Septuagenarian

Something I wrote for my dad when he was 70.

Some say that A Mason is a Craftsman that Builds,
And in 1926 a great Craftsman was born,
Who, with time, built an Empire for himself,
This refers to, of course, the Septuagenarian, Arthur Weldon.
(Hey, sorry but this just isn’t going to rhyme!)

Look at this man’s life, A tapestry, an Epic,
Starting from the time he took a wife, young Dorothy Edwards.
to this fine Day in September 1996.
He has truly made his mark.

The Meccano Man who made wood shine,
Market Stall, “Barrow Boy” to Wavertree Road Fancy Goods Magnate,
And not forgetting Our favourite Ice Cream Man.
And of course Grand Chief Buffalo of the Ovaltinee’s.

Huyton to Liverpool and almost Australia,
From Botanic Road, Pottery Lane and Kimnel Bay,
With thousands of miles as that “Taxi Guy”,
This man has driven to the moon and back.

Vauxhall Victor, delivery Van, Wedding cars or Taxi,
All those times he took the time, to deliver all of us safely,
To Ainsdale or Butlins or just “down the M6 to Romford”,
Occasionally taking the Scenic Route, He always got us there.

And along with Dot, his lifelong mate, like two swans in the pond of life,
They’ve seen and done more in their time, than most of us could wish for,
But one great wish from all of us, is that both of them will continue.
(And now that the house is insulated we can visit when its Cold...)

A Great Big “Thank You Dad” from all of us,
We love you wherever we are, near or far, Earth or Star,
And lets cheer for whats gone and whatever will be,
Happy Birthday!!


September 1996.

The Sash Window

1957. Light.

I think I remember my mum's smiling face, I remember light, bright light, which flooded my life through that sash window, into my pram. Here's another little interesting thing, I remember something like bubbles, but not bubbles, funny when something inside your head looks and feels like bubbles or spheres of plastic and you can almost taste them, smell them when you don't even remember if they had a smell or taste. But they were very real. What they actually were is long gone, just a memory of shape of a taste of a smell. Theres no one left even to validate the sash window besides that developed picture, and no way to prove a thing, however, they are my memories and relics of memories. If I seem fucked up to you readers in the real world then you're probably right.

So what was my new world? I have photographs of my pram and I remember chrome, they used to make prams to last, built like brick shit houses as they say. Mild tubular steel chrome plated with coach work and big shiny spoked wheels. The interior padded and comfortable yet forcibly restraining, the hood steady and strong, strong enough to withstand a gale force wind or a howling baby. I remember the chrome parts of the Pram and I can remember from a very early age trapping my finger in one of the joints of the handle. Once bitten twice shy they say, however, I probably trapped my finger several times over a period of months being a slow learner.

The Interior of the Pram afforded two more chrome rings, these were used to keep me in, the last thing my parents wanted was for me to fall out and bang my head again. This pram was big, and to protect the delicate cargo of the developing fat fool the restraining straps were used so that I could not fall out and bang the cranium or escape to Neverland with Peter Pan (not Michael Jackson).

Back to the Start....

When I was a baby the first thing I remember was a window, I remember looking out of my pram and seeing a window, a sash window. at least that's what I think I remember – I often wonder if that type of image will be the last thing I ever see in some bright hospital room or nursing home somewhere!

Well, that’s a cheerful start.

Today I picked up some prints that I had developed from negatives found in a box in my deceased parents garage, one of them shows a one year old me, with my grandad, in front of that very window.

This blog is all about memories, some of which will be fragments, some embellished, some downright untrue. Up to now, pretty random, but, it's a puzzle readers, make of it what you will.

I look at that picture of me when I was a baby, 46 years ago, I look at pictures of me now that I am almost a 47 year old man. These two people are the same two people yet not the same. The bones have grown and the skin has a lot more weathering now, lines drawn on the canvas of life. 47 years of life and continuing, the brain thinks it's wise now, but if you've read my previous posts, you'll see who I am, I ain't got the answers my people, I'm just scratching the surface.

My apologies to anyone reading this blog, at times I’ve been a bit graphic, but not as graphic as I'd like to be, disoriented, but not as disoriented as I really am, however, I’m trying to put things as I remember and “capture the moment” – ah well, if I do swear a bit, please remember that a few naughty words never hurt anyone.

Little Jim

Almost two years ago, on July 1st, 2002, a very good friend of mine passed away.

Jim Collins was an exceptional man who had an extraordinary life. Born in 1920 in post war Britain, he grew up in a time of hardship and depression and started work, to support his family, at a very early age. In the 1940s, Jim served his country with the Dorset Regiment in Germany, in the process learning to speak fluent German.

His aerospace career spanned the globe and almost half a century. He was tempted by the lucrative salaries of the Boeing Corporation in the 1960s, subsequently moving to Renton, Washington. Jim commented that, at the time he was earning more than Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister of Britain.

In the early 1970s, he did something we all wish we could do, he essentially stepped out of the rat race, moved back to England and became a dairy farmer.

Although not a simple man, Jim loved that simple life, he’d often wax lyrical about those years on the farm in the south of England with his family. Long days tinkering on tractors or farm implements and the reward of fixing a gate or a fence. Early mornings spent tending to the cows and cozy sessions in the kitchen on cold or rainy days with a roaring fire in the oven, a cup of fresh tea and a slice of freshly buttered toast.

Jim returned to the USA in 1979 to work at McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach (six years before I was to arrive there). A few years later he moved to Canada and in 1986, just before I emigrated to Canada, I was shocked by a gruff sounding individual at the other end of the phone line, my "first contact" with Jim Collins, Stress Office manager at my new company.

Jim’s philosophy was that too often in life people ignore the simple pleasures, He knew all too well “what was what” and that the important things were often overlooked, he loved his family, good food, the occasional cold beer, fresh crusty bread and a fine cheese. He loved settling down on the sofa, in front of the fire, with his pipe and a classic book, a sleeping dog at his feet. He also loved causing trouble, being mischievous and telling it like it is, you knew he was up to something just by that glint in his boyish eyes.

Jim was a multitude of things in this life, a good father, grand-father, farmer, soldier, comedian, ham radio buff and model steam train constructor to name but a few. With his vast knowledge of life he was a constant source of thought provoking, risqué and often highly amusing anecdotes that spanned his long and happy life.

He may have been almost 40 years older than me, but we were good mates and we had a good laugh.

I miss you, you old bugger!

Smoke too Much.

This fat fool is drinking far too much, could be the fact that it’s just too damn easy, and cheap, to crack open a bottle of home brewed wine from the cupboard, could be that I have too many people around me that raise an eyebrow that indicates that just one more will do the trick, perhaps sometimes it’s me, granted, in the bathroom, looking in the mirror, raising that eyebrow, thinking that hey, one more won’t do anyone any harm and there’s 35 minutes to the end of ER and another 750ml of the red stuff would go down really well, if we drink slow...

