Yet again it’s where do I start.

There is a lot going on in the World, much of it nasty, much of it not good, in fact a lot of it not good. As I go through the decades I suppose that I could say the same about the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and beyond, but I was younger then and able to cope better. Today is a different matter, I have got to the stage where the things that I used to do without even thinking are things that these days I cannot do without thinking. Things like repairs to my house, at one time I was up a ladder to roof height, do what I had to do then come down and put the ladder away.

The other day I tried that, I couldn’t even lift the ladder up, It shocked me, and depressed me as I am now reliant on others, and they want paying. Believe it or not I am still in touch with people that I went to school with in the 1960’s, which I cherish as many of those same people that are long gone, another shock to the system. But now I want to hear their stories of our lives back then, you know the silly things that we used to do as there was no social media, no mobile phone and life, well to me, was so much simpler, and, I believe, better. That is despite all of the technological wizardry that today’s generation have.

I wanted a different perspective of those days to my own, I wanted their view and I am sorry to say that the response to such requests have been difficulty long in coming. We used to go for long bike rides on a summers evening, we used to play football (soccer in the US) at the local park for hours at a time during the school holidays. And at the school there was the inevitable love interest. In fact a couple of kids in my class got married in later years, maybe there were more but this particular couple I knew well. By this point I had my own love interest, but from a different school, and we were invited to their wedding, and Christening of their first child, likewise they to ours.

Now there’s a thing, I don’t hear much of Christening these days, but I met up with the husband, or now former husband, of that couple the other day, we met for a coffee and a chat. I nudge him in a conversation about our younger days, he became illuminating and exhilarating describing his events of those times. I was memorised at his recollection of his school days and those days later where what I wanted to hear, I was transfixed. And that is the thing you see, I don’t like the look of the future so I comfort myself in the things of the past, yes I love history, always have done, my own is modest. Grew up, left school, then I decided that I would go my own way that didn’t always coincide with the people of whom I grew up, so we split.

Eventually they all split up to go their own way and at that point contact was lost, but this technological thing did have some uses, I could track them down. I arranged 3 school reunions, which at first were enormous success, but by the third I knew it was time to say, no more. Even though I was asked, even begged in some cases, I didn’t do any more. For a start at the first reunion I managed to track down many of our former school teachers who agreed to come along, it was magic. Both teachers and former pupils enjoyed it immensely but by the third reunion the numbers dwindled, both of teachers, and pupils, and my instinct told me, no more. After a while I found out, with depressingly regularity, the demise of those that I grew up with.

Now I treasure those still with us and still able to converse memories of those former days, and I still learn a lot that I hadn’t known all those many years ago. It had to be said that some of those that I converse with were not exactly my friends back then. But animosities were cast aside as our stories are told and the stories of yesterday were being retold today. A further step was to get those same people to put their memories down on paper, I would supply the pen and paper if needed. But that has been a lot harder than I expected, and has still not materialised. Many are not interested in the tech wizardry of today’s world, so a computer is as alien to them as it has always been, despite using some of those gadgets. But there again, may they just don’t want to do it.

Where were we?

I’m not sure of where life is at, at this moment in time, I’m an avid reader of the news, in all of its forms, paper, online, news bulletins on the TV and if I was that way inclined then I could easily be in despair. But then the old phrase comes to mind, bad news sells, but that is too easy a cliche, something else bothers me along with all of the rest. The world has gone online, this internet thing I have used since the days of a telephone dial-up modem was a connection medium, now broadband is everywhere, well nearly. Shopping is online, so much so it is ruining city centres in the UK where shops close every week nearly. Once thriving centres for commerce, and a meet up for a bite to eat and a drink, are now empty shells where the homeless and drug addicts sleep in their doorways. But I do despair now, and because of the internet, but there again I wouldn’t be writing this without it.

But its the way in which our whole lives are beginning to be centred around of this online thing. It’s not simple any more, some people do just not get how to use but have no choice as that ominous phrase ‘look on the website’ is now part of our vocabulary. For those young, and young at heart, its fine, but there are quite a few people, and yes they tend to be of the older generation who don’t have a chance to understand what is going on, they just don’t get it. Put a record on a record player is simple, stream films and songs is just beyond comprehension to some. I know that you can’t stand still but what I am really getting at is that all of this online thing is reliant on something that is not reliant in this day and age, electricity.

