustrious list of honours , most recently British Open Champions in 2015.

What struck me about the concert was that the seating plan of the different sections of instruments had not varied at all since my own playing days.

I hadn't really given much thought, back in the day, to where I had to sit in my role as a Third Cornet whether on the tuesday practice night in a room above a public house or at the competitions or concerts.

I was always seated on the left side of the Conductor, on the back row. In that my fellow Third tier players were a similar age to myself I suppose that I had accepted that they had just put us together on ability or just so that we had something in common and would get on with each other.

The trombone section was on the far right side of the seating arrangement which again I attributed to their need for a bit of space for the physical rigours or playing such an awkward instrument.

In between were the best cornet players who had an uninterrupted eye contact with the Conductor which I understood to be important for a musical score to be played properly.

Adjacent to them were the tenor and baritone horns, rather, to my mind, a small and delicate instrument and in our band the players were all women. They had a strong esprit de corps amongst them but understandable in a male dominated and, in those days, rather politically incorrect environment. They could give verbally as good as they got and were quite intimidating to us male youngsters but overall there was a respect for their musical skills. I always felt sorry for the flugel horn player, if male, who was always in the midst of this section. The euphoniums made up that row.

In the centre and rear rows were the huge booming basses or tubas. They took a lot of lung power and it must have been thirsty work as the players, the most senior and long serving band members always had a stack of pint glasses in various stages of activity at their feet. It was a honour on us youngsters to act as runner to and from the lounge bar to replenish the liquid refreshment of our heroes.

Of course there are underlying and very compelling reasons for the traditional seating plan of a brass band, typical comprising 27 to 29 members. These are very much embedded in the lores of banding. It is to do with the interaction of the different sections of instruments and how they combine acoustically in an auditorium and practicality. For example, the principal cornet and solo euphonium
face each other as they are often in melodic duet. The four main soloists all sit nearest the audience so that it is easier to perform and take the accolades. Flugel and solo horn also often play together and so it is logical that they sit together. The heavy basses, at the back, are able to project their sound in to the overall band giving better balance and tone. For all of their presence and uummpphh they are actually quite a weak output way down on the sound spectrum.

As for the Grimethorpe Band performance, well, it was masterful and emotional. Where they sat was, frankly, not important.

Body Building

Yes, I firmly believe, now, that upper body strength is important.

Thanks to that extra set of repetitions the last time I was in the gym (18 months ago) I was able to hang on and support my own weight whilst dangling down from the loft hatch after the aluminium ladder had collapsed beneath me. 

I suppose, on the law of averages, I was about due such an incident. 

In my daily work of house inspections I am up and down into and out of loft spaces. By my reckoning that's about 6 such ascents and descents every day. The floors walked App on  my mobile phone can be submitted to verify the regularity and frequency of this. So, across a typical diarised month of appointments, allowing for flat roofed properties, already converted roof spaces and lower floor flats I place my trust in my own ladders or if something is built in at the property I do the same with those around 60 to 70 times. 

Extrapolated across my thirty plus years in the Profession and the stats represent a big number. 

Most homeowners have fitted very good foldaway or retractable ladders to get access to that void at the top of their property as our consumer society dictates that we have a lot of surplus stuff to store away for posterity or "just in case". They want something sturdy and reliable to use so that any stowage requirement can be swiftly dealt with. 

Apart from the incident a couple of days ago now I have had just the one other dodgy experience with a loft ladder, suffice to say and obviously I survived a few moments of fear and anxiety. I am quite nimble at dodging the occasional ladder which, on opening the trap hatch, suddenly decides to shoot out and down without prior warning. 

If I have any reservations about the arrangement to get into a roof space I simply use my own equipment although this does, in some cases, involve lowering the built in ladders to make space to get past. 

Ironically on the day that I fell out of the loft I had already done the hazardous bit of exploring the far recesses of the cavernous void by torchlight. This had entailed careful footfalls on the ceiling joists mainly by using the toe of my shoe to move aside the insulation material to find them. There were some boarded out areas but these were just old internal doors laid loosely. These can easily give way or just pivot at the point of least support. 

Getting into that loft had been easy enough and so I had no second thoughts or reservations about getting back down again. 

I cannot explain how the ladder came to collapse. 

It was safely and appropriately angled with a good firm base on the floor and yet it swung out in the opposite direction, snapped off at its timber mounting above the hatch and ended up in a heap on the stairwell landing leaving me suspended in mid air.

At this stage the noise of failing alloy had alerted the homeowners to the fact that something out of the ordinary had happened but they simply called to ask if everything  was alright. I was too pre-occupied with holding on to respond at first although realising that I could get hurt from letting go and dropping to the ground I managed to make a plea for help. 

I like to think that it was in a calm and dignified manner although I cannot be sure. The man of the house swore when he saw the scene in his normally pristine home but was very concerned for the welfare of the Surveyor with the flailing legs and faltering voice (not calm and dignified in reality)

In true heroic rescuer style he grabbed my legs to support my bulk and uttering the comforting "I've got you, don't worry" he encouraged me to release by grip and ease down on to his shoulders. It was an awkward moment and I actually ended up sitting on his head before being embraced in a bear hug and lowered to the linoleum. 

