H4553

Brief biography

Male Age: 64 (born 1947) Married (2 daughters & 3 granddaughters) Holmfirth Former teacher and postman Summer 2012 Directive  Jubilee Weekend Diary Autobiographical background. I have a sister who was born nearly 2 years before me. When I was 3, my mother gave birth to a daughter whose death less than a year later was a trauma from which the family, already pretty rocky, never recovered, though, somehow my parents stayed together. A little over 2 years after my 2nd sister’s death, my mother gave birth to another daughter. There were further pregnancies, but they all miscarried. In 1953, my parents moved from the USA to England (my mother was American; my father British), and I have lived in England ever since.  One result of all the dislocation of my early years was that I was very slow to learn to read and write. However, thanks to the efforts on one headmaster(especially) and a couple of class teachers at a primary school in Castle Bromwich, I managed to pass the 11+ exam well enough to go to a highly regarded, very traditional grammar school, by which I mean a single-sex school that was run like a public school. It even had boarders, though I was a day-pupil. Up to O-level, a quarter of my school week was taken up with the study of Latin and Greek. I left in 1965, aged 18, with modest qualifications, having never really fitted into the strict regimental values of such an establishment – but I should stress that I have no grounds for complaint against the school, where I was fairly treated and had many very fine teachers. I bear the responsibility of my failure to take full advantage of the opportunities that it offered. Now that I have written it, I think the phrase ‘take advantage of the opportunities’ is key: I have always been inclined to co-operation and sharing rather than competing; I enjoyed team sports for the esprit de corps, but winning was not important to me – I simply tried to be worthy of my place in the team. Solo sports like tennis and track athletics were, and remain, of no real interest to me. As an adult, I was never motivated by career success and progress. My early adult years were rather aimless, as I drifted from job to job. I ended up in teaching English in an 11-18 comprehensive, loved it, worked all hours, taking on evening classes, GCSE exam marking, weekend trips, school exchanges to France, responsibility for pastoral care - all with no career progression in mind. Then in 1993, I ran out of steam, and as I began to recover from the breakdown, I left teaching and worked as a postman, but somehow kept up my seasonal work as a GCSE examiner, which I finally retired from in the February of this year, 2012, having risen to the position of Assistant Principal Examiner. Diary Saturday June 2nd Yesterday, our younger daughter, leaving her partner at home in Cornwall, arrived here with her daughter (very few days short of her second birthday) to stay till Monday. Given the shortness of her stay, the fact that she is nearly four months pregnant, and the age of the daughter, she decided to fly from Newquay to Manchester (we paid the fare). Our day today began early – we were awoken by the granddaughter at about 6.15. My daughter and I got up instantly to deal with her; my wife is recovering from surgery just over two weeks ago to remove a malignant tumour – she needs much more sleep as a result, so I am always careful to shield her from disturbance as much as I can. That early in the morning, I find it hard to concentrate on reading, so it is the one time when I often tend to watch TV. The early news on BBC (‘Breakfast’) is overladen with gushing items concerning the Jubilee. I looked through the recorded programmes and selected an episode of “Foyle’s War” that I had not yet seen. It started with the denial of ‘Conscientious Objector’ status being conferred on a man who is then is then driven to suicide by the rough treatment he receives in police cells. I’m not quite sure about the series. It is beautifully acted & the production is very polished. There is something very traditionally English in the way it is done, but there is a slightly worrying ‘comfortable’ tone to the dramas, and there is a tendency to moral simplicity. Nevertheless, I usually find myself watching them through – and I certainly don’t do that with many programmes these days. I suspect that my feelings about the series are conditioned by the ‘Nordic Noir’ detective & political dramas that my wife and I (along with millions of others) have been gripped by in recent months. In comparison, “Foyle’s War” seems rather stagey, dated. At 7.15, as usual, our daily paper – ‘The Guardian’ - was delivered. It had a massive picture of the queen on the front page. I got the feeling that this weekend is going to be like a cosy TV drama: England gazing on itself and loving what it sees. Oh well... It is strange how a small person of two years fills a house and takes over the lives of all those around it. My granddaughter is going through a very active phase just now. Once she had gained confidence in her unfamiliar surroundings, she was ranging over the entire house, with the exception of the room where my wife was sleeping. My wife lives for the children in the family – it is measure of how her illness has weakened and exhausted her that she remained asleep when this delightful little girl was playing so happily. That she had toys to play with, is thanks to my wife – as often as not, when she has been shopping in the village, she will return with a toy or a child’s book, bought from one of the three (or is it now four?) charity shops located around our little market place. At about 8.15, my wife awoke and the day really began. Our daughter had been invited to a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace last week in recognition of the work she had put into a Jubilee visit by the queen to the university that she - our daughter - works at. While our daughter knew it was likely to be a fairly large event, she was amused to find that the guest-list ran to some 8000 people. Having had to put in a few hours at her work before her 4 hour train journey to London, she arrived too late to see the queen, but he saw a few royals. She had been particularly impressed by the sight of a number of ambassadors in their national costume, and the huge number of fascinators adorning the heads of British women. I got the impression that she felt that she had really done enough Jubilee celebrating by now. Saturday was one of those days that just goes by... In the morning, I cut the grass. Our back garden is fairly large and quite steep, so the job takes well over an hour, and, since we cannot see the grassed areas from the house, I find it hard to enjoy the fruits of my labours – or, indeed, to see much purpose in them. The grass certainly needed cutting – after months of cool, wet weather, we suddenly had a week or more of temperatures around 27/28 degrees Celsius. In the 2 weeks since its last cutting, the grass has grown to 3 or 4 inches in length.  