An everyday thing, electricity, but whereas many countries have no problem some do, including, I believe. the UK. We are not generating enough for our needs with our commitment to other concerns. Global Warming and the such, coal fired power stations are, or have, been closed down, and no alternative put in place. There is a nervous feeling about nuclear so we import electric, gas and other basic commodities to continue with our daily lives. And it gets worse, electric cars, the new fad to rid of the internal combustion engine and live up to our Climate Chance credentials. So we are using electricity more than we produce it, and the internet is fuelling that. I just don’t see that all of this internet thing is a good idea, yes it was exciting at the beginning but we are not at the beginning and the internet looks ugly.

For me the whole situation is unstable as the lightbulb in your house, the internet could be deemed totally useless with a flick of a switch, just like the lightbulb, it could go off. All of the big systems today, data farms, cloud computing, and all of the other wonders that have sprung up all rely on that one commodity that is centuries old, electricity. Ever experienced a power cut, a computer system failure at one of the big computer companies, then you will know what I mean. It seems to me that there is an unsaid assumption that nothing will go wrong with the smooth running of the internet, despite computer viruses, that even the likes of Microsoft have suffered. I just think that a step back to more simple times, yes time consuming, not convenient, or whatever. But what if you click on your mobile phone, desktop, laptop, tablet and you want to log onto your bank, you know because the nearest branch has closed because everyone goes online and its not available, for what ever excuse they give, then what.

Likewise your weekly shop at the supermarket, your order from on an online store, not to mention WhatsApp, Facebook, Tick Tok, or what other social media play you inhabit, just not there because the new flavour of the time electric cars need a charge up again. Or e-bikes, or your portable battery gadget, or lorries, or trains, or aircraft, or any electric centric item all fighting for that one commodity that uses the same product as that for your light bulb. Maybe technology will come to the rescue once again and invent a safe, cheap and easy way to produce all of this electricity. But with the world having to change their ways, well some of them, to save the planet as a whole, they have better think of something fast.

Where are we at?

So here we are, 2021, summer is due, only it’s not, well not the summer that most of us anticipate, times to be out and about, socialising I think the word is. Times for the younger teenagers to get together, wherever they can, and for the majority just talk about stuff that is their domain, like I used to. The local park or beauty spot, just chill with your own, do you rememer those days? No parents no teachers no one but your own clan, and what fun it was, girls and boys mixed or each to their own. We talked a lot of weird stuff as it was weired times, 50’s/60’s and the like, but never doing the stuff that our older siblings maybe did, drink, drugs. Nope my sin was cider, you know that drink made out of apples, boy did that give me a high, sweet it was but after a few drinks the effect was kind of hazy.

But it was all part of the fun, part of the growing up along with the the love thing and stuff, not that we understood it all. The music was a drug as well, so much of it, so much to choose from and so much of it so damn good. Dances, even that seems quaint now, held in town halls, tents, ballrooms, my age is showing now, were much a part of growing up as everything else. Today I see teenagers, 13/14 even maybe 15 going along the road to somewhere, their own, their tribe, I just hope that they are able to enjoy their time together somehow in these troubled times. I really do love to see it, just kids really, well trying to be kids before it is all taken away by becoming adults. As kids ourselves we didn’t do an awful lot, we didn’t have the money for a start, neither did we have things like mobile phones and social media to deal with either.

And for me that was a plus, phone boxes were special, you rang someone you actually wanted to talk to as it cost money, no phone contract. It is hard for me to even begin to imagine what todays teenagers lives are like, not a barrel of fun I should imagine. I now pick my grandchildren up from school, and to see the joy on the faces of 5,6,7, and even 8 years olds being able to mix with their own instead of stuck indoors is an adrenaline rush for me. But needs be, people are dying, by the thousands all over the world and ones really paying for it, beyond those who have died, are the young. A large chunk of their lives have been taken away through no fault of their own, never to be returned, it has gone, forever, much like those unfortunates who have died. A cruel world at times.

Is it me?

Not sure what is going on, but I have concluded that this is just a particular thing with me and I don’t why, what’s more I don’t want to change. Well it’s a bit late in life for that, late 60’s sounds fine, well not really but it will have to do. So, what is it? Well its my whole outlook, attitude if you like, to life but not future life more of my past life and not just mine, and to things that are going on around me that have been going on around me for all the time I’ve been here. That’s the trouble, I’ve never noticed before, well I have been too interested in other things, namely those guys kicking a bag of wind about on Boothferry Park for a start. Now there’s an understatement, I lived at Boothferry Park, I would have lived inside of it if they had let me, but I think I bordered on that edge called being a nuisance. Watched them train, watched them train at both Boothferry Park and the Cricket Circle on Anlaby Road, collected autographs, many times over and actually got to know a couple of players personally. One, the captain, Jock Davidson was a gentleman of the highest degree the way he put up with me pestering him to bring me back some football programmes from the many places Hull City played in, this is the UK by the way so football = soccer in other places.

