On The Cusp by David Kynaston

 

The research that has gone into this book is truly amazing. Even though I read it in very small chunks, there is just too much detail. Mainly a collection of bits and pieces from newspapers and journals. Everything that was happening in those months from June through to October 1962 is there, politically, culturally, everything. I was seventeen years old, about to start my final year at school. Sleeping in my own tiny box room in the house in Braintree in Essex. Going out early in the morning on my paper round six days a week.

All I will do in this review is to mention some of those things I found interesting. For example, I didn't know that David Bowie (or Jones as he was then) played saxophone for The Konrads, a six piece instrumental group, at Bromley Technical Schools PTA fete. See waht I mean about the detail, so much taken from publications of the day. Pieces about the Keep Britain Out (of Europe) campaign and Doctor Beeching decimating the railways. The Pilkington Report into television and the controverst when the BBC was given a second channel.

A mention about "Double Your Money" reminded me that on our visits to our grandmother as children, we watched ITV for the first time as it was banned at home. Tuesday 10th June was "Telstar" day, the first ever hazy picture via satellite of a person in the USA picked up from a giant dish at Goonhilly Downs at The Lizard in Cornwall. The Architect's Journal magazine had a photo of a model for the Gateshead Shopping Centre, later immortalised in Michael Caine's "Get Carter".

There is a lot about agriculture and what was happening in Parliament, especially the fuss about whether to join the EEC. But I preferred the stuff about what was happening at the theatre and the last Gentlemen v Players cricket match at Lords. Then out of the blue: "That afternoon in West Sussex, entries for the Rustington Flower Show were up from 206 to 543". Wow!

When we reach September, The Beatles arrive at Abbey Road Studios on the 4th to record "How do you do it", the intended A side of their first single with "Love Me Do" as the B side. here were then eight pages about what was happening in Wales. Against the serious stuff of mining and industry was set The Beatles playing at Port Sunlight. Cliff and he Shadows appear on The Billy Cotton Bandshow but were poorly received. The Sunday Times colour magazine included a discussion that featured Alun Owen, who wrote the screenplay for "A Hard Day's Night", and who was a neighbour on Napier Road in West Kensington.

Then a large section about race relations, especially in the workplace. Although the Asians brought curry to the metropolis. "We had to sell egg and chips to start with, customers took a long time to start trying curry, even having added milk to make it milder. At first they always had chips with their curry, never rice". I remember the George Wimpey canteen serving curried egg and chips. Delicious.

The programmes on television was interesting unlike notes on a number of public figures. In the last chapter we are in the first week of October. On the 5th, "Love Me Do" was released as the A side and "P S I Love You" on the B. Both were essentially McCartney songs but it was maybe a printing error that it was attributed to Lennon-McCartney instead of the other way around. I know my brother John was impressed. He played a little harmonica (the instrument featured on the record) and declared, before the rest of the world caught up, that this band would be big.

ABC at the Royal Albert Hall

The rail strike did not deter me from travelling to the Royal Albert Hall for my first live concert in London for a very long time. I may not have originally chosen ABC, but I was swayed by the appearance of  Anne Dudley (see below) conducting the Southbank Sinfonia. And what I thought would be a small orchestra turned out to be massive. Nearly fifty musicians with thirty violins ( the nearly all young women seemed to be having a ball), eight cellos, woodwind, brass (including those saxophone solos) timpani and percussion.  The latter augmented the band's drummer and percussionist. So all four on the top row.

At the front, with leader and vocalist Martin Fry, were ABC's two guitars, piano and keyboards. So the music was brilliant. I loved the parts when the singing stopped and we just heard the music. The first half started promptly at the advertised 7.30pm. How often does that happen? The odd familiar track but it was the second half when 1982's "The Lexicon of Love" album is played in order and in it's entirety , that we all had come to see. And in the most perfect venue.

What I had not realised was that conductor Anne Dudley was involved in the recording of the album 40 years ago. She was brought in by producer Trevor Horn because ABC had nobody on keyboards. When Horn insisted on strings rather than synths, Anne (with very little experience of arrangements in her mid twenties) provided the score. So here she is, re-united with Martin Fry, all these 40 years later. She is in the photo above in the dark suit facing the orchestra. Everything else about Anne's work is on my post of 22nd April and there is an extensive list is on IMDB.com. Her work on this album pre-dates anything on that website. There was one moment last night when Martin Fry mentions visiting her house and sees her Oscar. (This was for the music to The Full Monty).  

A note about the journey for future reference. Because of the rail strike, I decided to drive to Amersham, park at the station and take the Metropolitan Line into Baker Street with two changes to Gloucester Road. I left home at 5pm and made the Albert Hall at 7.10pm. Coming home was even longer with a wait at Baker Street of 20 minutes. Two hours and twenty minutes back. But far preferable, these days, than parking in South Kensington. 