What is the moment that you step over the line into alcoholism?, am I already there perhaps? - seems to me that I have a happy life, few money worries, a good wife, a great job, good friends. So, what the fuck is all this alcohol actually doing for me? - relaxing me?, making me cool?, making me better or stronger?, making me forget that I’m not really the person that everyone on the planet thinks I am?, making it better when little Jamies kidney transplant gets rejected or lessen the blow when Doctor Green dies after lots of headaches with his brain tumour?

I get the headaches too you know.

I think I share a lot with my favorite bloggers, Maynard and Kay, that being angst about mowing the lawn, the constant family wranglings, the good and bad faces at work and the day to day realisation that we’re not going to escape the rat race whatever we do and we’re certainly not going to get out of this life alive. That could be the reason that the mind altering qualities of the plonk make it all that much easier to take, I live to drink and I drink to live.

My mum and dad could not give up smoking, they tried to quit many times but kept returning to the smokes and it was eventually one of the prime suspects in their deteriorating health later in life, strangely enough, neither of them drank too much. I on the other hand have never really smoked but I’m quickly coming to the conclusion that this alcohol stuff is going to do me in and there’s very little I can do about it unless everyone I know, including the missus, stops drinking it. Perhaps if I’d been more careful and drank less then Doctor Romano would not have had his arm chopped off by the helicopter on the hospital roof, I’ll never know, I was looking away at the time as my glass had stuck to the coaster.

My doctor told me that I had the liver of a goose and that I should lose some weight and perhaps drink less beer and wine, I suppose it was my own fault for telling him how much I really drink and I'm going to have to be a lot more careful about full disclosure in the future as he could be taking notes and letting other people know. Doctors are like that, Ive seen them talking about us. Bastards.

It worried me a lot at the time about the goose reference and I thought it was a strange thing for him to say to me until I remembered something from way, way back in the eighties, and then it dawned on me that Doctor Green from ER was actually Mavericks co-pilot, Goose in Top Gun, and that he also came to a very sticky end with a head trauma thing (headaches) and was prevented from ever having sex with Meg Ryan again.

Coincidence?

I think not.

Smell my tailpipe

The VW is trapped in the garage at the moment, the victim of circumstance. It’s 2004 which is an even year and the Honda Civic has to have it’s emissions test this fall, it’s a 1995 vehicle. The Corrado however, is a 1990 vehicle, even year equals odd year for emission tests in Canada.

In addition to this, the VW needs new brakes and a new drive belt, could do with a new speed sensor and a little TLC, all avenues for extracting money efficiently out of my wallet. The drive belt issue has become increasingly embarrassing as general members of the public stare in disbelief as I turn corners and the car sounds like a squealing pig.

So, unwillingly, the VW will stay in the garage until after the emissions test, to add insult to injury the Civic “service engine” light has started coming on at odd intervals, possibly an emissions issue. That will be an ironic twist to all this, the very fact that I’m running the Honda at the moment results in a wallet flush to fix an emissions problem that wouldn’t actually have been there until after the emissions test. I don’t think Geordie can get me out of this one, even if we send a tachyon pulse back to the lip of the temperal rift.

Whichever way I work this one, I suspect a sacrifice to the Automobile God is inevitable, I fear he is angry at me and he was not satisfied with just a token clutch change on the Civic. I don’t think a piece of black tape above the engine light will solve this one...dollars will be required one way or another.

Will keep you posted, try to stay visible.

Bend it like Beckham

Well, England, with the help of Beckham, didn’t deliver again, however, as with a lot of my frustration with the Toronto Maple Leafs who year after year make it through to the playoffs, but choke when It’s getting to the tough games, my long term expectations for England are about the same. I’ve sat too many times in the pub when I was in my twenties and cried into my warm English beer, one of my favorite chants being “we woz robbed” as England once again slipped out of the running in the quarter finals of a major tournament.

I can still recall my total feelings of hatred towards Charlie George when he scored the winning goal against Liverpool in the 1971 FA cup Final. He just laid down on the pitch and that was that. I don’t think I was ever the same after that, approaching games with detachment and almost disinterest, however, by the time England were in the World Cup quarter final against Argentina in 1986 I was back into the emotion of it all, and when Diego Maradona beat Shilton with an obvious handball we were all gobsmacked when the referee allowed the goal.

And that time, We really woz robbed.

Sleeping in the Dry Spot

A big thank you to Blogger dot com.

Graeme my favorite Scotsman, asked me several years ago why people on the Internet post and create useful or funny websites. "Whats in it for them?, why do they do it?" he'd ask and I really was lost for words, sufficient to reply that "they just do, and that's that. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth!" and since then, and with the help of a series of computers I've built for him, he has surfed the Internet and even added to it's fullness with some great personal family stories.

My son asked me a similar question, directed at me, as to why I post on Blogger or create websites, my fundamental answer was "because I can" and that about sums it all up, I can keep a diary and hide it in a drawer, I can reflect quietly in my room or just throw stuff up here, I choose the latter. If I want to share a slice of me with anyone on the planet, I now just direct them to dryspot. Hopefully, in time this blog will represent all of me.

And to clear up a question I've repeatedly had over the years, why do I call myself dryster? - well, it wasn't always that, it was "Dry Ice" back in the pre-internet BBS days. Chosen because, back when my dad was a Taxi Driver in Whiston, he was also an Ice Cream Van driver. The main freezer in the van was packed with dry ice which I'd pinch and play with, and if any of you have experimented with a lump of dry ice and a blancmange mould, you'll realise that it makes a high pitched, annoying noise that you'll never forget.

Welcome to me.

Follow the bouncing Balls

Come and hold my hand
I wanna contact the living
Not sure I understand
This role I've been given
I sit and talk to God
And he just laughs at my plans
My head speaks a language
I don't understand

I just wanna feel
Real love feel the home that I live in
Cos I got too much life
Running through my veins
Going to waste
I don't wanna die
But I ain't keen on living either
Before I fall in love
I'm preparing to leave her

Scare myself to death
That's why I keep on running
Before I've arrived
I can see myself coming
I just wanna feel
Real love feel the home that I live in
Cos I got too much life
Running through my veins
Going to waste
And I need to feel
Real love and the love ever after
I can not get enough

I just wanna feel
Real love feel the home that I live in
I got too much love
Running through my veins
To go to waste

I just wanna feel
Real love and the love ever after
There's a hole in my soul
You can see it in my face
It's a real big place

Come and hold my hand
I wanna contact the living
Not sure I understand
This role I've been given
Not sure I understand
Not sure I understand
Not sure I understand
Not sure I understand


Cheers Robbie.

Love, not Chocolate

We've just passed one of the major North American consumer frenzies, Fathers Day. It is packed away for another year and the stores are counting their winnings.

From the Fool's point of view, everything is geared towards efficient extraction of cash from the pockets of the working classes, I'll probably miss quite a few in the list but just for an example we have Christmas, Valentines Day, Mother's Day, Easter, Father's Day, Secretaries Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving, not to mention all the other religious events, birthdays and anniversaries.