When I was young, yes well, a few years ago, I couldn’t go to away matches due to 2 big drawbacks, I was too young and I had no money, well let’s say tuppence wouldn’t have got you far, only to Billy Bly’s sweet shop on the way home, liquorice sticks were a penny. Two sticks and I would be blathered in the black stuff from the liquorice all over my face, mam would not be pleased. But Jock, R.I.P. was a guy who I seemed to take to, I had a stiff neck looking up to him, well I had to look up to most people being a short arse. But football, yes football, whereas at one time I couldn’t get enough, these days I couldn’t care less, the World Cup is coming up, Russia they say, really how nice for you. Will I watch it, well if I watch any football with the same enthusiasm as I watch tele in general the answer will be, not much if at all. And what has brought me to this state of affairs? Age I would say and to put it simply and bluntly if you like, the sad reflection that I don’t have much time left to take it all in.

Take what in you say, well life in general, the seasons, architecture, the old kind, what is left of it in Hull and East Yorkshire. Churches are amazing and no I’m not going to go all religious, but to think that these colossus’s were built hundreds of years ago with no mechanical means to aid constructions, you tend to take on board the hard, no very hard, labour that must have been put things into these places. But there is another, not so nice side to this, these building, and some of them are beyond beautiful, must have taken a lot of money to be built in the first place. Blimey the peasants of the day could hardly feed themselves and here are the Church building monuments for prayer. Unfair? Maybe, but it has crossed my mind when coming across the more celebrity status buildings such as Cathedrals. The ultimate Catholic one I should think will be The Vatican, now it isn’t just awesome, there isn’t a word to describe the jaw dropping as I looked around at the paintings alone, then the architecture. I don’t know of a word to describe the place, beautiful? Oh it’s certainly that but no that is not enough, nowhere near enough and that goes for many of the more prestigious Churches, but I still admire them. But that is just one type of building there are some more modest buildings that have been around longer than me, but I just haven’t noticed, now I do. I notice fields, I notice clouds, and I notice sunrises and sunsets, now they are something else. The universe, we are suspended in mid-air, well there is no air at all, but its like we are held by an elastic band as earth travels around the sun each year. Then it also spins itself, hence your night and day, on a clear night you see diamonds twinkling in the sky, not real diamonds but the light you see could have come from something that has taken that light 300 years of more to reach you. And maybe this fact alone is what I am getting at all along.

The everyday things that happen and have been happening day in day out, not the headline grabbing stuff, the stuff that is just there like the tide. The water of the River Humber covers a vast area of mud, then due to some magic of the Moon the water recedes to uncover that mud, yes the water flows backwards and forwards like on its own, but it doesn’t. The Moon’s gravity does it, the same as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, it always has done but it still produces some awesome sights at various times. Like those stars whose light gets to us after an age, the sun bobs up and down over our sky with, thankfully, relentless regularity. And its these things that hold my attention, tele just doesn’t do it for me these days but listening to music does, well whilst I can as my hearing, never that good to begin with is now even less good. And that is something else, most lucky people, and they don’t know how lucky they are, get up in a morning have a fart and a yawn and off they go again for another day.

I very much doubt as to whether these normal everyday people take the slightest interest in other people who just cannot do that. The person who gets up and farts but can’t hear it, smell it perhaps, yes perhaps, but the same people who can’t hear a thing, that is there normal day. And yet again ‘normal’ people may rub the sleep out of their eye and just carry on, blind people can’t do that, the first they have to do is get their bearings before they can do a thing. And its that also that gets to me now, the unfairness of things in life, which you won’t know about unless you cross that barrier, due to whatever reason, accident, illness, that means instead of being a ‘normal’ person, you are disabled in some way. I don’t just mean wearing glasses, they are common, but did you know that one certain insurance company has hearing aids down as an extra cover item? Even National Health ones, I was staggered, I asked the guy on the phone if the same condition applied to wearers of spectacles, he just replied that he didn’t make the rules he just has to implement them, fair comment. There are those that run for miles and those that can’t walk at all, or with great difficulty, there are those who are professors and other high calibre intelligent people and those that can’t even write properly or add up. But the main thing about this new/old me is that I am more and more and more interested about my immediate past, and those connected to it. School years mainly and here we have a friend and foe in the form of Facebook, like the internet, its so entangled in life in general for so many people that if it suddenly was no more there would be mass hysteria. The internet is superb and invasive, it is driving change whether we want it or not and often into areas that are not pretty to see. The High St, it has always been the focal point for masses of people to do their shopping, you would meet someone and spend twice as much time gabbing as you did shopping.