As only two grown men can react after a moment of pseudo-intimacy we stood apart and I apologised profusely for what was quite a bit of damage to the hatch area and of course the mangled ladder. Perhaps we should have talked about football or something overtly masculine. 

The fortunately for me not-post mortem ensued. 

He was a regular user of the ladder and being heavier than me he couldn't understand its failure. 

I could see that he was thinking ahead to a conversation with a Claims Handler for an ambulance chasing firm acting on my behalf but I reassured him that there was no blame to be had in what had simply been an accident. 

After all I only had a bit of a twinge in my thigh and a good deal of embarrassment but was altogether unscathed. 

I left the property in one piece but left my details with an assurance that if the repairs were to be costly he was to contact me for payment. 

Sade but True

Hull, Yorkshire is a great musical city. 

Perhaps not as recognised in the media as the Northern Powerhouses of Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield but nevertheless a major contributor to the music scene nationally and on a global scale. 

There has always been an emphasis on celebrating home grown talent. One trio who have been prominent are of course Ronson, Bolder and Woodmansey, collectively the Spiders from Mars backing band of David Bowie. 

However another three founder members of a band who hail from Hull are by no means out of place in being added to this auspicious company. 

They may not be as well known but Matthewman, Denman and Cooke along with one Helen Adu contributed and collaborated to form, in an authoritative poll, the 50^th of the 100 greatest bands of all time. 

Paul Anthony Cooke, drummer and songwriter met Paul Denman, bass guitar in Hull in 1977 when they formed "The Posers". Although part of a lively music scene in the city it was seen as necessary to move to London in 1980 to try to break into the big time, the launch pad being the possibility of securing a record contract. 

They were not successful and "The Posers" disbanded after a year in the Capital and Denman was more than ready to return to his home city and former full time employment in the shipbuilding industry. 

In 1982 Cooke was approached by Stuart Matthewman who at that time was in a Mod band called "The Odds" about auditioning for a London based funk band called "Arriva". 

Matthewman had just finished touring with Raving Rupert, an Elvis impersonator but fancied his chances to put his multi-instrumentalist skills to better use. 

It was at "Arriva" auditions in 1982 that Paul and Stuart first came across the singer Helen Adu. 

The existing line up of "Arriva" were not very inspiring as it seems and Matthewman was signed up immediately to give some dynamism and credibility to the band. Two days later Cooke joined and it was on his recommendation that his former associate, Paul Denman brought his bass guitar to the party. 

The trio played under the name "Pride" and with Adu had some initial airplay on the BBC Oxford Roadshow in February 1983 and in the following May were booked to play at Danceteria in New York, USA. 

The band profile was developing well although there was no possibility of any of the four members getting paid and there would be no guarantee of an income until a record contract was signed. 

The band manager, Lee Barrett, who had a day job as a roofer, was new to the business but obviously saw the potential of "Pride". 

Two offshoot bands were formed, the first PSP named after the Christian names of the musician trio and the other around Helen Adu and pronounced "Sharday". 

Twice weekly rehearsals at Solidlight Studios in Camden, London saw the band developing what was an unprecedented sound in the music charts and the lead singer Adu under the name Sade, had a fantastic charisma and stage presence as well as a smooth, soulful, jazz based and sophisti-pop voice. 

The band collaborated on a number by a former associate Ray St John called Diamond Life and this, after adaptation and rewriting was to later become the iconic Sade track, Smooth Operator. 

At Ronnie Scott's Club, London in December 1982 the band made quite an impression and a number of record companies were keen to sign them. 

It was still a difficult and testing time for the band members, a case of so near but so far to fame and fortune. They had not been paid or at least with any regularity for the previous two years, Matthewman’s mother in Hull was upset that her son was not being paid and may have wanted him to come home to find steady employment. 

In the summer of 1983 the record label RCA paid £10,000 for recording sessions and master tapes were made that would contribute to the acclaimed first album, Diamond Life, in the following year. 

The long awaited thrust into the limelight brought with it the usual stresses and pressures on the band. Whether down to inexperience of management, naivity of hard working musicians or political infighting Paul Cooke played his last performance for the band in Vienna in December 1983. In a messy situation he was just told that his services were no longer required. He returned to Hull. 

Sometime in that same year Paul Hale was drafted into the band and the amended line up with Denman, Matthewman and Helen Adu emerged as the hottest proposition in pop music in the mid 1980’s. 

As well as multi award winning albums ,song writing recognition and chart topping success the artist Sade and the band performed at Live Aid from Wembley in 1985 and went on to sell 75 million records worldwide. The role played by the original trio from Hull cannot be overlooked. 

Unfortunately, Cooke received no recognition for his co-writing and drumline contributions to seven of the Diamond Life tracks after he had left the main line up and there followed many years of litigation and contractural wranglings between Cooke and the collective members of Sade and management. 

Such is the pop music business. 

Skip Surfing from the Middle Ages

As I, and others, have always said "rubbish to one person can be a treasure to another" or in Quest TV Channel Show speak "one person's junk is someone else's antique". 