It seems that as soon as one is over the store flyers are touting the next.

I can see why the advertising is aimed at the younger people as most of societies elders have shunned the idea of buying more crap to fill their cupboards, whereas the young thirst for novelty and gadgetry. I'm stuck in the middle as I still want the stuff, but am too cheap to shell out brass. If we weed out the days associated with chocolate giving, there are still quite a number of opportunities to justify a major purchase as a reward for the horrors of working life.

The good lady and myself have adopted a regime of visits to the Keg steakhouse on these occasions, replacing the unwanted stuff with Steak, Mushrooms and Wine and a good long chat. It's working very well for birthdays and anniversaries, but it didn't work so well for Valentines Day as we just ended up waiting three hours in the bar with a couple from Liverpool who just wanted new friends.

It sounds like the fool has a good handle on all of this, sounds like he's a master of his own domain and is successful in resisting the rampant consumerism, yeah, right. All I have to do is stand in the kitchen at a party and tell my friends I'm in control and one by one they all jump in and point out the holes in my plan, showing me just how much of a consumer I am and that I'm worse than any of them.

They could be right, but at least I'm trying to change......pass me that flyer!

Reverse Polish

This one for my Korean buddy, Yong.

Adopting geek posture (on)

My first electronic calculator was bought in 1975, it was a Sinclair Cambridge (Yes, Clive Sinclair, Nutty Professor and washing machine cyclist) which replaced my British Thornton Slide rule that they forced us into buying in our first year of Apprenticeship. The Cambridge was a smashing little thing, four functions, well five actually, you could turn it upside down and write ShELL in glowing purple letters by entering 77345. Nights were long, no money, no girlfriends, you get the picture.

This was followed by a CBM (Commodore) Scientific with 53 functions, A CBM Scientific with 100+ functions, A Texas Instruments TI-55 programmable (which was stolen along with my Mark IV Cortina) followed by a series of Casio Scientifics. Then in 1997, after many years of calculating the Algebraic way, I jumped with both feet into the RPN world (Reverse Polish Notation) and bought myself my first Hewlett Packard calculator…. The 42S.

In the same year I bought my final calculator, the HP48GX, still have it today, seven years later.

I can annoy people no end as I go in and go on (and on) about this one!. I've added a 1 megabyte memory card in Port 2 and a 128k card in Port 1. Yes, a one and a quarter megabyte calculator. And yes, before you tell me to get a life, I'll admit that its just a calculator, but its a passionate calculator, with object oriented programming capabilities, plus I can write SHELL in real letters, right side up!. It can be an object, a function, a variable, anything I want. I can even use small letters, haha, small letters, try and do that my little invisible monkeys....I conssplu.....

Syntax error line 30

Geek posture (off)
Pocket Protector (out)
Waistband (lowered)

The Space Patrol Expose

Another archive item.

I’ve still in shock following my discovery that the British TV series “Space Patrol” was not a Gerry Anderson production. The TV puppet series of the 1960's that kept me riveted to the little black and white valve driven box we called a TV back then was actually created by Roberta Leigh and Arthur Provis.

So all those times in the pub when I dropped in the “additional” forgotten Gerry Anderson series (besides Four Feather Falls and Torchy the Battery Boy) to demonstrate my vast memory on Puppet shows by the master, I was wrong. Well, Almost.

Roberta Leigh and Arthur Provis were actually former colleagues of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (famous for their Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds Supermarionation shows), so technically, as usual, I was right. Roberta was also involved in the Adventures of Twizzle about a lonely, pathetic little imp that befriended and collected unwanted toys......sounds a bit too much like me!!

The only other human I’ve met who knows anything about Husky, Gabbler, Slim and Larry Dart and their adventures aboard Galasphere 347 in Space Patrol, is Matt Hilliard, the chap who was partially responsible for my emigration to Canada. He probably still believes that it was a Gerry Anderson show, smiling into his beer as he recalls the robots and the sliding doors..

I’ll have to tell him one day, it’ll break his heart……..

Rifleman Richard Welding

While I’m on the subject in this 60th anniversary month of D-Day, I’d like to add some information to the vastness of the web about my dad’s uncle Richard who was killed in the First World War, fighting for the freedom of a nephew he'd never see.

Richard Welding was a Rifleman, number 241411 in the 1st/5th Battalion of the South Lancashire Regiment. He died on Friday the 30th November 1917 . Age 29 .

The CAMBRAI MEMORIAL in France commemorates more than 7, 000 servicemen of the United Kingdom and South Africa who died in the Battle of Cambrai in November and December 1917 and whose graves are not known. Sir Douglas Haig described the object of the Cambrai operations as the gaining of a 'local success by a sudden attack at a point where the enemy did not expect it' and to some extent they succeeded. The proposed method of assault was new, with no preliminary artillery bombardment. Instead, tanks would be used for the first time to break through the German wire, with the infantry following under the cover of smoke barrages. The attack began early in the morning of 20 November 1917 and initial advances were remarkable. However, by 22 November, a halt was called for rest and reorganisation, allowing the Germans to reinforce. From 23 to 28 November, the fighting was concentrated almost entirely around Bourlon Wood and by 29 November, it was clear that the Germans were ready for a major counter attack. The next day, a month before his birthday, Richard was killed.

Richards name is also on the War Memorial in Huyton Village in Lancashire. One family story is that he couldn't see properly out of one eye (a common Weldon affliction that I have inherited) and was refused entry to the Army. However, he was determined and eventually was accepted at a St Helens recruitment office. He joined to serve with his friends, for his country, to fight for what was right.

Thank You.

Richard Welding (December 30th 1888 – November 30th 1917)

Fusilier Arthur Weldon

Arthur was called up for his British National Service in September 1944 when he was 18 years old and was officially enlisted on the 16th November 1944.

He served in the Royal Irish Fusiliers and told me stories of being a "half track" driver in Palestine, this was a type of vehicle that had wheels at the front and tracks at the back. His service with the "Middle East Force" was from the 16th September 1945 thru to the 4th September, 1947.

He told stories of the heat, of driving those half track vehicles and of the constant threat from scorpions, terror attacks and chafing. The rule about scorpions was to always check your boots before slipping them on....

14875099 Fusilier Arthur Weldon was "A young soldier who works well in the right job. He is both sober and honest, also very clean. Should be a useful type of man" according to his testimonial from Officer Brady of Ballykinlar, the commanding depot of the Royal Irish Fusiliers (dated 2nd January 1948). If any of you out there have more information about the depot, please let me know.

Arthur was released to the Royal Army Reserve on the 23rd of March, 1948 when he received his demob suit and cardboard case.

His final discharge from Reserve liability did not arrive until the 30th June, 1959.

Total Service with the colours. 16th November 1944 thru 22nd March, 1948.

Thanks Dad.

Arthur Weldon. (1926 – 2000)

Days gone bye

It’s all quite exciting really, I’m only a couple of weeks off finding out how old my Scottish friend Graeme is again. Every year he prints out his certificate and hangs it in his cubicle, I’m glad that it is only once a year, because, as Graeme is Graeme, he’s always celebrating his birthday in days. He's a bit of a bean counter.

