A rubbish recycling facility! ! ! !

I love listening to people telling me about their childhood, but they have to be nippy, or I will be telling them with a little more relish than perhaps I should about mine, there is a necessity in most people to share their own enthusiasm, a need, which is often in their opinion a more exciting past than anyone else.

I was born at the beginning of the Second World War in a large Kentish town by the side of a curving sheltered shore, a beautiful bay to the left of the town and a splendid sandy beach that stretched for miles for my little legs to run along. Bracing sea air mixed with the smell of coffee, fish and chips, hot-dogs with burnt onions, and candy humbugs up Harbour Street all mixed in with the smell from the sands and harbour activities.

Ramsgate:

In some places a lovely town with sprawling smug suburbs, Prestedge, all new and posh. Newington with lots and lots of prefabs now all replaced. Whitehall with its ever-pumping water works down Whitehall road.

The civic pride of the beautiful Palace theatre in the high street and the many shiny shops full to bursting with jostling holidaymakers.

Its many pubs waiting for Saturday night when the music started, bursting with revelry, everyone was singing, dancing and laughing, everyone was happy.

Getting to the town centre as fast as us boys legs would carry us. There were the impressive gas cylinders that could be seen from any point in the town at the end of St. Luke's avenue and the smelly coke works at the bottom of Boundary Road with the acrid stench rising high over the town tickling the nostrils.

This was my world where for a tup'penny ticket we could spend all day in the station waiting anxiously for the thunder of the next 'schools class' to appear over the viaduct pulling ten or twelve coaches full of carnival spirited children with their parents spilling out onto the platforms accompanied by the roaring clouds of expelling unwanted steam from the trains cylinders into the station.

Those smells; Freshly baked bread up King Street, hot pies, piece pudding and fagots drifting out of Woods after a night in the Odeon.    

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On the subject title:

On the beautiful coast overlooking the channel; I'm the first to agree with recycling, but for goodness sake how daft can this council get. Surely they are joking!

A few years ago Bournemouth was, like a lot of seaside towns in this country, suffering from a depression with the lack of tourists visiting the town. So the council, (all three parties at the time) put their combined heads together and came up with the idea of a centre that could accommodate functions for the benefit of many of the town needs. The BIC came out of the many numerous meetings (The Bournemouth International Centre) it was built ahead of schedule seventeen months later, right on the sea front, concert hall, ballroom, function rooms and restaurants, also a conference centre, of which two of the main party political persuasions have used since, filling the many hotels to capacity. One of these main parties has tried to book for next year, but unfortunately for them this centre is fully booked for the foreseeable future. Each weekend the main dual carriage way is full of coaches and cars flooding into the town bringing in the much-needed finances, filling the hotels. There are no empty shops, no derelict spaces, no dirty streets, no unwanted litter. The place is thriving beyond even the dreams of the councillors who first thought of the idea.  

The rocks on the western under cliff where many of us children of my age  collected winkles for Sunday tea, has been turned into a concreted area that I'm sure, with a little bit of forethought, could accommodate a facility such as the BIC.

Whatever is decided let the people in the town build it, give the employment to the people of Thanet that are having difficulty finding work, not give the project to an off shore company who are in it to drain the ratepayers pockets of their hard earned cash. 

Dare I say it, like they did with Pleasurama?

 

Just a thought        

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I never win anything in raffles or tombola where there is a draw from tickets that I have purchased from my small pension. But just before Christmas I did, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I was presented with a small box with a bulb in it, along with some dirt and a pot to put it in.

‘To late’ I was told!

‘Won’t flower for another year’ was the advice from all the experts in the club.

‘Put it in the pot and forget it until next autumn, somewhere dark.’

One of my so-called friends even gave me some seeds of the same species.

 ‘Won’t grow yet Al’, you have got to be patient with these little devils.’

John Wyndham’s “Day of the Triffids” is NOT science fiction, no more than six weeks later this bulb that won’t grow until next Autumn has taken over its own little corner of the kitchen, and I swear to you moves around at night time trying to escape outside, perhaps to take over the world. I’m a bit reluctant to get too close unless it bites me, or spits in my direction, my hand shakes a little when my tea wants a 20 second nuke’ in the microwave, can’t quite remember how they bumped off us humans.

The seeds?

Oh yes the seeds, well they obviously want to catch up with their big sister as you can see in the picture.

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An excursion to a garage sale advertised in the local paper the other week just before Christmas, I discovered under a pile of old papers a calendar from way back from 1958. I remembered seeing this calendar that hung in a workshop all those years ago and the paintings each month as you turned the pages over, the same character on each of them with different humorous implications. It was Hilda! The bumptious lass that made us all laugh at her antics.

Mentioning it over the club a couple of nights ago I was very surprised many had not heard of her, so I have endeavoured to illustrate in my own way one of Duane Bryers famous paintings. Sadly he passed away a couple of years ago, but lived to a grand old age and I am sure he will be greatly missed.