This certainly applied to a bit of salvage by my daughter a few days ago when she spotted, in the contents of a large waste skip, a very small booklet. 

It will have been difficult to see because of its predominantly black and white cover but the image on the front is instantly recognisable to those who live in the East Riding of Yorkshire as the western elevation of the historic Beverley Minster. If the booklet had been lying face down in that skip it would not attracted any attention whatsover in that the only script is the name of the Printer and a gothic looking lettering of "10p". 

If you work on the premise of price as an indicator of quality then again you will have walked past the pile of rubbish with no curiosity aroused. However, the lino cutting type church print was interesting enough to my daughter for her to, tentatively, retrieve the small object but being wary in case anything nasty was lurking underneath. 

The 10p price is partly explained by the publication date of 1973. I can vouch for the buying power of this amount back in '73 which corresponded with my tenth year and in our family you got, in weekly pocket money, one decimal penny for every year of your age. 

I always spent the two shillings in old money, which I regarded as a small fortune, immediately and would blow it on a magazine "Speed and Power" on its monthly arrival at the local newsagent or just on goodies. 

The small booklet rescued from landfill  was produced to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of the presentation of a Charter by Queen Elizabeth the First of England to the town of Beverley. 

This significant document granted the Right to the Town to appoint its own Mayor and 12 Aldermen or Councillors. 

The contents of the booklet provide an insight into Medieval Culture and with a particular emphasis on recipes and customs derived from historical publications local to Yorkshire. 

The ingredients for a fragrant Pot Pourri mix for a Parlour are an interesting insight into the need to mask and cloak domestic and other odours which will have been quite overwhelming in that era. 

They are listed as 2 parts damask rose petals, stock flowers or phlox mixed in with single measures each of coloured rose petals, clove pinks, rosemary leaves, jasmine flowers, lemon thyme, lavender heads, bay salt, nutmeg and cloves plus half part of mint leaves, quarter of marigold flowers, rinds of two lemons thinly pared and a sprinkling of orris root. 

The gardens of the larger and well-to-do residences of Elizabethan England must have been very fertile and varied to provide for the pot pourri constituents. 

Popular main meals of the time included "Henneys in Bruette" or Boiling Fowl cooked in broth and with the following instructions to make it in olde Englishe:

"Take the henneys and skald them and open them and wasshe them clean and smite them in gobbets and sethe with fresh pork and take pepyr and ginger and bread ground fine and temper it with some brothe or a little ale and colour it with saffron. Fill to your liking with water and set to cook all night over a slow fire. Let get cold and skimme off fat. Sort out the mass of bones and keep the tender leane meat in the golden broth, boil up and serve". 

The process sounds a lot like hard work and not really that appetising. 

The derivation of foodstuff names is also explained for example the simple biscuits in shortbread called Petticoat Tails which date back further than the Middle Ages. Early mentions in historic archives refer to them as "petty cotestallis" as in cut in the shape of triangular parcels of land from the French words "petit"- small, "taille" for shape and "cote" being a small enclosure for domesticated animals. 

Other baked products which had cultural importance were gingerbread which was given as a gift from Noble Ladies to favourite combatants at tournaments, marzipan originating from its production by Nuns to commemorate  massepain or St Mark's Pain  and Sally Lunn fruited tea cakes thought to be a derivation of the cries of the sellers of the cakes which resembled the sun and moon in colour as in "soleil lune" which was misheard as a woman;s name.

Although the large modern supermarkets do sell the likes of Game Pies at Christmas they would struggle to match an old recipe for Goose Pie which comprised, in addition to a goose, a turkey, two ducks, six woodcocks and a hare all encased in a thick pastry lid. 

Religious Festivals and Saint's Days also dictated the menus of the time with a particular favourite being a Good Friday Supper Fish Pie, Apple Cakes and Tarts and special biscuits to be served to those attending a funeral. 

Things alcoholic also featured highly in Period dining including a bubbling drink using Champagne from Sillery which is just to the South East of the French Cathedral City of Rheims and frothing cream which became known in popular language as Syllabub. 

Strong spirits were also used to make, for example, brandy snaps which have a long association with Hull Fair which was founded around 1279 and continues as a modern fun fair to the present day. 

Some dishes have easily survived through the ages and remain popular and the 10p booklet mentions how to preserve eggs in pickle ( still sold at Fish and Chip Shops) , bacon and egg pie ( a cafe favourite) and fruit cake (to be found accompanying a good cup of tea). 

The rescue from the skip of something at first so insignificant is a unique combination of  a resonance from the distant past and yet an enduring relevance to our modern lives. 

Stuffing with everything

The stuffed head of a fox mounted on a crest shaped plaque was a decorative feature in our house for years.

I cannot really explain why we kept it for so long.

For one thing we have always been town or city dwellers and only really likely to catch sight of a fox once in a blue moon around the dustbins or back alleyways in our local area.

The object itself was a bit worse for wear when purchased by my parents at an auction sale that we attended in Somerset whilst on a family holiday.