You would meet up ‘in town’ listen to some records in a shop booth and maybe even buy one, record that is not a booth, not likely though, a cup of coffee, yes that exotic alternative to tea, in a café, and if it was really cool it would have music on. The main social whirl was centred on the High St, now look. First it was that import from America, the Shopping Maaaaaaaaaaall, and now it’s the internet, the High Street is in retreat and so are the usual social functions of the day. Dance Halls have gone but massive festivals are here, pubs are closing but booze is available nearly everywhere, and to nearly everyone it seems. And if you wish you can get your music and booze without moving a muscle, well perhaps a finger or two. And it’s the vanishing of all that I knew that I’m eager to get back again, not physically no, it would be nice yes but what I like is people memories of such things that I remember, as it is all vanishing for them as well.

But here is another conundrum, a lot of people from my past are, how do I say it, passed away is a subtle way, not so nice is dead. And that is another feature of life at my stage, if you do happen to meet people from a bygone age its guaranteed that the death of a former acquaintance will be mentioned. So what’s all this rambling amount to? I don’t watch much tele, but I spend more time at the library or, in my case, the Hull History Centre, I Google, or Bing if you like, and most of it is history related. I have lived in the Hull area all my nearly 70 years or so and I’m still reading about historical stuff that I never knew. And it gets worse, my City, County, and Country I am ignorant about a lot of it and that is at the root of what I am rambling about. It’s what I’m saying that is it just me that this, awakening if you like, about local stuff, everyday things that are now wonderous to me, and possibly mundane to most other people, or do others around the same age feel the same. I listen, whilst I can, to music I first became acquainted with 60 years ago, and I still love it, but I am interested in the lyrics and the song writers. It is with this in mind that I went to see a show at our local theatre, The Hull New Theatre, the show was called Beautiful. It was a story based on the life, and song writing of one Carole King and her then husband Gerry Goffin. I used to dance with the girls on a Saturday morning at the local dance hall at about 13/14 years old singing along to a female girl group called The Shirelles singing Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. Later I found out that Carole King wrote it, well she wrote it along with Gerry Goffin. But what I didn’t realise, until that show, was that she was just 17 and was bearing the first of her children with Gerry. Here were 2 kids, yes basically still kids although Gerry was 21 then, and they wrote a No1 hit, but not only that they continued writing many memorable songs that I also sang along to but just never knew they were the composers. Up On The Roof, Crying In The Rain, Pleasant Valley Sunday, all came from the pen of Carole King and her collaborators.

The other song that is just about equal to Carole’s song was written but a 22-year-old John Lennon, In My Life, and is my favourite Beatles song, the perception of both songs is just mind boggling to me. The lyrics of both songs mean much more to me now than ever they did, and especially at the time when they were recorded. But this is only one element in my thirst for knowledge that I have failed to take in for most of my life, but in defense I have to say that, although my overall time is running out I do have a bit more time to myself to pursue such things. Growing up, working, getting married, paying the bills, bringing up kids, left me precious little time for myself, it’s not an excuse, it’s a fact. So, I hope to be able to do something about it, and that folks is the end of this ramble, if it makes sense then fine, if not, then it must be like my old school reports, Can Do Better Must Try Harder. Mmmmmmm.

Carole King.

Carole King.

Lets get something straight, straight away, I do know about Carole King, I have known about her since It Might As Rain Until September, and that’s the problem. I knew about her but not her influence in the musical landscape at the time or actually wrote the song. I danced to her music, sang her words, and it has to be said here, a lot of Gerry Goffin’s stuff, but never knew the source of such material. Hell they were great songs to do your stuff in the 1960’s and I did a lot of that being 12/13 years old. But at the grand old age of blub blub blub, I went to see the Carole King musical at my local theatre, Hull New Theatre, I sat in my seat and never moved as song after song was performed and I though, jeepers. The story unfolded, and here we had a 16/17-year-old writing about, what may have been a one night stand, but was something more than that. But it took me all of 50 years or more to realise the significance so the girl and her perception of the time.

I danced and sang to so many records in those days at the local dance hall, Locarno/Mecca, that along with all the explosion of the British scene, was part and parcel of the times. And boy what times, like the music I was listening and singing too I just did not realise the background to it all. Lennon/McCartney were my drug, still are, but all the other artists that I listened too were singing Goffin/King compositions and I never knew. I am not going to write them down as they have now been well document over the years. It Might As Well Rain Until September, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, Take Good Care Of My Baby, were as much a fave to me as Please Please Me, Satisfaction, Little Children and others, you will know what I am talking about if you are of that age group. If not Google it and see what you missed, not your fault I know, but a shame all the same.