My wife’s sister & her husband, have been visiting from Canada – an annual trip they make to be with their parents, who are 96 & 91 years old; they moved, from Kent, up to our village 4 years ago, to be near us. It is very impressive the way they continue to look after themselves, though inevitably their failing health and strength means that they have to call upon us for help more and more. While my wife is unwell and weakened, I do all I can to fill in ensure that they are not neglected. So a quick trip to their house is a normal part of the routine. While my wife’s sister has been there, the pressure has eased, but today, my brother-in-law was returning to Canada (his wife to follow in a week) so she was busy with his departure. I called around there and saw to their shopping from the village. In the afternoon, I took our daughter and our little joy (Such a nuisance to have to avoid simply using names in these pages!) to a barbeque party at the house, in a nearby village, of a friend of hers since school-days. Then I called in at our local supermarket to buy a few necessaries for the evening meal, which I had insisted on cooking. The menu: escallops of pork, and spaghetti with a tomato-based sauce. Off and on, the preparations took much of the afternoon, (I broke off at about 5 p.m. to fetch my daughter & granddaughter home – my wife is unable to drive just now as she is slowly recovering from the surgery).  It was nearly quarter to seven till we all sat down to eat, but I have to say that it was OK. Even my granddaughter enjoyed it – women readers of this (if anybody ever reads it) may well smile when I say that I felt profoundly moved (the more accurate phrase is ‘really chuffed’) by the enjoyment with which my granddaughter set about her meal. After dinner, there was a 45 minute frenzy of manic activity from our granddaughter before, very quickly and without a struggle, she made it clear that it was time for her to sleep. The three adults – wife, daughter and self – were all tired, and it was as much as we could do to stay up to watch the concluding episode of ‘Sebastian Bergman’, a Swedish two-parter on BBC Four: pretty well the only TV channel that I find myself watching these days. Sunday, June 3rd I was up early after yet another poor night – increasingly the norm these days.  As is always the case with young children, it was granddaughter who set the pace of the morning. Fortunately, she is naturally a happy child, though currently suffering from teething as her final infant molars force their way through. I had the TV on first thing, but soon turned it off, such was the interminable gushing over the wonders of our Royal Family. The weather here in West Yorkshire was overcast & a bit drizzly, but nowhere near as bad as the weather down in London: so disappointing for the people who were involved in the day’s events. My in-laws & my wife’s younger sister (the one who’s over from Canada; her husband flew back home yesterday) were invited over to us for coffee & cake. My wife’s brother had driven up from his home in the Cambridge area so he drove them over to us. It was so good for my in-laws to be re-united with all their children (the oldest of them recovering from very serious illness) – at 96 & 91, they appreciate the preciousness of such occasions. And, with one of their great-grandchildren present, there was even more poignancy to the occasion.  Granddaughter’s birthday is not till Tuesday, but, since she will be home then, we decided to have her Yorkshire celebration today. Her main present from us awaits her return home, but we had bought a doll and two books. She enjoyed being sung to – and soon learned the technique required to blow out the candles; although she is only two on the day, my wife thought it would be more festive to adorn the cake with more candles - eight in all. All in all, the morning went very well. I stayed on the margins & busied myself fetching and carrying, until it was time for them to return home at about noon.  After a light lunch, the afternoon was quiet. My wife, daughter & granddaughter installed themselves in the living-room with the TV on to watch the procession of boats along the Thames. I came upstairs to play my lute – a rather dispiriting experience as I am badly out of practice. I decided to give myself a turn on my 10-course lute, which I have played very little, though it is a good enough instrument; training the thumb to navigate across the 4 or 5 bass strings is a challenge that I really have to persevere with. It would be pointless for me to explain the nature of the right-hand technique necessary for an instrument of this size and number of strings... Suffice to say that it is a challenge for a man of my age and modest ability. Sunday dinners have always been a feature of our family life – as has ensuring that our evening meals are taken together at table & not in front of the TV. Our daughters would be mortified if, one Sunday, the roast was not on the menu. This evening, it was roast chicken – our butcher supplies excellent meat, and the chickens he sells are well up to the mark. So... after a damp stroll to air myself out, I started tending to the preparation of the evening dinner. At some point, I looked in on the TV & have to say that it was impressive to see the Royal Couple standing and clearly engaged with the event. I enjoyed the sight of the giant puppet-horse