One of its ears was ragged. Any slight movement would result in a light dusting of what looked like a sawdust filling. Its glass eyes were loose and at risk from falling out altogether. I put this down to former owners being less than caring for it as far as the stuffing and artificial lenses were concerned but hoped that the rather chewed ears were an indication that the animal had put up a hell of a fight in its last moments of existence at the mercy of a shotgun wielding farmer or a pack of bloodthirsty hunting hounds.

In its lack of animation and character in that staged pose by a Taxidermist it was a mere shadow of the real article.

It was actually pretty creepy when displayed on the hallway wall and our two family dogs kept a very wide berth whenever they came by it.

Gradually the fox head was relegated to less visual positions in the house before eventually ending up in a box in the attic and then, after another relocation of the family, into the garage. I did not feel compelled to retrieve it after that and I cannot honestly say if it got thrown out or was given away, in the miscellaneous contents of a box, to a Charity Shop.

The urge to go out and replace it has never crossed my mind.

However, if you had lived in the Victorian Era chances are that your drawing room will have been graced by a display of the skills of Taxidermy as these items of rather morbid anatomy were very popular at that time.

Perhaps one of the pre-eminent exponents of what is quite an artistic trait was an Englishman, Walter Potter (1835-1918).

In 1861 his obsession, which had developed from a childhood hobby with stuffing small creatures. led to his opening of a museum in his local area of Sussex. It was a perfect showcase for his specialism within the art form termed anthropomorphic dioramas.

These almost theatrical type scenes appealed to the whimsical Victorians and within "Mr Potters Museum of Curiosities" he exhibited quite intricate representations of everyday life which included a den of rats being raided by the police, a village school occupied by 48 rabbits

, the arrangement of kittens at a tea party, playing croquet and his best known piece with 20 kittens dressed up and attending a wedding.

Other animals given the Potter treatment were sword fighting squirrels and a guinea pig cricket match.

His very first tableau had been a depiction of a famous children's story of "The death and burial of Cock Robin" with a procession of pall-bearing birds and other animals in mourning .

Potter was a very skilled artisan and he filled his Museum with up to 10,000 items from the larger scenes through to individual classical style stuffed animals such as collections of birds in glass dome display cases.

To appeal to the masses there was also a number of freak show items more likely to have formed part of a travelling fair which included a puppy with two faces, a six legged cat and a quadruped duckling.

Fashions and taste change and although the collection was still attracting 30,000 visitors well into the 1990's it was necessary to deflect animal cruelty claims by placing notices on the exhibits that the stuff creatures had all died a natural death and not to forget by then well over 100 years prior.

In 2003 the then owners of the collection put it up for sale.

The artist Damian Hirst offered £1 million in an attempt to keep it all together but the Auction House advised that the best method of disposal was in the form of individual exhibits and over 691 Lots were put under the hammer. The proceeds were a lower figure of £500000.

The best sellers were Cock Robin and the nuptials of the kittens making around £45000 between them.

For all of its battered and spooky appearance I like to muse that our fox may have been the work of Walter Potter. No, I won't be claiming it back from whoever has it now.

Judgemental at the Checkout

This is an old piece of writing but one of my favourites. 

In the Hollywood Blockbuster movies a fairly popular storyline is one where innocent bystanders get caught in a bank robbery, a heist at a store or otherwise find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Masked and heavily armed perpetrators get a bit rude and crude in ordering the poor unfortunates to lie on the floor, keep their eyes down and shut up under threat of some quite nasty outcomes usually involving being provided with a bullet in the head or someone creating a new orifice that is not really required and would be more of an inconvenience than an advantage, in my perception.

There is usually an upstanding citizen who decides to be a 'have a go hero' and gets involved in a tussle and a wrestle with the gruffest of the villains and although seeming to have the intial element of surprise you can be assured that it will not end at all well for Joe Public. The staff are also a bit vulnerable especially those with the responsibility for a set of keys, a passcard or knowledge of the combination of a safe or vault.

A few shots get fired into one of those awful fibreboard suspended ceilings that characterise a downtown 1970's built establishment and everyone panics and screams as the getaway car screeches up to take away the gang and their bulging cash filled holdalls. There is invariably a witticism shared between the baddies and their victims and that makes violent crime acceptable - doesn't it ?

We generally accept this sort of scenario as fictional and do not therefore have too many concerns in this country of ours when queuing at the Post Office to renew the road fund licence, paying in monies at the local bank branch or just minding our own business in doing the weekly shop in the supermarket.

I was therefore a bit surprised and not a little concerned when the Manager at our small neighbourhood Spar Shop announced that he was locking the main doors and respectfully detaining all current customers.

He explained that he was about to confront two individuals whom he had been observing in plain sight in the process of filling their pockets and a selection of loose branded carrier bags with produce from the chiller cabinets in aisle 2.

Those amongst us with hand baskets and a commensurate amount of cash for purchase had nothing to worry about. A few well to do middle aged persons aired a degree of moral indignation but I was not entirely sure if it was over being, in their minds, the victims of false imprisonment or directed at those who had brought on the unsatisfactory situation which was now firmly engaging all of us.