Exact days that is, corrected for leap years, decimalisation, the direction of the gulfstream and slight deviations in the planets orbits in relation to King Adrians Wall.

I can’t wait.

I thought, to sort of keep with his tradition on this first day of summer, I’d work out how many days I’ve attended work since leaving School in 1974. From the 11th September 1974 to the 21st June 2004, that’s 10,876 days. Subtracting holidays and weekends, a year off in 1981 and three months in 1992, it reduces to 6,714 days – each one of those is only a third of a day, hence, 2,238 days.

As my days on the planet number 17,052 today, I’ve only worked about 13% of my life.

Seems longer.

Summer Chills

Today is the first day of summer here in Canada, or so I've been told. I awoke on this first workday of the week to a definite chill in the air, albeit around 18 degrees Celsius. I'm tired after a weekend of resting, as usual, totally unready for the workweek.

Summer begins right here, right now as today is the longest day (in terms of daylight) and that's about that, to all the Dilberts, just like me, trapped in our workstations, it does not really matter as we seldom see the sun, Summer begins next Friday afternoon when the bell goes as far as we're concerned and that day will be shorter than today,

I bet ya.

Me Consumer, you Jane.

They’re not going to get me again, well, I don’t think they are, and to tell you the truth oh invisible ones, I will resist with every fibre in my being to prevent them from succeeding.

I’ll name names, but the list is becoming endless. Mike Oldfield is at it, Pink Floyd and those Lord of the Rings people, they’re all it it.

In the early 70’s I bought Mike Oldfields Tubular Bells album on vinyl, just to be sure I bought the Quadrophonic version, even though my mum and dad only had a Stereo. There was a glimmer of hope that if I wired a couple of extra speakers into their kit then four distinct channels of sound would grace my two channel brain.

Fast forward to the late 70’s when they released the CD, or was it the early 80’s? – well, it was a favorite album so it was a no brainer, I had to have it.

In between those dates though, Oldfield had produced Tubular Bells live, the Orchestral version with the London Symphony orchestra and I’d been taken and bought that on Vinyl too.

I was smart you know, very smart. I began to form the seed of an idea in my brain, I was actually buying the same thing, over and over again. I would resist any further variants, I would, they’ll see….

In the 90’s they produced the definitive version of Tubular Bells, completely digitally remastered. I would be a fool not to buy this version, digitally remastered, can’t get any better than that! – I bought the CD and played it, somehow it sounded strangely familiar…..

That was it, no more, I decided I’d take a stand, four versions of the same thing was enough for one man.

Mike Oldfield produced Tubular Bells 2003, the 30th anniversary edition, in Mikes own words “To my ears however I was always aware of it's (the originals) imperfections. Notes out of tune, out of time, rushed playing, mistakes in performance, electronic noise etc etc... I always meant to re record it but for one reason or another I never got round to it... Until Now.” He’s redone the whole thing, including a 5.1 version for surround sound systems.

I was holding it in HMV yesterday…….

Saved by a Fireman, Part One

In early 1980, when everything was normal, Monday nights were my first wifes night out. She had a friend who lived in Ormskirk and we'd pick her up on the way to Southport. The kids would be strapped in their respective safety apparatus, child seats on the back seat of the car. I'd drop them (the wife and her mate) off at the bar or club then drive home, They would get a taxi home... I was a very trusting soul in those days I think you'll agree....

One night, my wife and I had a huge row and she took off, the next morning it was obvious to me that she hadn't come home after I'd gone to bed, she'd stayed out all night. She got home at mid-day and I quizzed her about her whereabouts the preceding evening....It was eventually discovered that she'd gone off and had sex with a fireman. Devastating news. Thereafter followed a few weeks of interesting happenings, she left, came back, left again, I left, came back, left again....then eventually we both dropped back into equilibrium when there were promises of "Never having sex with the fireman again" bandied about the house as though they meant something....

After the initial WHSWF incident (Wife Had Sex with Fireman) I was a total shambles but for some reason I still let her have her Monday nights out with her friend (What a Naive little sod I was then). One particular night I'd dropped them off at the club and was driving back to "Skem" (sounds like a skin disease - "Whats that on you foot Mrs Knapsack?" - "Oh, just a small patch of Skem, nothing to worry about!") when a green Capri whizzed past in the opposite direction. This rang a bell in my head (brain the size of a planet). It was the firemans Capri!.

I did a U-Turn and followed the guy. He went to a bar in Southport and stayed there until about 10.30pm. I waited (remember, the kids are strapped into the back of the car - unwilling participants in this game of cat and mouse) and then followed him when he left. Surprise, surprise. He went to the same club (Toad Hall). I waited for about half an hour then went into the club (telling the bouncer I wanted to talk to my sister - surprisingly he let me in..) Then walked around a bit in there then saw "the fireman" with my wife. I strolled up and told her she was coming home (oh, they were so shocked - she insisted it was a complete coincidence) and this guy, Jerry I think his name was, looked at me with big cow eyes and said "please don't" - like sure....I'd have hit him if I'd had any guts whatsoever, however, I was very unwilling to undergo severe physical pain via a much taller, ladder climbing, sex fiend. What a wimp I was - next time huh!

So I dragged her home and that was the end of that one.

Yeah sure, the correct phrase should be, "that was the beginning of the end...."

More to come.

Saved by a Fireman, Part two

If you have the skills, and a ladder, you can get in anywhere...

My wife was still working at her Barmaids job in a pub called the Highwayman in Skelmersdale, probably seeing the fireman every night...

Two weeks later I let her go out again. This time I didn't make any attempt to leave Southport. I waited at the end of the road. Nothing. All night, nothing...no Jerry..nothing. I looked through the entire car park. Nope!

So, I decided to call it a night, I drove to the top of the road were there was a pub and with my eagle eye I spotted that Lime green Capri in the car park. Unfortunately I didn't have my Eye-Spy book of Wife Molesters with me so I didn't get the points. Once again, I played the waiting game at the night club (Included in this wait are two little unwilling victims of my obsession, my son and daughter, strapped into their apparatus on the back seat of the Austin Maxi).

At throwing out time I saw my wife come out with her friend and get into a taxi. I followed the taxi (who was being followed by a familiar Capri) to a little cafe type thing (We are now at about 1.30am). Parked up and waited. After about half an hour I went and peeked through the door window - there was my wife and her friend sitting at a table with Jerry. I walked in, sat with them and with a sarcastic smile said I'd have a coffee. Jerry wanted me to go outside with him for some reason. I wanted my wife to go outside with me for some reason. Her mate just folded herself into her handbag and wanted to go outside with anyone except the three she was with.

I didn't take up Jerry's offer. I dragged my wife to the car and we drove home (the kids are still strapped in the back....)

I didn't let her go out again after that - smart cooky huh!, she still had her job at the pub though and I'm convinced that she was playing the field after that.