I hope he will forgive me for my attempt, but I hope my effort will bring back some small attention to such a brilliant artist and humorist of our time. 

 

 

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It seems such a short time ago the fragile miracle of life that was put in my arms after I had showered one summer evening; the delicate soft skin of a newborn baby against me that had that distinctive smell of freshly digested milk from her mother.

I remember there was uncontrollable moisture in my eyes rising from deep down inside as I looked at such a beautiful tiny wonder in my arms. She didn’t cry, just snuggled down into my bare chest and closed her eyes. From that day on I have watched from a distance her grow into a very photogenic young miss.

Sitting in front of me for a good two hours the other day, she never seemed to move an inch, intent on her new tablet from Santa.  Nervous at first that what I drew would disappoint her, she just gave me a very beguiling smile and said “Don’t worry Uncle, I’m sure it will be fine.” And carried on with studying her new toy, content and quite happy with the silence, disturbed only by the rustling of the trees outside in the isolated countryside. It was an idyllic situation she told me afterwards that we had both created together which very often she yearned for back home in the city.

My attempt to capture her stunning young adolescent features with my pencil over the last few days has kept me occupied for many hours since, and although I am not completely satisfied, it does I think show the very determined character behind such a pretty face, believe me, this young miss is going places. Perhaps fortunate enough to have devoted parents who have spared no expense in an education that has given her the deportment and self-discipline far beyond her 14 years.

 

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London Barge out of Ramsgate, rounding the Forland

a memory of my childhood just after the last war.

My first sketch of the new year January 2015

It's over a year now since my last post, mainly because my computer threw a wobbly and finally bit the dust, at the same time certain parts of my aged old body seemed to want to follow that old tower to the local landfill.  More pills and a bit of determination because there are still a lot more things I want to do, has brought me back to the land of the living with so much to write about and draw. 

Then, to my astonishment, (honestly, I must be still on his list in Lapland!) Father Christmas left me a nice big bulky gift a few days ago wrapped in pretty paper, accompanied by more socks and hankies under the tree. My surprise package was a new computer, all shiny and clean with oodles of memory and as fast as 'Bluebird'. My old relic worked with mb, this one works with tera something-or-other and takes a bit of getting used to it goes so fast. The speakers are 'out of this world' enabling me to listen to the beautiful music that has always been the foundation of my existence through my whole life as my sketch pad and pencils were retrieved from the draw in the study.

I was amazed to see so many of you still reading the posts from all that time ago, and hope I can still keep you interested in some of the things that have happened to me over the years, along with sketches that I intend to post on this 'Blog' that I have a mind to draw this year.

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 All the very best for this coming year. 

 

An early recollection, from one of the many Sunbeam Photgraphs in my collection.

Winter Gardens Cliftonville 1952
Sunbeam Photograph

In the beginning.

The chairs were wicker and left an intertwined pattern on the back of my legs because the cushion that was part of the seat didn’t cover it all, my legs didn’t even touch the floor until I hitched forward. I suppose I had been perspiring a little with the last dance, which didn’t help matters. Anyway, I felt uncomfortable and not very happy because we were told to sit quietly and wait for the results instead of going outside and getting a bit of sea air to cool us down. Both of us I’m sure were convinced we wouldn’t be called for the next round, we had been warned not to expect too much there being too many that were far better dressed than us, all with posh dresses and evening suits, from Dover, Canterbury, Deal and as far away as London some of the couples had come to enter the competition, we were outclassed from the backwaters of the dancing world at that time, two small children in their Sunday best that our teacher was trying to show us another world seemingly far beyond our reach, where I suppose everyone else was used to brushing shoulders with the rich and famous.

I can’t remember the number that was pinned to the back of my new white shirt that Mum had bought me that last weekend. The little plaid bow tie was strangling me I remember, and I was trying to release the pressure of the elastic round my neck when everyone round the table we were sitting at started going crazy; evidently our number had been called but neither of us heard it . . . . . . .

We were in the next round!

Remembering all these years later, for a brief moment I felt disappointment, (I think that is what it was) the chair I was sitting in was a kind of protection, although extremely uncomfortable and this announcement meant it seemed, I had to vacate the security it gave me, once again venturing out into the unknown amongst the refinery that surrounded us. Everyone expected us to be excited I think, but neither us was, we were out of our depth, two small children with no experience of the big occasion that it obviously was with everyone around us fussing over what we normally loved doing; just to dance, we lived for it, every waking hour we were together all we wanted to do was dance at every opportunity. The music and the thrill that our feet had a way of interpreting how we felt.