From my position between the Off Licence section and the domestic cleaning display shelving I did not have a view of the main action.

My understanding of what was going on was based on the preliminary action by the Manager and a couple of muffled voices who expressed sincere denials that they were doing anything wrong.

The disembodied voices were of a man and a woman, clearly, although I would hesitate to actually identify who was who. The female intonation was hoarse and throaty from 40 smokes a day and the male a bit whiny and high pitched like my own tends to be after a few glasses of Pinot.

A shuffling sound was heard as the couple came forward in their own counter challenge.

I could see them now. An odd pairing. One had a faded blonde rinse with black roots showing through, pale and pinched rosey cheeked face, flowery shirt and bright overpowering trousers under a multi pocketed army jacket which would make a poacher's equivalent garment look frugal. The woman also was a bit world weary with saggy bags under the eyes which blended in with equally loose and uncontrollable jowls, an obvious wig and scruffy clothes beneath a Mackintosh at least three sizes too large but weighed down and bulging with contraband.

The stance of denial continued even with the Manager risking all to delve into the voluminous coats and fishing out a handful of shrink-wrapped packs of Danish Bacon previously occupying a prime position in the chiller cabinet, various spray cans of deodorants, two jars of Nescafe, a Kit Kat (singular), a four pack of strong lager and a packet of J-Cloths.

In the midst of this indoor performance I noticed that a crowd had gathered on the forecourt frontage of the Spar Shop. Angry faces were screwed up against the disabled automatic doors and from their contorsions and quite easily lip-read obscenities these were confederates of the unfortunate shoplifters.

I counted at least half a dozen motivated and aggressive individuals.

There were an equal number of us in the shop but I had low expectations of a good outcome if push came to shove. Decent types have, from my own experience, little street fighting skills.

More pilfered items cascaded onto the floor around Mr and Mrs Five Finger Discount ( a term I had heard on an episode of The Simpsons and felt quite apt in this situation) and the Manager completed his transfer of the goods into a nearby trolley.

The haul, if they had ever had a better gameplan or actual ability to implement it had potential to severely dent the profitability of the Franchisee for that particular week.

The unpleasantness dissipated quite quickly with the failing to come to fruition of the shoplifting trip. Voices attained a more normal, calmer tone and diction and the strange couple were now reasonably apologetic about the whole thing.

Confident in his policy and approach the Manager released the door.

A few choice insults were directed at the Manager by the partisan crowd which, to me, displayed a reasonable grasp of Consumer Law, Civil Liberties and the Rights of the Individual and I was impressed.

As quickly as the situation had developed it was completely defused and normal service was resumed. When it was my turn to pay at the till I commented to the Manager that he had indeed shown good judgement, authority and bravery in what I had feared could have easily escalated into a riot. He was modest and very matter of fact in revealing that his Thursdays would not be the same without a visit from the erstwhile members of the Conservative Club on their way home from a social evening. They were relatively harmless really and he always received a nice written apology by the middle of the Friday morning with an invitation to play Bridge and enjoy a glass of Port.

English Lesson 6

Here is a further part of a dedicated compilation of Uxbridge Dictionary definitions from the classic radio series of "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" since its launch in 1972.

It is the tireless work of Kevin Hale, undoubtedly the greatest fan and authority on the subject. It continues my listing in alphabetical order having reached "F".

Once again I apologise to anyone studying the English Language who might stumble across this and the other postings although if the illogical thought processes of the contributors to the series are looked at closely it gives a good insight into the humour and irony that is a main trait of dialogue in this small nation.

Flabbergasted- being shocked at unbelievable weight gain

Fragrant- sweet smelling tramp

Flatulence- after being run over by a steam roller this is the vehicle that takes you to hospital

Fondue- over-amorous female sheep

Fiasco- unsuccessful wall painting

Forecast- always the first to start fishing

Fecund- one before Fird

Frogspawn- blue movies from across the English Channel

Frigate- a ship nobody cares about

Follicle- a tiny little ruin on a small hill

Farming- a vase that is a long way away

Fiefdom- prophylactic for a banana

Filling Station- a dental surgery

Flare Up - the feekling of wind blowing up your bell bottom trousers

Forbidden- banned from an auction

Fortitude- the right attitude of troops attacking a castle

Feckless- unsuccessful Irish Casanova

Funkier- a more amusing version of a Swedish Furniture Store

Flibbity Gibbett- a dolphin gallows

Flatterer- a rolling pin

Fibre Optics - an alternative to eye candy

Foxglove- Basil Brush

Farcical- a bike that makes you look stupid

Fallacy- thinking your penis is bigger than it actually is

Falsehood- someone impersonating a famous folklore bandit

Five-a-Side- the term for the murder of a boy band

Frugal- search engine for fruit

Fuselage- not many that big

Focaccia- bread with no interest in the far east

Flippant- a glib insect

Finesse- a lady from Finland

Fornication- conversation between golfers

Filofax- pastry so thin that it can be sent by phone

Florida- red in the face

Fillibuster- an over amorous stallion

Fallacy- cocky

Freebie- an unattached insect

Farting- the newly discovered black hole in space

Frisbee- stop and search in the hive

Fortune- a song by The Beatles

Fractious- highly controversial shale gas extraction

Fudge- a rude request for someone to move over

Fry-up- the famous TV celebrity and raconteur gets out of bed

F-Stop- a clean up campaign for swearing

Flip- Flop- a failure to change your utility supplier

Farrage- a torrent of words from a soon to be redundant European Parliament Member