Eighteen months later I was divorced and unknowingly ready to step into five years of dark, drunken self pity.

On a lighter note though, I now had the car to myself....pity I wrote it off within twelve months.

Exploding Maxi

I was talking to my son at the weekend and I remembered a holiday to Looe, Cornwall in 1979 when the Austin Maxi blew up.

The family favourite type of holiday in those halycon days was to lump all and sundry into the car and go off camping. One year we drove the bazillion miles from Skelmersdale to the West Country. Looe in Cornwall. We stayed at a campsite about three miles outside of the town centre and basically used it as a hub to tour the area. Unfortunately, the two week holiday ended up being stretched to three when a piston broke. (I wrote a postcard back to Gullick Dobson saying exactly that - Pissed and Broke!)

A local taxi driver delivered me to a local garage and a wheeler dealer who took my engine out and basically changed it for an exact duplicate. I think it ended up costing me 240 quid for the works and a free pair of fluffy dice. We had investigated scrapping the thing and getting the train, or getting the Automobile Association to tow us all the way back North - a basic flaw in that one was we didn't belong to AA...no membership! and they wanted 300 quid.

The job was required, it was the cheapest option and the bullet was bit. The fact that the guy put an engine in that burnt more oil than its predecessor is superfluous, I can't describe how happy I was to get the family back from that holiday and have a cup of tea at home.

I borrowed that money off my mum and dad, I don't recall ever paying them back and therefore I still live with that guilt to this very day.

I'll post the ultimate demise of the Austin Maxi at some other time, now there's a story....

The death of a Wolseley Hornet.

It was a rainy Sunday morning in 1977...we (me and my first wife) were trying to decorate a room at our house at Inglewhite in Skelmersdale in Lancashire. Tempers were flaring because I was (and probably still am) not the person to be around when complicated items like wallpaper and painting apparatus are about. She asked me to drive to the petrol station to get some cigarettes - so I rushed out, not in the best of moods (as I didn't like her smoking) to the Shell gas station on the dual carriageway up by the M58, got her some cigs then drove back. The roads were a bit slippery and on the main corner negotiating the Skelmersdale Concourse I lost control and slammed into the concrete banking thus reinforcing my idea that wallpapering and life don't mix too well.

I was draped through the windscreen opening, the windscreen had fortunately been knocked completely out by the top of my bonce and lay on the bonnet in one piece, I had a cut on my forehead from the rear view mirror and the fact that it was raining, combined with the white shirt I had on, made me look a right mess. I tried to start the car again (not realising that the engine had been pushed back about 10 inches - in a Wolseley Hornet that is significant!) when two policemen walked around the side of the police station (The concrete banking was part of that fine establishment). They ran over, took one look at the situation and the blood spattered remains of this poor person who was obviously in a bad way, then dragged me out and rushed me over to the station...(I was in fact quite unhurt aside from this cut to my forehead) they rinsed my head and put a huge bandage around from their first aid kit (If it had been serious I'd have been a gonner, they had a bandage, a tube of Savlon, some band aids and a box of corn plasters). The ambulance came three minutes later (the ambulance station was next to the police station which was rather convenient).

On the way to Ormskirk hospital we had to pass by Inglewhite, I asked the driver to take me home so I could explain to the missus what had happened, reluctantly he let me. I knocked on the door, (complete with head bandage and blood ravished shirt) looking like an Indian survivor of a terrorist attack, presented the wife with her cigs and briefly explained the situation.

I think I got out of doing any more wallpapering that day.

Rewind

Back to 1972......

Here's a question for the translucent masses, Did I try to go out with a girl called Christine Lawrenson at one point?, I personally have no idea any more, 32 years of washing my brain with beer has taken it's toll.

My experiences with girls were not excellent at school. I was seeing Yvonne Blakemore but, in retrospect, I don't think she was "seeing" me. I can recall quite vividly around March 12th 1971 at 4.15 pm she kissed me when I was seated on a low wall down the road from the school, I clowned and fell off the wall for effect, I don't think I've hit the ground yet........

In the later school years, my very good friend Joe Haines and his girlfriend Katrina Burns tried to fix me up with Christine Lees and I remember snogging with her in Katrina's garden shed (under a sheet because we were both excessively shy) - I foolishly gave her a love bite on her neck like a complete rookie and arranged to see her on the Friday night, Joe came with me for support and I, shy again, asked him to go and knock on their front door, he did and her dad grabbed him by the scruff of the neck (while I waited oblivious in the stairwell) well, talk about nipping a relationship in the bud, I don't think she talked to me for a month.

I do remember letching after the aforementioned Chris Lawrenson though, can't remember any associated stories, so I think she gave me the brush off. Now, there's an interesting snippet to publish on the web, Catherine Cookson eat your heart out!

The other thing I remember is that I was in the final year, 1974, and there was a lovely 15 year old girl I really fancied in the fourth year, I'd bumped into her (on purpose) a few times in the corridor and we'd expressed interest in each other. The school disco was the meeting place, the plan was set, the night of the disco, I remember walking across the hall floor and saying to her that we were definitely going to have a dance, then, at some point in the night (before THE dance) some boy kicked the divider in at the boys toilets. This was discovered and the dance was stopped. All the girls were sent out into the yard and the boys were grilled, and grilled, nobody admitted guilt and all the girls went home, and that was that.

And if you take all the pathetic stories and stack them on top of one another, you'll have created my life.........

Beware the Past

I started writing memories and diaries a few years ago after my mum started with her dementia, it spooked me out that things I took for granted, like memories, could fade or even be wiped out. I'm going to be digging them out and post them up here so that someone, invisibly, without me knowing, can read them and know that I really am a sad and lonely middle aged man on the cusp of the slippery slope. If I can share my sadness with just one other in this universe then I'll be a happier man....

As for the danger of the past, I'll throw one of my favorite things at you.

American Author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, circa 1856 :
On two separate occasions he went to see the Elgin marbles and the Assyrian and Egyptian statuary at the British Museum. Both times his thought recurred to the theme of the domination of the past as fused in the architectural symbol. "I wished," he wrote after the first visit, "that the whole Past might be swept away, and each generation compelled to bury and destroy whatever it had produced. . . . When we quit a house, we are expected to make it clean for the next occupant. . . . Seeing them again six months later be found him self wishing that the marbles and the frieze of the Parthenon itself "were all burnt into lime, and that the granite Egyptian statues were hewn and squared into building stones. . . . "The present is burdened too much with the past. We have not time, in our earthly existence, to appreciate what is warm with life, and immediately around us, yet we heap up all these old shells, out of which human life has long emerged, casting them off forever. I do not see how future ages are to stagger onward under all this dead weight, with the additions that will continually be made to it."

He may have been drunk at the time........

I've been guilty of looking back and fathoming all sorts of distinct futures for myself, people I've known, family etc etc. I find that a lot of people do the same, and it never improves anything. The one truth is that life takes a serial form, unwrapping itself backwards from the end point and we can run as many times back to the start point in our minds but never change a moment of it. That's why guilt and regret are such strange emotions when applied to past actions. As I always say to people, the Piano is already falling.