MEN (With added Annihilation), Top Gun Maverick and Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

 

The title on the poster is in capitals, but everywhere else it is not. So what is writer/director Alex Garland up to this time? Well, men is already plural so it's not that. The internet is no help at all.  Toilet doors normally say MEN, so it's something to do with men only?  It's just the director up to his old tricks and no-one but me is interested. The Independent called it " a social thriller wrapped in a folk horror story". But it's not really a horror film, more scary on an intellectual level. A feeling of anticipation and dread.

Jessie Buckley is now a fully fledged film star, taking on a challenging role as Harper where she is never out of the picture. Staying in an isolated house, on the run from her demons, they may have followed her here. In any case it is Rory Kinnear in multiple rolls of MEN who is scary. Harper goes downhill, if she was ever on the level. Craziness ensues. Someone said it had a "perplexing climax". I thought it was great. 

Alex Garland's Ex-Machina is one of my favourite films so I sought out his earlier Annihilation on DVD. All his films are unsettling and this was no exception. A proper sci fi movie and an Alien encounter. Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac star and I always remember Jennifer Jason Leigh from eXistenZ. The "music" from Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow adds to tension and unease. But then out of the blue up pops the superb Helplessly Hoping from Crosby, Stills and Nash. Wow!

Who would have thought that a Top Gun movie would have such a great script and a decent story. With Tom Cruise on likeable top form. It was when those opening bars from The Who's Wont get Fooled Again I was sold. A pushover for such songs in movies. Jennifer Connolly added charm, intelligence and maturity to the high jinks going on at Top Gun School. Unlike most critics, I was not overwhelmed by the flight sequences, but the mission was great at only a 2 minutes countdown. And then the post mission sequence was unexpectedly brilliant.

There is one moment in Good Luck To You, Leo Grande where Emma Thomson loses her permanent serious, almost sad expression. She is forced to dance like an 18 year old. She has never been that girl. Ever. Until now. I was completely sold.

Emma Thomson is superb as Nancy and thank goodness Daryl McCormack just about keeps up. This is basically a two hander that is almost like a filmed play. But somehow being up close and personal with these two was actually great on the big screen. The screenplay obviously had to be good and Katy Brand has given it her all. Poignant, sad, funny and desperate, director Sophie Hyde has made something special. But the film exists because of a peerless Thomson, a tour de force, Oscar worthy, her "warmth and intelligence enlivens an understated and masterfully modulated performance". A proper grown up movie.

A Visit to Rotherham - My Home Town

 

To complete my research into my family history, I had been waiting some time for the opportunity to visit my home town of Rotherham.  My great grandfather, George Askew moved from the fens of  Lincolnshire around 1870 to work in the coal mines in Rotherham. His background is on my postings of  7th December 2011 and 11th September 2017.  

I had hoped that I could find some information in the local history and archives section of Clifton Park Museum (photo above). However this was one Saturday that it was closed. The Museum was open but all I found was a small room dedicated to the York and Lancaster Regiment with whom my father was attached during the war. There was no mention of the two battalions who operated in southern Burma where my father was posted. But before I arrived at Clifton Park, I first visited where I was born.

My journey from Baslow, where I had dropped off Alison, took me through Chestefield, then the M1. I found the right junction to take me into Rotherham, but spent a wasted 15 minutes trying to find the Herringthorpe district. It was here, at No 58 Wordsworth Drive,  that my grandfather Ralph Askew (son of George) lived with my grandmother. Their children were there including my mother Dorothy Askew. It was where I was taken as a baby after being born in Clifton Lane Nursing Home. my father was away in Burma when I was born, so No 58 was my very first home, and was so for three or four years. This is the house.

I knew the house was semi-detached, but had forgotten that it was a semi on the corner of Middle Lane. This road is the boundary of Herringthorpe Playing Fields so when my brother John and I went to stay with our grandmother for a week in the summer holidays at the ages of around seven to nine, we only had to cross this road to play on the huge open expanses of grass.

I know we were staying there in 1953, when I was eight years old, because that was when we were invited next door to watch England regain The Ashes at the Oval. Video on YouTube. In the early morning my brother John and I would cross the fields to the far end to feed the donkeys that were there to give rides during the school holidays.

Even at that age we were put on the train at St Pancras in the care of the guard and met at Rotherham station by our grandmother. I now realise we slept in the best bedroom in her house, John and I sharing the high double bed with a noisy clock nearby. 

As it was August, Rotherham United players were in early season training on Herringthorpe Playing Fields, and we were able to get autographs of footballers that we had no clue of who they were.

I always remember that on the corner of Middle Lane and Clifton Lane in the 1950's, there used to be a fish and chip shop where Nanan would buy us a bag of chips to eat on the walk back. Something our mother would never have allowed. I'm not sure if the current shop is exactly where the previous one stood, but it might be.