Carole King was mainly anonymous, Lennon/McCartney and others were not, and that was the problem, it took me many years, and much shame, to realise what this woman went through to write down the angst in her life. And having seen the show once I immediately enquired at the main theatre desk and found that there was a seat, one seat, available for the next, and last night’s performance. I chat with my wife and she said, of course you can go, I will have the sofa and TV to myself, sorted. So I went the next night, I could have gone every night for the next month and still wanted more. The acting, singing the whole show was just too good to put in words that give it justice, yeah, magnificent, wonderful and indeed, beautiful, but nothing, and I mean nothing projects the pure joy I felt sat there listening to my youth all over again. Then realising that this girl of such tender years wrote stuff that, at the time, reflected my emotions as girls came and went out of my life.

But I will finish on a sad note, not a musical one, and I have to say I have scoured the internet, but I cannot get a DVD of the show, DVD you say, yes still in this day and age. For goodness sake my wife and I went to Las Vegas and whilst there went to see Celine Dion in her show, A New Day, which by the way was another show that knocked me out. And straight afterwards I bought the DVD, which, I think I may have worn out, if that is possible. So why?, why?, can’t I get a DVD of Beautiful the story of Carole King’s life, I am dismayed to say the least. I still have the memory, though I wished that it could be refreshed now and again with a DVD. And I have to say here, an official version not some dodgy stuff, but that is just me.

As I write all this I am listening to a complementation of her songs, with collaboration of course and I am just in a world of my own as I am transported back to, and I’m not ashamed to admit, my teenage years of many years ago. In fact on her favourite songs of mine, sang in the UK by Dusty Springfield, which I remember, but not the write/writers of the song, Going Back. It reflects how I feel at times in this world of ours today, Phil Collins had mad a version that I love listening to as well. And a version of Crying In The Rain by A-Ha just has me having it on a loop, and it just goes on with Carole’s songs. And I finish whilst I am listening to a song that immediately has me dancing with a girl, on a dance floor in a ballroom, in the City Of Hull, UK, at 13 years of age and singing it to her. Did she still love me tomorrow, goodness knows LOL.

Travel from then until now.

When young, back in the 1950’s/60’s travel was something of a luxury, our summer holiday/vacation was a train/bus ride to visit relatives in a town about 70 miles away. But this was, for me at least, a whole new world, from my city life I was thrust into the country in a town called Otley. Open fields, small streams (Beck), and boys and girls who spoke English but not how I knew it, to be fair they needed a translator for my twang. But for 2 weeks my cousin and I, Elaine, sadly no longer with us, would roam the fields for hours on end, set off in the morning and return later afternoon/early evening. We climbed trees, splashed through streams and seemed to travel the end of the earth without a care in the world, and we were on just reaching double number ages. Elaine was a tomboy of the first degree, we didn’t have any trees from where I came from only lamposts so climbing a tree was a new adventure

Elaine showed me how, yes she fell out of a couple, rubbed her scratched knee and off we went again. All was well until we got back to her mother’s, my aunt’s, house then the Inquisition. We couldn’t answer questions like where have you been? We had been in fields that seemed go on forever, where’s the mud come from? erm the streams, look at those knees those muddy clothes. Now, this may be controversial but up to this point but Elaine and I used to get bathed together but now at around the age of 8 or 9 that was no longer thought prudent. So after we had both spruced up we would be off again, to those fields,  with warnings of dire retribution if we defied instructions not too. Well, that was a millennium ago but I have been revisiting another place of holiday pleasure in my formative years, Scarborough.

It’s an east coast holiday/vacation destination still popular today but has struggled with the rise of world wide travel, and it shows. I don’t often visit Scarborough now, its like other east coast resorts, Withernsea, Hornsea, Bridlington, Filey, and even Whitby, it’s just somewhere I don’t visit anymore although they all have their stalwarts. But visit I did this past weekend and even though the weather was kind the passing years have not been. I have no reason to visit again, there is even a motorcycle race track of world renown, Olivers Mount, where I last saw the legendary Barry Sheene race, but those days are long gone and so for me has the magic of such places.

 

School and the aftermaths.