Foot stool- an uncomfortable pooh experience

Fridge- a far away part of a mountain

Fancy Free- a giveaway of dainty cakes

Freelance- a campaign to reinstate a disgraced cyclist

Fireguard- someone who escorts a sacked employee from the building

Flemish- a bit like snot


(the last few are some I just made up)

How I First Met My Mother in Law

When a relationship gets serious the prospect of meeting folk who look likely to be future in-laws can be quite a milestone and immensely daunting.

My first ever introduction to and meeting with my wife to be Allison's mother, Maureen was quite unusual.

She was crossing a deep trench on a plank at the back of her house.

It has always been a favourite double-entendre in the family that the first thing that Allison showed me on visiting her parents' home was her Father, George's ,back passage. It was a narrow, dark brick vaulted arrangement with long wooden ladders tidily stowed above head height behind secure outer and inner timber doors . What amazed me even more was that it was shared with the immediate neighbours with a reasonable right of way and use through it. That just about exhausts that line of humour.

As Allison led me into the walled yard beyond the passage I was faced with that deep trench. Being nervous I speculated to myself that it was perhaps one of a number of things;

1) An obstacle course to assess if I was good material for a son-in-law. A Brown family Krypton Factor.
2) An open grave as Maureen and George were very protective about their daughter.
3) A precaution against flooding in the pre-tidal barrier days
4) A Moat

As I approached the excavations Maureen came out from the back door and deftly negotiated a series of plank bridges over the trench  to greet me. In a complete invasion of personal space and etiquette, for a first meeting, she grabbed me firmly by both cheeks (facial) pinching a good deal of puppy fat jowl between thumb and index finger. I cannot recall if she gave me a kiss because the constriction on my breathing from that particular style of welcome was making me feel a bit dizzy and I could have been a million miles away. I feared that this was the first stage of getting me into that large hole in the ground.

As my facial muscles regained their handsome, youthful composure Maureen looked at Allison and exclaimed that I looked just like Howard Keel.  For a brief moment I had a picture in my mind's eye of the giant steel toothed assassin out of the Bond movies and felt that was a bit rude to draw attention to matters of an unfortunate bodily nature so early in the proceedings. I was thinking about the wrong Keel. The resemblance was because I was wearing a checked lumberjack shirt like Howard Keel, he of the male cast of 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers' which it turned out was one of the best known performances of that particular American actor and singer. I was a bit disappointed as I fancied myself as having a resemblance to Robin Williams or Harry Enfield. Thank goodness, Maureen was talking about my clothes rather than my physical attributes as in that particular year Mr Keel was approaching 70 years old.

I think that we were both pretty nervous at the first meeting but we did hit it off immediately as though we had known each other for many years. Maureen explained that the trench was part of the foundations for her new kitchen and bathroom extension which I found reassuring, after my initial mental wanderings ,and could relax.

Within a couple of minutes I had been assimilated into the family marking the ceremony with a lovely cup of tea, the very first one in a series of, to date, many thousands. I had also experienced my very first moment of genuine warmth and unconditional love from Maureen that is very much a part of her whole being and is so cherished by those who are privileged to know her. 

(Presented today on our 30th Wedding Anniversary. Where did the tine go?)

Today in 1739

I have been obsessed with a poem for quite a few years now.

It is a particular favourite from having studied it as a schoolboy and later introducing it to my young children as a bedtime favourite. My Pop music hero John Otway brought out a rock track version.

It is a poem that appeals to youthful imagination as it is very atmospheric and features everything from ghostly images to swashbuckling individuals, enemy soldiers,a bit of romance and ultimate tragedy.

The poem is "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes (1880-1958).

It has obviously been a mainstay in the English Education Curriculum as my own father could recite it almost word for word from his schooldays in the late 1940's and early 1950's.

I have, on the basis of the very regular requests to hear it from my children, learned by heart large tracts, especially the first verse which sets the scene beautifully....

"The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghastly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding, riding, riding.
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door".

This classic poem popped into my head as I made to sit down at a small two seater table in the window of a public house. I was early for an appointment in the village of Welton in East Yorkshire Fed up of sitting behind the steering wheel of my car and having resisted buying a takeaway coffee from, in order a drive thru Starbucks and McDonalds I felt like treating myself to a cup of the stuff in a china cup and in a proper establishment.

My £2.11 black coffee with a foil wrapped chocolate mint balanced precariously on the wad of work papers that I had brought along, if only to shuffle a few more times whilst stalling for thinking time on a couple of difficult projects.

It is not really a surprise that the great words of Alfred Noyes came into my mind in that place.