I have a vivid memory of the August of 1953, at the age of eight, when we were invited next door to watch the moment England beat Australia in the last test to win that ashes series. 

It was only a very short drive to the car park at Clifton Park Museum. After the disappointment mentioned above, it was much better the stroll around the perimeter of the park.

 

There was at least one week when we visited in the 50's, the Clifton Park hosted each evening a week of events. One was a circus act, one a dog display team, and grass track motorcycle races, far too loud for our young ears. There is nothing I could find at the museum or online. I think I found the one level piece of grass, near the road, that might have been the venue.

Back at the car, I still had plenty of time, and the closed archives did me the biggest favour of all. I had seen a sign for the town centre, so I set off down the hill. Only ten minutes walk from the far end of the park and I was there, unrecognisable from when Nanan took us there on the bus. It is now completely pedestrianised. 

However, I did see the church that looked very like the one pictured on my christening record. 

 However, the sign said the church was Rotherham Minster, and this meant nothing to me. Undeterred, I climbed those steps and went inside. 

It was very quiet and as I was about to leave, I mentioned to one official that I really wanted Rotherham Parish Church. He called across to the vicar who came over and explained it had only changed name to an urban minster in the last few years. Yes, indeed it was always Rotherham Parish Church. Where Mum and Dad were married on 7th December 1943 before he was posted to Burma. And where I was christened after he returned. The font is the same one.

This was all quite emotional and totally unexpected as I had not planned on going to the town centre. As a climax to my family history, it could not have been better. Outside I realised that the church stood on a high promontory overlooking the town. It is mainly 15th Century and one of the finest examples of medieval perpendicular architecture in the north of England.

 I had not been back to the church for 77 years. But I'm so glad I made it.

A short break in Buxton

 

When Alison decided once again to take part in the Baslow Boot Bash, it was good opportunity to revisit the Peak District, and for me to go to Rotherham to finish my family history. 

We travelled up on Thursday 16th June, Alison drove the 3 hours non stop. We parked at the guest house and walked around Buxton and the parks. 

We were lucky to find a table outside a cafe for lunch, sharing a barm. There were some benches in the shade up on The Slopes (photo above) and Pavilion Gardens.

We unpacked the car and took the 55 steps up to our attic room in Roseleigh. Unfortunatley the windows at the top were too high to see the view across the lake.

This was the view from a chair in the lounge.

Looking for somewhere to eat , we were delighted to find Simply Thai, a nice relaxed restaurant where I didn't feel conspicuous in my shorts! Fab service and a lovely walk back in the evening late sunshine.

We had always planned on visiting the National Trust property at Ilam and arrived just after it opened at 10am, having had a super breakfast. A really wonderful setting amongst the hills.

After a walk around the property, we headed for Dovedale. The first part of the route across fields was deserted. 

Unlike the start of Dovedale where the car park was crowded. As was the whole route up and past Stepping Stones which I just manged by not stopping. If only it had been like this.

We pushed on, hoping the crowds might thin but with no luck. I had thought there might be some nice shade along the path, as some of the tourist information shows, but we were always in full sun. So we called it a day and turned round to go back, just finding a quiet spot to take a photo of the river. This is why it looked a shady walk/

Back at Ilam, it was wonderful. Alison (obviously) went off to look at the old High Cross Church, some Saxon and Norman bits.  and I sat on a bench in the shade.

We found a nice route along the neighbouring river and then we were lucky again finding a table in the shade at the cafe for scones and tea.

In the evening we had a take out from the recommended restaurant Santiago and sat in Pavilion Gardens just before it started to cloud over and cool down. 

On Saturday we were up early for me to drop off Alison at Baslow for her event. I was off to visit my home town of Rotherham - see separate post.

We met up at 2pm and had time for a walk down the Monsal Trail from Hasop Station.

And of course tea and cake in the cafe there.

It was Pizza Express in the evening. we had to take a brolly for some dampness after heavy rain at 6pm. The day had been cooler at 17C after the previous days sunny and very warm.

On Sunday we drove to Macclesfield for me to catch a train home. The scenery across the cloudy high peaks was amazing.

Alison dropped me off at the station and went off to see her sister in the Lake District. The train I wanted had gone missing, so I decided I had time to climb the steep cobbled lane to the town centre. I was amazed to find the square was hosting a concert. I had a long chat with one of the high viz marshals and listened to a terrific group playing on the stage.

I grabbed my newspaper from a deserted nearby WH Smith, found my way back to the station and my train home. Although changing at Milton Keynes, the train to Tring was cancelled for a broken down engine in front. So a wait for a train to Berkhamsted, and another wait for a taxi to arrive. But I was in no rush to get home, and I had my Sunday Times.

Just one last photo as we left of the Canada Geese, of which there were so many in Pavilion Gardens.