I have come to believe that many people just did not like school, and here I must point out that I don’t mean the school of today but schools of my childhood in the 1960’s. However, the aspect of this tome may apply even today and that aspect is friendships at school and thereafter. I left school in 1965 when the world of work beckoned and off I went to face life ahead, totally unprepared as I now know. Yes, I had money, not much but still my own, well after I had paid for my keep after it being free up to that point, and I’m ashamed to admit I was reluctant to hand over a share of my meagre wages for such trivial things as food and lodgings. Because in truth that what I was becoming, a lodger, no sooner had I got home from work then it was washed changed, all clothes laundered by magic it seems, and out I went. I had friends to meet a life to lead and being a teenager in the 1960’s was indeed a heady experience, and as I found out, it had to be paid for, not always in money terms either.

Most of my friends were from school in those days but slowly, and ever so obviously, we kind of started to go our separate ways, some partings were for legitimate reasons. One of my mates emigrated, with his family of course, to Canada, others were not a so obvious parting of the ways but it usually meant a girl had appeared on the scene, who may or may not have been at the same school as us. But split up we did and the reasons were not rocket science, we were growing up and our tastes, in most thing, including friends, changed. We had visions of being the next Beatles or Stones or whoever,  having bought guitars and taken lessons together, we practised where we could and as often as we could. But the day, and the realisation that we would not be the next supergroup, dawned, and the once happy band of school leavers, left each other. As for me, I travelled the country following my local football (soccer to any USA readers) team and I did it by what seems now to be a quaint, and forgotten past time, hitch hiking.

Bear in mind I was 15 travelling the length and breadth of the country, and miraculously enough reaching my destinations, getting home after the game was a different matter. But then the opposite sex came into the equation as I used to go dancing at the local dance hall and I suppose, inevitably although not guaranteed, I met someone ‘special’. Well, they were all ‘special’ for a while but this one particular girl knocked me off my perch for a long time, in short, I was besotted. Just one of my former school friends was still around but he had grand plans to work abroad, which he did, so then there was one, me. I passed into my 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, occasionally meeting one or two of my old school buddies, both of us older and wiser, well maybe not the wiser part. And over time an idea came to me to get us all together for ‘one last time’ so to speak. So, this idea became an obsession as I tried to track down as many old school friends as possible, bit difficult with the girls as most of them had married and so different names, and no Facebook or whatever. But I did well, with help from some of those old schoolmates I may hasten to add, around 50 of us in total including our old teachers, some in their 70’s and 80’s, got together in an upstairs room of a pub, it helped that my son was manager of that pub at the time.

From that initial meeting we did it again, and yet again and I was prepared to do a 4th reunion until I was struck down by illness and the impetuous was lost. But 50 years after leaving that school in Hull I have been on the phone with an old schoolmate I haven’t seen since then and I loved it. In fact, I now realise that I loved school much more than I ever knew I did, the lads and lasses I had argued with, fell out with, now seem as pleased to see me as I do them. Sadly one or two of those teachers who met up have passed away but what saddens me, even more, is the fact that some of those lads and lasses in my class have also passed away. I came across this information trying to track people down for the 1st reunion and since then 1 or 2 more have passed on, what? Yes it pulled me up big time, I sat reflecting on life for a long time, I recalled, like having an old video tape playing in your head, of us kids in the playground, of taking a fancy to a certain girl and then suddenly come across the information that she has died. Yes I know, Death and Taxes someone once said but these ‘kids’ were the same class, the same year, hell the same era as me, but no more. And so now when I meet up with who is left, and the number is dwindling, I find these people precious, despite any misgivings, we may have had many years ago. They are my link to my lingering memories of an era I hold dear to my heart. I may even try and get those of us who are left together again for ‘one more time’, as time itself is becoming very limited.

Christmas 2016, still Christmas but a different kind of Christmas.

For as long as I can remember the Christmas in the UK ritual has rarely altered, when a child it would be my family, mum, dad and brother, who used to tramp around to all of our relatives, in the snow in those day and walking all the way, no car. Aunties, uncles, grandparents, there were all visited where we were fed and watered and presents were exchanged, then lugged all the way home. Very rarely the family used to come to us so that we could stay at home by the fire, but not very often, but as I grew up we didn’t do the visiting so much, I had my mates to hang around with. So the sitting in front of the TV watching stuff I normally wouldn’t have had time for was a thing of the past and when in my teens presents were not exchanged as such as those presents became gifts of money instead. This enabled me to spend it something I actually wanted not something I had unwrapped, then feigned delight or pleasure at some useless object, which sometimes was a former present given to the person how now passed it on to me.