from ‘War Horse’ running across the skyline of the National Theatre. The evening meal was enjoyed by us all; granddaughter tucked in heartily, especially relishing the pork and leek sausage made to our butcher own recipe. Once again, the evening was a quiet, sleepy effort to delay sleep until a suitably late hour. I gave in and went up at 9.30. Monday June 4th After another bad night, I was up at 6.30. Once again, the sky was overcast, but it was dry. I endured Breakfast TV for only as long as took me to realise that is was going to be nothing more than a fawning reprise of the previous day’s events and a preview of what looked like a perfectly ghastly concert outside the palace this evening – it was not long before the TV was turned off. One by one, the rest of the household joined the day. Breakfast chez nous is a simple matter of cereal and/or toast. Porridge is always there as an option should anyone feel like making it. By 9.30, everyone had breakfasted, and our daughter busied herself packing everything up for her flight back to Cornwall. Take-off was scheduled for 12.30, so we had decided on a departure from home at 10.30., which was, more or less, when we left.  The M60 cannot often have been as quiet as it was today. We arrived at Manchester Airport at 11.30. I waited with the car in the drop-off area and my wife went with our departing guests to check the flight was as planned. Very soon we were on our way back home. We arrived back just about when take-off was due. Both of us were tired – my wife for obvious reasons; me, because of lack of sleep. After a tidy-up of things inside, I went outside to tend to a few little jobs in the veg. patch of the garden. Then I came in and busied myself with packing up an old lute for shipping out to China, to that rarest of human beings: an aspiring Chinese lutenist. We’ve been in touch over the internet (email & Skype) quite a lot. He cannot afford the price of a lute, so his one hope was someone with an old instrument (and, sad to say, and a somewhat inferior one – though OK to get started on) who was prepared to sell for less than he or she would get for the instrument in England. I got the packaging done and, having weighed and measured the instrument, set about trying to get a quote for shipping to China. Of course, with the Jubilee business, offices are closed, so nothing can be done till Wednesday at the earliest. This evening, I could have gone to bed really early – especially when the news came on... One thing that I have found really depressing about all the ‘celebrations’ is their manufactured nature; they seem to be TV-driven – inevitable, I suppose... but depressing nonetheless. I struggle through till 9.30 before doing up; I read on in bed till about 10 when I surrendered to necessity and turned off the light. I was awake before 3, and slept only occasionally and fitfully after that until... Tuesday, June 5th ...at 7, I got up. Breakfast TV... What can I say? Bill Turnbull can normally be relied on to behave in a rational manner. However, even he seems to have become infected with a dementing-virus. They did manage an apparently non-royal story – about Venus being aligned between Earth and the Sun. Bill T, adopting that look of vacuous rapture, turned to some astronomer and said, “So, it seems as if he planets themselves are putting on a special show for the Jubilee.” Off. I think I may have been cured of what has become a morning ritual of Breakfast Television: no bad thing.  Our morning paper, ‘The Guardian’ carried a story on the front page, about bus-loads of unemployed youngsters who had been driven to London on the promise of stewarding work (pay: £2.80 per hour). However, when on the buses, many were told there would be no pay – it was training/assessment for suitability for similar work (‘for good wages’ during the Olympics). On arrival in London at 11p.m., they were led beneath London Bridge and told to camp out (on the concrete) and get some sleep. No toilets, no changing facilities, no pay for a 14 shift... England 2012 – absolutely shameful. After breakfast, my wife & phoned Cornwall to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the two-year-old; it was well received, as was the doll’s pram which we had had delivered to her house. I have just broken off & read quickly through what I’ve written... ‘Diary of a Nobody’ comes vividly to mind... my apologies to anyone battling through all this!  In and amongst doing a variety of little maintenance jobs, I had to hurry to put the bin out as the lorry came down the road – it being a ‘public holiday’, I had not expected them to out today; apparently, they are on double time and having a day off in lieu. That, I would suggest, is more in the spirit of a national celebration. Lunch was a very simple cottage cheese & two Ryveta crisp-breads followed by an apple. Then, this afternoon, we were visited by my wife’s sister and her son (my wife’s nephew) & his wife – the nephew & wife live near Oxford & were on their way back after a few days away in Northumberland (with the bit of the Yorkshire coast at Bempton Cliffs thrown in for good measure. Now, they had made good use of the holiday bonus. After they set off home, my wife & I went out for a short, half-hour walk. My wife is only just over 5 foot tall whereas I am a 6 footer. Nevertheless, on local walks of short duration, I often struggle to keep up with her; it is sadly noticeable at present that it is she who struggles to keep up as soon as I forget her weakened condition. The evening meal was cold chicken, left over from Sunday, of course, with over-ready chops & petit pois.  My wife & I then went on-line to the Guardian’s ‘Cottage Holiday’ site to book a 3-day stay at a big property near Weston-super-Mare in mid-December; the plan is for our daughters & their families to join us for a sort of pre-Christmas Christmas, leaving our daughters & co free to be near friends & at home over Christmas, as we have to remain in Yorkshire to be with my wife’s parents. Our girls are really looking forward to the occasion – we are so lucky that we get on so well as a family. The prospect of the get-together has cheered my wife considerably, and that is the best news of all.