As per the last line of the opening verse I was at an inn. The Green Dragon is a very old coaching house on what would have been a busy route for those crossing the Humber Estuary at low tide or coming out of the City of Hull on their way, principally to the influential regional hub and one time capital city of England, York.

The prospect of a highwayman riding up, however unlikely in 2016, was actually very real in 1739 when on the very spot that I was enjoying a restful coffee the notorious horseback villain, Dick Turpin was reputed to have been captured by the authorities.

There is, like the portrayal of the lead male character in Noye's poem, a very romantic perception of this branch of criminality and Turpin has certainly received the glossy treatment in popular fiction and film in the two hundred years following his reign of aggression and terror inflicted on travellers and residents of his stomping grounds.

Turpin was in the Welton area, supposedly having fled from his shooting dead of a collaborator in the South of England, but intent on continuing his lifestyle from the proceeds of crime or otherwise.

Under the assumed name of John Palmer he blended in with the East Yorkshire gentry for two years.

However, in a fit of rage in an argument Palmer/Turpin shot the prized fighting cockerel of a neighbour and this aroused the suspicions of the locals as to how he financed his livelihood.

Many tall tales and myths surround Turpin the highwayman.

One, and the most well known in popular culture, is his epic 200 mile ride from London to the North on his equally famous horse, Black Bess. This is actually attributed to another perpetrator.

Even with the discovery of his true identity after the chicken killing episode, Turpin is reputed to have jumped the Toll Gate on Cave Road, Welton on the wonderful Black Bess. I have seen a fantastic illustration of this particular endeavour in a feature in the publication "Look and Learn" which was a childhood favourite for many of my generation. It would be actually be another 32 years before there was a Turnpike Road on Cave Road which throws doubt on this exploit.

As I looked out onto the village green , sipping my coffee, I could well imagine another potentially tall tale whereby Dick Turpin evaded arrest by leaping through the window of the Green Dragon.

One constant is true. Turpin was eventually taken to York Assizes and sentenced to hang for the capital offence of stealing a horse. What is now York Racecourse was the location of the gibbet and noose which saw to the highwayman on 7th April 1739 exactly 280 years ago to the day.

As with many heinous villains there can be some softening of their fearsome and terrorising behaviour with the passage of time. There is no doubting that Turpin was a prolific thief and brutal murderer and so his ultimate come-uppance was inevitable.

To some extent this was always to be the fate of Noye's protagonist although his highwayman rode into the withering fire of the King's Redcoat Soldiers out of grief and anger for the demise of his true love, Bess, the landlords daughter who warned him away from an ambush with a single musket shot that took her own life.

By the time I would get to the last of the 17 verses my young children were usually fast asleep but I always made a point of finishing the poem properly. I would be a bit of an emotional wreck as I muttered the closing ghostly lines,

"Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs, in the dark inn-yard
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter
Plaiting a dark red love knot into her long black hair"

Grand National

Take today, April 6th. The day of The Grand National perhaps the most well known horse race in the world.

It is one of the events that define our character and identity as a country following on quickly in the calendar from the progression of the FA Cup and as a warm up to the London Marathon and the University Boat Race.

It is also the day when all the country is encouraged to gamble in a spirit of fun and frivolity. Children are carried into the Bookies shop high on the shoulders of fathers and uncles and encouraged to study form by selecting a nicely named horse or being drawn to the quartered or spotty silk racing colours of the jockeys.

My first ever visit to a Bookies was enough to put me off gambling for life. It was in the 1970's in our small town High Street. The windows, unlike today's mesmerising and hypnotic displays to draw in punters, were grubby and fly infested. The opening of the door released a mushroom cloud of high tar infused cigarette smoke mixed with the sweat from fear and exhilaration of the public occupants. Oversized men, fronted by bulbous and overhanging bellies stood around amongst an ankle deep ticker-tape of discarded betting slips. Some nervously fingered bits of paper, others were well engrossed in obsessive and compulsive behaviour misconstrued as a lucky and superstitious ritual. A few were defeated and dejected and not looking forward to explaining to her indoors about a wafer thin wage packet this week.

It was an entirely male domain, apart from perhaps a hard faced cashier lady behind the grille or nicotine/saliva streaked counter screen. Nowadays the premises of the large chains of betting shops are like Starbucks and have taken on the role of a third home for male and female patrons.

My first visit was also an introduction to the mystique and exclusive process of placing a shop-bet.

There were no user friendly instructions for first timers.  Looking confused, overwhelmed and about to pass out in the thick atmosphere did elicit some guidance from a regular. Pick a slip, study the race times and venues, choose a horse, approach the fierce cashier. Then the big decisions. For a 10p stake, a lot of pocket money in those days, did I want to bet each way or for an outright win. The former term threw me completely- did they turn around and race back from the finish? I went for each way, in my mind, two chances to win. The biggest decision was whether to pay the tax before on the stake or after on the, or any, winnings. I do not recall if I won anything. My 10p disappeared into the back room to end up who knew where. Betting was a futile occupation. As I at sometime overheard there may be four counters to take your money but only two to pay it out. Not best odds.

As a family, if we are organised, we usually have a sweepstake. Last year amongst ourselves we actually got three of the top four finishers but no money changed hands. We didn't mind.