England v New Zealand - Second Test Match at Trent Bridge

 

All sorts of records were broken at Trent Bridge for the second test match between England and New Zealand. Johnny Bairstow's 77 ball hundred did not break the record, but that was in 1902. And he did score 93 in 43 balls after tea! His 179 run  partnership with Ben Stokes was the quickest by run rate for one over 20 overs and the third fastest century stand in test cricket. The 299 run chase came at 5.98 runs per over and no team had successfully chased over 200 runs at that rate. 

This was the first test match with an aggregate of 1000 plus boundaries. The overall scoring rate for the whole match was 4.10, the highest for a test where more that 2100 balls were bowled. The 1675 total runs in the match was the highest for 15 years. 

And it goes on. Alison and I were privileged to watch some of the chase on the final day where the crowd were let in for free and added to the fabulous atmosphere. What a change from the turgid tests of old. Obviously the pitch helped, and I'm not sure if this is a proper "test" between bat and ball. Although the dropped catches had a part to play. 

Kara and the Sun, Sorrow and Bliss and Levels of Life

 

If there was one word to describe this book it would be "creepy". It reminded me of Ian McEwen's superior "Nutshell" that was narrated by an unborn child. Here it is an AF (Artificial Friend) who tells us her story. (Why did I constantly think it was a male robot?) However, it is Ishiguro's prose that is always so good. Klara speaks with a kind of formal intelligence. "I had no time to make detailed observations of the car's interior because I became aware that the uncomfortable atmosphere had returned". Fortunately, there is lots of human dialogue to offset this feeling of disorientation.

Klara is not a perfect AF. Her vision and interpretation of events is somewhat off key. We are given isolated hints as young Rick tells her "I have to say from up there, you looked like one of those flies that buzz around blindly on the window pane". I was going to say ... when machines go wrong...., but Klara is never anything but kind and well meaning.

I loved the first half of this book so I was so disappointed with the conclusion. The earlier passages are poignant and funny. Our narrator, Martha can be irritating, but nothing like her disintegration later. And why does the "heroine" have to be clever and beautiful, as if that excuses her behavior. So a story about a mental disorder is at first hidden by some comic and intelligent writing.

There are occasional blunders: "how to eat an apple in absolute silence - by cutting it into 16th's and holding each piece in the mouth until it dissolves". That would take some time and the later pieces would be all brown and horrible. I preferred the witticisms from the elderly Peregrine such as "The Germans have a word for heartbreak, Martha. Liebeskummer. Isn't it awful".

But the book is ruined by Martha's eventual diagnosis as ..... -. Yes, -. All the way through the later stages I was waiting to be told what - meant. But no. I guess I'm in the majority who do not know the various mental challenges, and I guess wrong twice. Did the author not know that a cursory glance at the internet would spell out the answer. I was wrong. And then at the end it seemed as if it left Martha completely? What a shame.

Despite not loving the first part about 19th century balloonists and photography (the book has a theme of putting two things together), it was the note that exactly a hundred years after the surviving photos of balloons from 1868, that the Apollo 8 mission saw the first "earthrise" from the far side of the moon. The note from William Anders said it all. There was a superb short piece about Sarah Bernhardt, and later a terrific extended imaginary relationship she had with balloonist Fred Burnaby.

But this was a book with just too many facts, although there is some trademark philosophical stuff from the author. The third and last part I glossed over, a dissertation about grief, and the writer's loss of his great love, written in all it's mind numbing desperation. I guess I'm too old for that sort of stuff.

Tring Book Club - Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

 

Jean is 39 and stuck at home with an invalid mother. She has a fulfilling job on a local newspaper. She is bright, intelligent and not bad looking. But why no boyfriend? In fact she says "kind, decent men are scarce". It is only later we hear about her background and  how she is scarred from a previous relationship. Her investigation into a supposed virgin birth brings her into contact with Gretchen, Howard and their daughter Margaret. It is Howard with whom she strikes up a friendship, someone with whom she feels safe.

At book club we all thought this was a nice read but also well written and had plenty to keep us interested. It was also a pick for the BBC2 programme "Between the Covers" where, if I remember rightly, it received a good review.

The Garden - One Day in June (Again)

 Last year I posted some photos of the garden one day in June, and here we are a year later. For the Jubilee weekend, I tried to get everything in the garden up to date and take some photos on one day. Starting with the main border. It has never been better with more flowers to come.

The lawn isn't too bad considering the conifers on the right suck up most of the moisture. The bedding border on the left has been planted with small Dahlias now that the bulb foliage has been removed. 

Next up is the far end.

The side patio below now has that beautiful blue rose on the left and the Philadelphus, hidden but in flower. The front of the photo is dominated by the blue Campanula spreading across the path. Close up of the blue rose follows.

Then back to the bedding border with the Penstemon nearly out in flower.

Next some other roses in close up.