If you've had enough alchohol to think that last paragraph makes sense then welcome to my world, Oh beings of black light.......

Salted Nuts

This is a snippet from office life a few years back....

I popped my head over the divider, there had been a terrible clattering of knives and forks, a sort of flourish of cutlery if you will, and there was a young oriental chap, Tommy Lamb, with the remainder of his mid-morning chicken dinner dribbling down his chin. What bravery during work hours!

I kicked myself as I'd missed out on his covert morning grocery mission up to the No-Frills, but not to worry as within a few cubicles walk was the pandora's box of Dennis Morton's middle drawer, a veritable feast of bulk barn goodies, raisins, dried fruit and ju-jubes. It was a pity that one had to actually talk to Dennis while chewing on his salty nuts which always led to a tirade or rant by him about his ex-wife. Amazing how that man could take any topic and recurse it into the evils of married life within seconds.

You know who they are....

The Ghost of Christmas Future

A Christmas post in June, a six month regression......

If you ask me little invisible readers, and I'd just like to point out that people seldom ask me anything even those I cannot see, It appears that the universal focus of geriatric boredom and loss of hope has been centered here in our office. I've never witnessed such a large group of sad and pathetic losers congregated in such a small space, well, that's not true as I have actually been to a Toronto Maple Leafs game.

If it was up to me, and it's not usually up to me, I'd take every last sorry individual outside and give them a turkey and tell them to go and stuff it. If we have any less Christmas spirit in this office this coming season I think that we'd be on the event horizon of forming our own black hole, although the town of Ajax, Ontario appears to have beaten us to the punch.

I blame it all on the management of the long lost next door pub the "Flying Squirrel", the bad management that is, if the emporium was still available to the "workers" here then at least there would be the annual venting and escape. Unfortunately, all avenues of continued alcoholism for the weary engineer are now a short drive away, no longer can one quickly stagger back after a few. The Flying Squirrel conga is no more.

It's true that a few star performers are still managing to get the beer in and although alcohol is illegal in the office, it is rumored that the resident alcoholic Bruce Phemister has what looks to be a keg under his shirt. It's been a long, long time since the likes of James Ning brought a fifteen gallon bottle of Canadian Club into the office, secreting the same in the "human resources" cupboard and encouraging everyone in the federation to get squiffy, brave times indeed. It's a rare sighting for even a box of wine gums nowadays. Things have changed, people have been promoted, hope has been lost.

Not that alcohol is the answer to everything, there are people here who will have fun, regardless of the level of toxicity in their bloodstream, I've seen the stone cold sober records clerk aka CAD operator Doug Varley giggling at engineering documents such as EOs and DIS'sssss. Mind you, he is a complete nutter and thinks he's a helicopter.

Then there's the caffeine free Paul Kashak with his endless thirst for life, telephone tag, market updates and the search for Volvo pictures to annoy his little Italian friends. There's certainly no need for alcohol there, although it does tend to quiet him down a bit when he's had a dozen or so vodka coolers, well, if you call jumping out of the bushes during a golf tourny, yelling "banzaii" and bursting Rob Chappells spleen "quieting down" that is. I wish my invisible net friends had seen that one, I really do......

What happened to all those perky Print Room Girls?- they were the life and soul of the Dowty Christmas spirit, drunk, giggling and proud to be women, they've all jumped ship to become cashiers or married mums. Of course there's always Doreen Nodwell, who is fundamentally a Print Room Girl trapped in an administrators body. She thinks she's on the corporate ladder, but we all know different. If she was any more opaque she'd be a set of Harley Davidson curtains.

There's so much of "that" that isn't "this" any more. Old timers who can remember the festive seasons of fifteen years ago will probably agree. Where, may I ask, did the free turkeys go? - was I sleeping when it stopped or are people still receiving secret Miracle Mart vouchers for their yearly Paxo fix?

No booze, no free turkey, no decorations. They've all been tidied away with our personal effects and replaced with our corporate identity numbers, it will be a different Christmas in 2004 that's for sure, still, I'm looking forward to my Holiday Greeting from m0008139, m0007001 and of course, the usual hilarious efforts of m0005922.

There are a lot of people I miss, and a lot I'd like to hit.......

I suppose the three wise men would be quite disappointed to enter the foyer/stable and find a couple of fake landing gears instead of a Christmas Tree or a nativity scene, but I'm being rather silly here am I not?. What would three wise men be doing here in Canada at that time of the year?

That's if we're allowed to call it a Christmas tree any more, I think that term is being gradually five-essed into the more tolerant "Holiday Tree" - no wonder Rudolph is feeling poorly this year.

Six months early but, Happy Festivus. Bring on the feats of strength..........

Proof of Life

More fragmented memories :

I only realised that there may actually be a God the day that one of the most annoying boys in our 1975 apprenticeship year at the Ford Motor Company, Dave Hopkins, almost cut his finger off with his term project bandsaw, even our most sarcastic and grim lecturer "Big Will" was happy that day.

I was living down in Romford, Essex hanging out with a chap called Pete Benjafield who had what we felt was a wicked Ford Cortina dressed up to look like a 1600E and one of my "best ever" friends Mark Gaskill who originated from Enfield Street in Wigan where his dad had a garage. At about the same time I was married (March 1976) I was recruited into the safety engineer program which meant they were going to bounce me around a bit, so I worked at Dagenham forge for a stint which was the most depressing place on the planet, then I was (at my request) transferred up to the Speke plant near Liverpool. We moved everything back north to Skelmersdale, Lancashire.

After planning and having our son in 1978 we settled down to quite the family life for a short time, things at Fords were not working out so I ejected and went working for a company in Skelmersdale called Wortley Conveyers, then onto a mining equipment company in Wigan (Gullick Dobson) fundamentally drafting at it’s lowest level, however they let me complete my Higher National at Wigan Technical college which is where I met Paul Martin (who, after my divorce, introduced me to Karen). Hopefully this entry isn't sounding too much like my resume.

In the middle of 1979 things went sour with the marriage and it started an 18 month spiral into divorce. Dark mental days for your host my invisible friends, dark days indeed.

In the same time zone, to reinforce the phrase "it never rains but it pours" Gullick Dobson made me redundant when the mining industry went into recession, following that I was a die-design draftsman at Alcan in Skelmersdale, likewise, within six months they folded and closed the plant down. redundant again. In 1981 I was officially divorced, broke, depressed and alone.

So, no work available because of the recession, I applied for a grant and went to a teacher training school in Ormskirk, Lancashire doing Mathematics and Art. Nice women to me ratio at the school (8 to 1), at 23 years old I was a born again teenager drinking and ravishing young women. My grant money evaporated as quickly as the alcohol so I had to get an evening job at a credit checking agency, 3 young guys and 126 varied aged women. That was a good year and certainly refreshed the parts that other beers could not reach.