As we do not list horse racing in our interests there is inevitably no logic or system involved in choosing a mount. Two horses each and our names inked in on the full page special colour spread of a saturday newspaper. This is stuck up with drawing pins on the kitchen notice board.We may have heard of the better known riders and runners but none of us have anything like a long game strategy.

Our wedding day in 1989 was coincidentally on Grand National Day and one of the horses, 'Last of the Brownies' was such an apt betting proposition given that Brown, and not Last, was the maiden name of my gorgeous bride.

The actual running of the race is always late in the afternoon. If it is nice weather we will probably be out and about and not really interested in watching.

We did, when I was a child,  only have a black and white TV anyway which in itself was problematic. I do have strong memories of individual races such as the wins of Red Rum and Aldiniti, but very strong impressions of death and mayhem amongst the thoroughbred stock as the pace, heavy ground and horrendously challenging jumps and obstacles claimed many equine victims and continues to do so annually.

The day can come and go now without my interest.

It remains however a day of mass public participation and is often an introduction to betting for the first time for many. There is the usual bland gambling aware warnings although in my opinion  "if the fun stops" as they say,  it is already far too late.

The TV and media coverage is as extensive and informative as a Royal Wedding and reinforces a cultural trait in this country to forget logic and reason and go for that life changing gamble even if you are well ahead and cruising comfortably in your own grand national.

You Old Fossil, You

I often sift through my collection of fossils.

They are a mixed bunch of stones that I picked up over many a family holiday,  walks on a beach or prised out of muddy ground whether the accessible part of a cliff or a railway cutting.

The thrill of every single discovery remains strong and vivid in my mind. I will have been scraping and poking around for hours with grubby and bruised fingers or a ragged piece of wood, turfing out what may originally have looked to be an exciting object only to be disappointed as it turned out to be just a pebble or an interestingly shaped fragment of rock.

Very rarely but ultimately rewarding was the exposing of a devils toe nail, a coiled ammonite, a bullet shaped belemite and the occasional shark's tooth.

These items, rinsed out in the nearest  rock pool or puddle have been amongst my most prized possessions.

Ironically for all of my physical effort to excavate them, the accumulated cost of transport over a number of years and associated storage they have no real tangible value.

That is in direct contrast to the sale at auction in 1997 of a fossil that to date represents the world record paid for such a thing.

Granted, the fossil is quite a specimen and nothing like my small-fry collectables. It is one of the most complete, articulated skeletons of any of the Cretaceous Period Dinosaurs and arguably the most fear engendering and iconic- a Tyranosaurus Rex.

It was originally discovered by fossil hunters in 1990 amongst the sedimentary rocks of the Hall Creek Formation of the South Dakota Badlands in the United States.

That area has for decades been a rich source of fossils with the arid dry soils releasing their fossilised treasures with quite regular frequency after periodic rains and surface water floods.

The first hint of something truly significant at that time was the protruding of a few bones out of the strata of a low bluff or slope.

Over the following 17 days of painstaking excavation and cataloguing the site produced some 90% of the skeleton of a T-Rex some 42 feet in length and weighing around 6 tons.

Critically the skull about 5 feet long and an even rarer find in such situations, was tucked up inside the pelvic cavity giving rise to speculation that the dinosaur had suffered an accident, possibly having been drowned in a flash flood between 66 and 67 million years ago whilst otherwise appearing to have been in its prime of life in terms of physical condition , strength and ability to thrive as a very efficient predator in that prehistoric environment.

This was borne out by the jaw bone which retained many original and still razor sharp teeth.

The unprecedented discovery was broadcast across the globe and attracted considerable scientific and public interest.

Unfortunately the announcement alerted the US Government and South Dakota State Authorities to potentially exploitative actions of professional fossil hunters in what could be a very lucrative line of work.

The National Guard were mobilised on the instruction of the Federal Government to seize the skeletal remains and it was removed to a safe storage facility. This was to the shock and annoyance of those who had unearthed the T Rex and also the local community who had hoped that it would, as the main feature, kick start a long planned Museum and Institute as a tourist attraction and centre for Paleontological Research in an area of otherwise sparse opportunities.

Others put in claims of ownership and in a long running Legal Action over the following 7 years it was eventually ruled that the T Rex belonged to the Landowner of the Hall Creek site, a Native American and descendant of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

At a high profile auction at Sothebys in New York in 1997 the successful bid of $7.6 million dollars plus costs taking it to around $8.3 million saw the dinosaur heading for the Field Institute in Chicago. The huge price had been funded through the generous donations to the Museum of the likes of the Disney and McDonalds Corporations.

In spite of the acrimony and bitterness of the law case this was perhaps the best outcome for the preservation and further study of such a unique specimen although the experience for those involved in its discovery and excavation was far from ideal. One of the professional fossil hunters actually served a custodial sentence for what was clearly intended to be a demonstration of intention by the Authorities to crack down on any illegal activity involving fossils and fossilised remains.

The T Rex, named Sue after its original finder is to this day considered by The Field Museum to have been a most prudent purchase.