Then my own family came along, a boy and a girl, but still the visiting continued but not all one way this time. But the ritual more or less stayed the same, visiting, watered, fed, then lug the presents back home, until 2016 that is. My own children were grown up with families of their own and I announced that I had booked 10 days away, including Christmas Day and Boxing Day (a UK peculiarity) so all the present giving, visiting would be done over a couple of days before we went. We arrived in Spain in a monsoon, it had been like it the day before we arrived and was still like the day after we arrived and it wasn’t like Christmas at all. But after the rain the sun, blue skies and sunshine and a Christmas that seemed very low-key by UK standards. So come Christmas day and the sun shone, and it was in the 20 degrees centigrade area, was this real? Just to visualise Christmas for us this year her are some pictures.

Now for those of you not used to the UK I have to explain that at this time of the year it is usually big coats, woolly hats, scarfs, gloves, and if you are walking about, an umberella is a must. For us, both my wife and I in our late 60’s, this was a revelation. But why wait this long you say, well all sort of reasons, none that I can argue with, our kids, our ageing parents, then our kids kids and it just never happened. Some of you will recognise this resort as being on Spain’s Costa Blanca, Benidorm, a haven for the British, and other nationalities. I have know people come here for 6 weeks at a time, and now I know why, but the Spanish have a different kind of Christmas and it’s not like the Brits at all, in fact I think theirs is around January 6th. Yes we have waited a long time, but it was worth it and no more excuses for not going, our families are grown up with their own families now so our ritual has come to a close. It was strange, no getting away from it, but our 10 days on the Spanish Costa’s went by far too quickly. We have been to Benidorm now in every month of the year and apart from the summer months, where the heat can be oppressive at times, we have experienced wind, rain, sun, but not snow, we have spent days sheltering from the weather and even more days basking in the weather, but this Christmas was both different and special.

Retired, or just tired.

I am now in that genre of OAP, retired, old git or whatever other euphemism is appropriate for someone who, as it has been said, is in the twilight of their life. All very sobering I must say but how the heck did I get here? I remember being a young lad, in short trousers, and playing with my friends, outside with no tele, internet or any of today’s paraphernalia, and coming back looking like I had been dragged through a hedge backwards. I remember finding out that girls existed and not just football (soccer), now that was different, and I remember the music, oh yes the music the 1960’s (yawn yes I know what you are thinking). But then I remember getting married, children came along and now grandchildren and here I am retired.

Of course its been a long, and often arduous, journey to get where I am today, being at work for over 50 years, not some cushy desk job either, does give you a certain reflection on life the main one being that I am still here to tell it. I understand now why many old people rabbit on about the old days and what’s up with the the young of today blah blah, its not so much a criticism of the young as a sadness of the advent of being older and what used to be. A lot of people of my age find it hard living in today’s world as a lot of the the values of days gone by have gone by if you see what I mean. It,s a new way with most things, and yes the technological stuff I am talking about but take a simple thing like riding on a bus.

Now when I was with my mum and all the seat were occupied I would be required to stand for an older person to sit down, which on the face of things is quite logical, I was young and fairly healthy. But this was the picture a few days back of today’s scenario and I swear I am not joking. Picture a bus and all the seats are taken, mostly by older people,  so standing room only and we pull up at a bus stop where a mother and her son, about 10 or 11 years old and playing some sort of game on his gadget, get on the bus. She pays her fare and then for all to hear she shouts ‘Right which one of you is going to let my son sit down (without being too simplistic he looked like he had had one McDonald’s too many) you can’t expect a young lad to stand all the way’.

Some mumbling was heard and to be honest astonishment by most of the passengers but one woman did stand up, she was getting off at the next stop anyway but it doesn’t stop there. I still hold doors open for people to pass through, shops or elsewhere, but I have often had doors left to swing in my face by others, even the simple thing of saying sorry if you accidentally bump into someone is not a done thing these days. But maybe I should shut up and put up with the ways of the world these days, well I don’t have much choice really. Bye bye my old world it was nice to know you as it seemed such a nicer place despite all the crap that went on back then, but that’s another story.

 

 

Does a certain song signify a certain period in your life and that is how you remember it?

Appendix: As I have been tidying up my blogs I have come across some stuff in the draft section that I never published and so in the process have been moving things around deleting things here and there but this is one blog that I still think is relevant today as when I last edited it on April 7th 2012. So today 1st October 2014 I have added a little, completing the editing I suppose but let it finish where I had over 2 years ago.

I listen to various music, although hands up, not today’s stuff, it is all beyond me. They say open your ears to differential styles and you may like what you hear, I don’t, period. Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Justine Bieber and their ilk, have no attraction to me whatsoever, I am a child of the 50’s and 60’s and remain so, resolutely. And so it comes to the title of this blog, and yes I can recall times from my past by certain songs, good times and bad times.