At the end of 1981, early 82, unable to survive on a grant and tired of having a different girlfriend every two weeks I finally got myself the real job at APPH, as I've said, this was a Landing gear company in Liverpool (strangely, right next door to the Ford plant in Speke) and of course I had started seeing this girl called Karen from Wigan and was in with her crowd of young people at the Poacher.

Next time, we'll regress further......

Mirror, Mirror

It shocks me to say that this month my daughter will be twenty-eight and my son turned twenty-six in April, they're as old as I feel. Yet, that's the nature of things, moving along, surviving. As I've already said, in July it will be thirty years since I left school and in September, thirty years since I started my apprenticeship at Fords. I could go on and I often do.....hopefully, even though you're invisible, our relationship will grow despite my ramblings.

My daughter has been a baby machine, has had six children (but sadly lost one to SIDS) and keeps making me feel old as the grandchildren keep coming. My son on the other hand has just had two, well, he didn't actually have them of course, he's not like that. So, at the present moment (things change rapidly), at the ripe old age of 46, I have two healthy, and apparently happy, kids and a gaggle of grandchildren. Another continuing shock for me.

The initial three or so years in Canada set me and Karen into our adventure mode of life, we have a couple of friends from the UK who are very similar and we've forfeited the parent thing for travel. It's sometimes funny how us "DINK's" get treated, often people are curious as to just why we don't have kids, the truth being is that we're too spoiled with the way it is and just don't want them, two cats are responsibility enough and maybe, just maybe, when we retire there'll be a dog and lots of visits to the family.

In the last twelve years many sad things have happened, My daughter lost her son in 2000, my younger brother was killed by a drunk driver in 1992, my dad died in 2000 and my mum passed in 2002. That is life, as they say. It's a very strange thing to state that "if we are lucky" and live to a ripe old age, then everyone around us will die. As one of my Aunties says about the deaths all around her "been there, done that, got the tee-shirt", and another great, late, friend of mine, Jim Collins once said that "Life is like a tapestry, full of friends and relations, and then one day, you realise that they're all falling off until the tapestry is gone". Jim fell off my tapestry almost two years ago and it was like I lost my father all over again.

I have a philosophical outlook on all this, my brother fell down a deep water well in our garden potting shed when he was two years old, in reality, he should have drowned but somehow, he didn't. Someone notched an additional twenty years onto his life thank you very much.

My mum and dad had a great life over almost seventy years and everything collapsed in over a brief thirty-six months. A strange by product "silver lining" of my mums dementia was that she did not appear to grieve too much when my dad died although she choked me up completely at his funeral when I was holding her hand and she sang "The Lord is my Shepherd" in her little girls voice.

I see them all, every day when I look in the mirror.

Make me laugh you fat fool

I've often wondered what Karen saw in me, her simple answer is that I've always made her laugh. I told one of my mates here at work yesterday that I'd been in touch with an old girlfriend called Barbara Bell that I'd dated for a very short while at Edge Hill college (found her through the Friends reunited website), his reaction was "what does Karen think of that, my wife wouldn't approve" and it made me laugh. He spends most of his time dodging bullets from his wife, spends a lot of time "with the boys" and considers himself a mans man, whereas, in the last eighteen years I've found that I'm happier with the quieter life, sort of turned into a bit of a romantic (triggered by the Tenerife holiday that I have not told you about yet my opaque companions) and have become a one woman man, and I think that Karen knows this. I also know the inverse is true. I can comment to Karen that I find other women attractive, can be risqué and suggestive, but she knows who I am and also where the scissors are for when I'm sleeping.....

She's also agreed that I can have sex with any woman I want as long as I get the appropriate paperwork signed off, this makes for a long winded, bureaucratic, process which really takes the edge off any impulsive desires, plus I get the sneaking impression that she would hold off on the final signature.

I had been a draughtsman before the Edge Hill college experience and one day in early 1982 I was in a jobcentre in Kirkby, Lancashire and saw the job at APPH (Automotive Products, Precision Hydraulics) which was an aircraft landing gear company in Liverpool. That was a departure from drawing, more analytical which again suited my math based head.

Taking that job started the chain of events that led me here to Canada, because I had been a draughtsman they pushed me into the 3D computer work with Finite Element analysis, this was interesting, if not a little nerdy. type work. The stereotype being the humpbacked, bucktoothed, striped shirted geek, with the pocket protector and the high waistband. Ok, ok, so I was perfect for the job.....

They sent me down on a course to the head office in Leamington Spa for a while, which made me the company guru on the PATRAN analysis package. That's why I was picked to go over to Long Beach to represent the APPH stress office at McDonnell Douglas, I was supposed to go over there for two or three weeks and it ended up being 9 months.

While I was there I was offered a job at Menasco, Burbank. Another landing gear company, however, all was not as it seemed. I returned to the UK to process the paperwork with the US Consulate and was trapped in a "no visa, no job, no job, no visa" loop. When I returned to Long Beach I was also offered a job at McDonnell Douglas, but I believe my technical manager back in the UK found out and secretly scuppered the deal.

So, in early 1986 after a brief 2 weeks "Critical Design Review" at McDonnell Douglas, the entire US experience was over. That was probably one of the lowest points in my life, coupled with my global relationship dysfunction syndrome.

In early 1987 a designer friend of mine, Matt Hilliard, turned down a job and passed the phone to me. This was a Canadian contract company called Cantech who told me there was a Stress Analyst position at a company called Dowty in Ajax, Ontario. The long and short of that was they paid for the pair of us (once again we were a "unit" after the Tenerife "make or break" holiday) to emigrate, the consulate paperwork took six or so months, we arranged our marriage, whirlwind style in two weeks and had what was probably the best day of our lives. A month later, the frozen motel in Whitby, Ontario.

That was almost 17 years ago.

Green Green Grass

The Happy Life, Part 301 in a long drawn out tedious series.......

In late 1981, a friend of mine, Paul Martin, introduced the 17 year old Karen to me in Wigan Pier, a nightclub in Lancashire. I think he introduced "her to me" and not "me to her" if you know what I mean and she promptly took an instant dislike to me, mainly because I was spouting off about kicking my wife out or having my decree absolute delivered that week. Soon after that we were sort of dating.

Another drinking partner was therefore welcomed into their group (which numbered about 30 souls) and 23 year Dave became "a born again teenager" in the pub that would become home, The Poacher in Winstanley, Wigan. The frenzied night life associated with this mob was the catalyst that led to my grant money for Edge Hill College not being enough and the eventual desertion from college back into the workplace to earn real money to buy (sort of) real beer.

I could expand on the middle bit, maybe later my invisible watchers, but Karen and I sort of dated with the slight fragrance of dysfunction, for three or so years. I was sent off to Long Beach to work at McDonnell Douglas in 1985 and the relationship sort of folded in on itself, mainly because of me (as usual) having it off with an American Girl (tm) while I was there and subsequently Karen going off with one of my drinking buddies. Strangely, regardless of that, the time I spent in Long Beach was by far the "best days of my life" at that point.