Slowly at first, both of us tentatively made our way to a corner of the ballroom floor that wasn’t occupied, away from the other couples that had been recalled, I remember thinking, had they really called our number, were we supposed to be back on the dance floor with all these finely dressed couples, there were only half of what there were in the first place and I felt a bit conspicuous, so small and unprepared and not looking half as glamorous as the couples now occupying the floor.  There was an adjudicator quite close to us, a kind looking well-dressed lady. Just before the music started she looked straight at me and smiled the most compassionate and reassuring smile you could ever wish to see from another face, ever so slightly she nodded, and I remember that smile and slight nod of her head seemed to repeat the words to me of Mum that afternoon, “enjoy it son, just go and enjoy it”.

The music started and our bubble enveloped us from the rest of the world, nothing else mattered, we had, even at that early age, the dance . . . . . . . . . . . that tiny hand found mine and the movement of our two young bodies that were born to dance sent us into an oblivious universe where the pleasure of the music vibrated every nerve end. Nothing around us disturbed or bothered us, the nerves dissipated into where ever they go on such an occasion.

We had tuition, lots of it, but in the end we did what came so naturally to us both, to float away on a sea of pleasure that to others watching, obviously was unexplainable. There was a vague interpretation of the steps we had been taught, but if the music didn’t fit one of the set sequence moves we broke it up and used the steps in another way . . . . . we floated across the floor, (not my words), but this is how it was reported time and again. I remember one quote in the local newspaper quite distinctly, and we both laughed hilariously about it: “They floated with effortless ease across space, I’m sure their four little feet weren’t touching the floor.” 

Neither of our parents forced or insisted in any way that we practice, they left us alone, didn’t push us to do better, never criticizing if we didn’t do what they had tried to teach us, even our teacher would stand by and just watch not saying a word, neither encouraging or correcting, content it seemed to let us just do our thing, as Mum would say on many an occasion “The joy that emitted from what you both were doing not only showed on your faces but on everyone who were lucky enough to be watching you.” Then as an afterthought, she would often add “Don’t ever change son what you do, it would break the spell for those watching.”

And so we carried on that afternoon for the second time, living the dream my little partner had created over the years waiting for me to enter her life, returning to our seats with the fussing it all seemed to create around us. There was an interval and to our relief we were able to disappear out onto the balcony at the back of the Winter Gardens in Cliftonville, we thought our ordeal was over, how wrong we were, in fact that afternoon was all just the start of a dream for me that even the most vivid imagination imaginable could invoke, but what a start in life, Mum looking on in wonder at what she had started in a fit of desperation all those weeks ago, sending me with my elder sister to dance class that was held in the sumptuous surroundings of the Granville Ballroom  as a punishment for getting under her feet one Saturday morning.

I think the photograph shows how out of place we were, both of us 9yrs old competing against couples that were well prepared for a world that was far beyond my working class upbringing. I know at the time, the competitions I felt were a penalty I had to pay for the love I had of the dance, the medal’s and certificates we won meant nothing to me, it was the thrill of the dance with her I lived for, and I think I would have agreed to anything so long as she was with me on the maple boards of that beautiful ballroom.

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I'll save that, it will come in handy someday.

 

Austerity? (Severe in self-discipline) Does Mr Cameron or Mr Obama or even Angela Merkel think this is their word? Don’t they realise the older generation were brought up on the meaning of this one word? To this very day if I can make it or mend it instead of delving into hard earned savings to buy it I will, whatever ‘it’ may be. Its built into the psyche of the majority of my age’s character. What my Mum and Dad did in their time was ‘make do and mend’ they had to and it must have rubbed off on me I suppose. The children of today (The above mentioned I consider are classed in this group) have no conception whatever of austerity, their ipads, laptops, mobile phones and all the gismo’s that have been thought up over the last couple of decades take priority over rent and rates and food for the kids they bring into this world.

Enough of that, but it really annoyed me when I heard the representative of our country at No 10 telling pensioners we I had to ‘pull our horns in’ and contribute even more than we already have over the years of our working lives.

 Somewhere in the past I believe I mentioned my friend who makes lace as a hobby and the cost of the equipment; Eventually, with reluctance, the cost made her ask me to turn for her a number of lace bobbins, which I agreed to do. Watching me make them one day she asked if she could ‘Have a go.’

From that moment on my budding apprentice was hooked, spending hours perfecting her bobbins on a small second hand lathe that clamped to her kitchen table, her family was fascinated and I know, secretly, proud that their mum could perfect such intricate work from a small piece of wood, or plastic or anything else she could lay her hands on that would turn.

However, it has been the cost of the tools and sometimes the unavailability of them for this kind of work that prevents her obvious talent and skill from creating what she envisages sometimes, which brought on the project in the workshop this last week-end. 

The very small (for want of a better word) chisels she required, that cannot be purchased, I made a handle with a threaded insert in brass to accept some masonry nails that I had in the workshop from many a year back, these nails have a ¼” whitworth thread on them; very hard metal that can be ground to whatever shape she requires.

Happy? She really went overboard when I presented her with what I had made for her, and to think the cost was zero, all the material out of the scrap box in the corner of the workshop, a pleasurable few hours for me creating something that was so much appreciated with a little box to keep it in.  

 

 

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