So I think back to the likes of Guy Mitchell, Connie Francis, Mario Lanza and think, ah early years, mum, dad, brother and a radiogram. I can hear the sniggers already, what you say? Well a contraption that was an early music centre if you like, it had a radio, and record player, records being the size of large dinner plates and spun at 78 rpm. They were held on a flimsy piece of a stem of metal and when the record changed it came crashing down onto the turntable and you wondered why it didn’t smash.

The radio had all the stations of the day, usually the BBC, then a miracle, on our tiny Japanese made portable radio’s Radio Luxembourg came on the air, and kept disappearing as well. The signal varied, summer was best by the way, it seemed to be stronger, but the radio station played stuff we wanted to hear, not what our parents liked. Ok not all of our parents stuff was of dubious quality to us young ones, but time was moving on.

Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Al Martino didn’t really hold any interest to us, but others did. Bobby Vee, Bobby Rydell, Johnny Tillotson, Brenda Lee, Connie Stevens, Guy Mitchell, but they were all American as was a blockbuster of a guy, a certain Elvis Presley. He moved the goalposts, so to speak, raunchy and punchy, he sang rock n roll like no one else and we were hooked, but he was still American. Step forward one Cliff Richard, a British version of the original, but something we could attach too as our own, even if he was born in India. But Frank, Dean, Al, Bobby Vee, Bobby Rydel, etc all sang ballads, good songs, but not exactly get up and go types of songs. Brenda Lee was not Christened Little Miss Dynamite for nothing, she was, dynamite, singing rock n roll with the best.

But then the wheels came off and they were never put back on again as four lads from Liverpool tore up the script and rewrote the whole pop music business. But one song encapsulates what I am trying to say here, the whole world changed and would stay changed from the period of a ditty little song called Please Please Me, by a group of mopheads called The Beatles.

Not the creepy crawly type, notice the spelling, B E A T as in the music L E S, Beatles as instead of Beetles. Not their first record by the way, oh no, they had been a back up group to an obscure pop star in Germany called Tony Sheridan, with such hits as Ain’t She Sweet, but Please Please Me was written and performed by these four Liverpool lads and all of a sudden the floodgates opened. Stones, Kinks, Billy J Kramer, Gerry And The Pacemakers, Searchers, Fourmost, Yardbirds, Dave Clark Five, the list goes on, and all singing for us.

So the songs came thick and fast, Satisfaction, You Really Got Me, Bits And Pieces, Needles And Pins, You’ll Never Walk Alone, each song a defining moment in our lives, depending on which artist or group you took a fancy too. Oh yes single artists were still on the go, Cliff for a start, and Cat Stevens, PJ Proby, and of course Elvis. But the list of distractions was getting longer, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan and other were now on the scene so the list of song were mind blowing.

But what songs exactly? Well here is a rough list of songs that have a significance in my lifeline through the years and although nowhere near complete or compendious its basically a rough guide. From about 8 years old or so, Who’s Sorry Now, Connie Frances, Al Marino, Here In My Heart, and Mario Lanza, I’ll Walk With God and a trumpeter Eddie Calvert, Oh Mine Papa.

Then it got lively, Bill Haley Rock Around The Clock started it but Elvis’s Jailhouse Rock got my attention, as did the Everly Brothers, along with Bobby Vee, Rydel etc, then I was 12 and Ciff Richard and the Shadows were around, good but it was a little while later that Love Me Do appeared, and although not great, it was a start. After that it was all uphill for me and Please Please Me wanted me having a mop top haircut and Beatle suit. From then on the songs just flowed, but I was 13, a teenager, yessssssssss.

I went dancing, dance halls meant girls and the song that coincided with the time I realised what a girl could do to your hormones was one by a group called Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas, the song? Little Children. I saw this girl, queue violins, our eyes met and this song was just about to start. I strode onto the dance floor and embraced this beauty, and nothing else mattered. The record finished but we never noticed, only about 150 other people in the place did, but not us. And so songs were dotted throughout the history of my life, some good, some not so good.

I met my wife and it was The Ballad Of John And Yoko and Tommy Roe, Dizzy, our first child was born and it was Pussycat and Mississippi, Dr Hook A little bit more and in America Barry Manilow I write the songs. For our second child it was Blondie, The Village People, Art Garfunkel, Queen, Bee Gees, a song to remember each occasion vividly. Then my father died when I was 29 and a series was on TV, Grizzly Adams, about a guy and a bear, but it was the theme song that sticks in my mind and still produces a tear even today 32 years later. Maybe was sung by Tom Pace and the words fitted the occasion of the day, by father had been in hospital and I was waiting to take him home, I never did.