This drops into the "cause and effect" category. If I drop into engineering mode, the formula I mistakenly believed at that time was that "California + Money + Girls + Cars + Money = Happy Life" and I made every attempt to achieve that as I'd been fundamentally unhappy since my first wife had sex with the fireman, plus the odd meandering relationship with Karen and other girls, I proceeded to attempt to leave the UK for the "greener grass" of the USA.

Getting to know your Invisible Friend

Getting to know me, getting to know all about me..........

In July it'll be thirty years from the end of my secondary school education and I've just found out that it's almost thirty-six years since Mary Hopkin released "Those were the days", this first 45 rpm single I ever bought. Pretty frightening huh! (it's strange that I'm using exclamation marks as probably no-one will ever read this blog, let's call you my invisible friends!!).

We can talk more, but as this is an early blog, I'll give you the nutshell version. "Instant Update" to my life from the point I left school in 1974.

Sept 1974, left for the Ford Motor Company, Essex. Apprenticeship. The chain of work events took me through being a draughtsman and then a Stress Analyst. The academic mathematic side of my brain finally won over. It was the latter that took me to California in 1985 and then I emigrated to Canada at the end of 1987. I live near Toronto.

I married in 1976, less than two years after leaving school and right in the middle of my Apprenticeship. Lovely pregnant Lancashire girl. in 1976 we had a daughter, in 1978 a son. Just three years later in 1981 I was divorced and close to topping myself I was at the lowest point of my life so to speak. (You can see that this is a concise nutshell version - I'm sure we'll have time to expand on the topics).

Things did get better though.

In 1982 I moved to Wigan in Lancashire and met a 17 year old girl named Karen. I became a teenager again at the grand old age of 23 and adopted all her friends. To cut a long story short we've now been married almost 17 years, about the same time we've been in Canada (this time it was the Canadian Consulate that made me get married!!).

Instant life, 30 years. I would not change a thing, well, maybe a few wrinkles.

Lots more waffle to come.........

Chips and Water

Living in Botanic Road, Liverpool 7 in the early sixties, my brother and I would make the journey to Picton Road baths, the nearest swimming pool. Mum would give us enough bus fair and entrance money, but we knew that if we walked there, or walked home a few stops, we could stop off at the chippy and grab sixpence worth of chips. I recall that a cup of hot bovril or hot chocolate was also affordable at the baths café.

Simple days and simple pleasures, probably cost a couple of shillings (or two bob) for almost a day free of the kids.

The baths had changing rooms either side of the actual pool, with swing doors and gaps under the bottom. The usual kit was a rolled up towel and a pair of swimming trunks, but often a valued set of full face goggles would be available, we could dive under the water and view the lower regions of some of the women, however, I think they always knew what we were up to!

As kids we would spend hours in that water, well over the prune soak time, the subsequent showering and drying and dressing would be exhausting and the reward of a hot drink, a bag of crisps or a bag of chips would rejuvenate us all for the walk home, sometimes there were a few pennies left, these could be used to hop on a bus at a later stop or buy some blackjacks or fruit salad. They were eight for a penny back then!

Butlins - while on the subject of water

I can remember sitting under the Butlins swimming pool, the area that ran along the length of the pool, but about five or six foot below the water. There were big glass windows that allowed you to see under the water, and of course the water always appeared to be sky blue.

Sitting there, with mum, dad and Rob, mum would change us under our towels and I'd end up with dry pants and usually a matching shirt on, tired from what seemed like hours bobbing about in the water in my inflatable rubber ring. A glass of Milk or Tizer or some other wondrous substance in front of me and the prospect of a Mars bar, Milky Way or bag of Salt n'Shake crisps.

Distant Baths

Late night memories…

Unable to sleep, I am up at 4.30 am and typing while the kettle starts to hiss in the kitchen.

I was soaking in the bath on Monday, off sick with some sort of flu, and I floated back to days when I was a very young boy, sharing a bath with my older brother, Rob. There’s a strange thing about memories because as time passes, things meld and become composite memories and sometimes when they’re analysed the component parts can be broken out. I had this memory of mum rinsing my hair, I was a fussy little boy and to calm me down she’d always lean my head back and pour the water over me head with a plastic jug, carefully avoiding splashing any in my eyes. This wasn’t good enough for me as I’d always be scared that some water would drip down, so I’d hold a flannel over my eyes.

As I lay in the bath with the water drizzling down the overflow, I was transported back to a specific Sunday evening bath time, I was probably 13 years old and wallowing in an almost overflowing tub with “Top of the Pops” on the radio, there are two number one songs that stick in my mind, specifically listened to while my toes and fingers crinkled. “Without You” by Nillson and “American Pie” by Don Mclean. From those two songs I could find out the exact nights these memories relate to.

Returning to the composite memories, I pictured me and Rob, in the bath and I was playing with the multicolored plastic plane, it had detachable floats. We also had a solid rubber ring (quoit?) that was a bath toy. Of course, it then occurred to me that this wasn’t the same bath tub, although the memory appeared to play out in the Pottery Lane tub, this wasn’t so. I was around 11 years old when we moved to Whiston and I don’t think the pair of us ever shared a bath there.

So the bath was in Botanic Road, but I have no clear picture in my mind what that bathroom was like. The house was three stories tall and our bedroom was on the first floor, I suppose the bathroom was on the same floor. I have particular earlier memories of bathing in front of the fire, downstairs, in a tin tub I believe. Mum would put our pajamas in the cubby holes of the cast iron fireplace to warm, she’d have pans of water on the gas stove in the kitchen and would fill the “Creda” electric boiler. This was a wall mounted glass appliance that was to the left of the kitchen sink, it was filled using a rubber hose that connected to the tap and had it’s own chromed pipe and tap to empty it after it boiled.

We’d actually both be sitting in this tin tub, facing each other and the last of the water would be poured in between us, often the backwash would almost “burn our willies” so to avoid this we’d cover our “teapots” with our hands. The water would be very hot to start and would quickly cool, then one at a time we’d be whisked out of the bath into a big towel and rubbed. With a swish of talc we’d be in our little warmed pajama’s and red dressing gowns (with the tassles) and be ready for some Ovaltine and toast.

The pair of us would sometimes sing “We are siamese, if you please” the cat song from the Walt Disney movie Lady and the Tramp, both parading naked in front of the fire much to the delight of mum, I would have been around three years old, Rob six.

So, back to the flannel, in the upstairs bathroom in Botanic road, mum would wash my hair, probably with baby shampoo but possibly with fairy liquid, then rinse my head carefully holding my head back at an angle. This would then signal the end of bathtime and the Rob and I would go through the motions of emptying out all the toys which had filled with water, the plug would then be pulled but I’d always want to stay in the bath until it was drained. Mum had a method where she’d say “You’ll go down the plughole!” which I partially believed, so I’d wait until the last few pints of water were gurgling out before having my panic and into the big towel, (most towels are big when you’re only three foot tall).

All this in a bathroom I can’t remember!.