1845 I died a thousands Deaths and Robson Green plus Film Review and NCIS

On Tuesday evening I watched the second part of the Robson Green Swim in which he went on a swimming expedition around the UK before tackling the swim from the Northumberland coast to Holy Island a journey usually tackled at low tide by the causeway which links the island to the mainland. I have always liked Robson Green from North Shields and watched his TV career with enjoyment which for me started with his performances of Soldier Soldier. I bought the CD which he made with Jerome Flynn, fellow actor in the series was made after the success of the Unchained Melody which they sang in one episode.

His most popular series since have been Touching Evil and Wire in the Blood. He has also featured in a documentary series Wild Fishing where he has travelled the world bring the sport to public attention. The two programme series which ended this evening explained why the task was important to him as a tribute to his father, a coal miner, who had taught him to swim and would think nothing of going into the North sea for swim in his trunks at 10 degrees. In the build up to the two miles distance swim he undertook of pleasurable experiences such as a midnight swim in Oxford and in the Cam at Cambridge as well as a Rock pool on the South West Coast. He tackled a low temperature swim in Wales and a whirl pool in Scotland. He was taught strength swimming by a woman who prepares those who want to swim across the Channel between England and France. He camped by and swam in Loch Ness and publicised the Lido as well as a private swimming club. He had to be rescued from the cold of the Tyne River and went into shock having completed the task. The closing shot is of a swim with his son, following in his own father and son footsteps. Courage is the twin of fear and one cannot exist without the other.

Over the weekend I watched a comparatively unknown excellent film called- I died a thousand deaths with Jack Palance and Shelley Winters. The story was first brought to the screen in 1941 as High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino. The film was written by John Huston with W Burnett and directed by Raol Walsh. The main character is a professional criminal Roy Earle whose early release from prison is arranged by a crime boss Big Mac because he wants Earle to lead a jewellery and cash robbery at a major hotel in an early Palm Springs type of resort located in the desert close to the High Sierra mountains.

Earle encounters a family of unsuccessful dirt farmers on their way to Los Angeles to stay with a daughter and her family. They have with them their grand daughter who is an attractive young nineteen year old affected by a club foot. She represents everything he is not and becomes attracted to her. She welcomes his interest especially when he offers for her to have an operation but is then humiliated when he discovers that she has only contempt for his interest and wants to be able to impress a boyfriend from back east who her family had tried break the interest fearing his interest was not serious given that she poor and disabled and his family was rich.

Earl finds that his companions in the forthcoming crime are two inexperienced petty criminals and an inside man whose ability to carry out his part is in doubt. In this version a young Cornel Wilde played the Hotel reception manager. Until the right time the robbers hide out in a cabin camp where one of them has brought a girl friend picked up from a dance hall and she falls in love with Earl who takes no interest and wants her to be sent packing. At the camp an attendant has been taken up with a stray dog who then attached himself to Earle. The relationship with the disabled girl and an endearing dog helps to turn what could have been a stock heist film in which the criminals have problems with each other into story where there is some sympathy for the lead criminal and significant more for the female lead who hitches up with him.

While Jack Palance performance as Earle is excellent he is still not in the same league as Humphrey Bogart. I do not remember the performance of Ida Lupino but Shelley Winters while being stock Shelley Winters is like Humphrey Bogart being stock Humphrey Bogart, in other words both could make acting the phone book interesting and anything they do is usually several notches above most actors and usually in a different dimension.

The integrity of the film is that there is no attempt to hide the fact that Earle who tries not to kill or harm bystanders, likes friendly dogs and is kind to the statutory gangster’s moll, is nevertheless a ruthless professional criminal who will do what is necessary to avoid going back to prison. The relationship which develops between Shelley and Palance is credible and moving as it reaches its inevitable climax with the fact that he is travelling with a woman and a dog which answers to the name of Pard leads to them being spotted and the classic manhunt, to him failing to persuade Winters to go her own way she being there when he is corned in the High Sierras and is killed rather than go back to prison.

I also saw part of the Return of the magnificent seven and listen to the Simon Mayo pod cast with Mark Kermode discussing his film reviews anticipating they would do Avatar after listening to the Bring Back Barry Norman Jonathan Ross review on Tuesday evening. The film is reported to have cost between $250 to $300 million dollars and to break new ground in CGI graphics 3D and marks the return of James Cameron after his “I can never beat that achievement” of 11 or was it 12 Oscar wins with Titanic. I will await until the Kermode review before deciding on a live visit.

During theh programme I learnt that I had missed out on the film of the year because I am not into vampire films whether they are about platonic love or sex and that the new Sherlock Holmes film made by Guy Ritchie of Lock Stock and two Barrels and other films to avoid unless inebriated or under twenty five and wanting to take out a bird on a weekend night. The film which raised my hopes is a take on Fellini’s 8 and half which I acquired on DVD as a Christmas present last year and which has been remade as 9 and which features Penelope Cruz as the mistress, Marian Cotillard as his wife and also has Judi Dench, Sophie Lauren, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson as lovers and muses of the film Director played by Daniel Day Lewis with a creative blockage but noted the Kermode conclusion that despite this cast of casts it does not add up to an important or memorable film, but I shall still go to see it at the fist opportunity..

On Sunday I switched over late to the Sports Personality of the Year Show because of wanting to watch the end of the Forsyte Saga, an ITV adaptation of the John Galsworthy Trilogy with the first novel published in 1906 and the last two in 1918 and 1920. I do not believe I have read the novels although it is something that I have thought of doing.

In 1967 the BBC turned the trilogy into a 26 episode series which was shown on Saturday evenings on BBC and repeated on Sunday nights causing a furore for two reasons. Its popularity was such that churchmen and publicans complained about the effects it was having on their trade, remembering this was at a time when Pubs were places were people went to drink and perhaps play games such as darts and dominoes, rather than to eat, and the Pub large Screen Sports TV was a thing for a decade or more in the future.

The second reason why the Saga hit the headlines is that it involved a novel in which a married woman left her husband, not for one man but for two and where the precipitating cause of her departure was her marital rape. Not Having read the book I am unaware how these aspects were handled in the writing but even for the swinging sixties it was unique for such subject matter to be highlighted a major popular series. The series brought additional fame for Eric Porter who played Soames the husband, and Nyree Dawn Porter his wife Irene. Irene leaves her husband for the architect designing their new home and after his death she takes up with Phillip Bosinney who is in turn betrothed to the daughter of another Forsyte called Young Joylon, an artist played by the much love Kenneth Moore who had come to the fore in the cinema especially with his portrayal of Douglas Bader, in Reach for the Skies.

The books and the TV series covers several generations from Victorian England, Boer War when war was still considered an adventure for young men and when British society was dominated by the aristocracy and those who had elevated themselves to the upper class through their created wealth, sending their sons to the public schools and the army, and funding their daughters through the London season in the hope of marrying into the landed gentry or uniting with other wealth, political and powerful connections. It was the era when the working class if not still slaving in poverty on the land, were in service or working down the mines or in the new factories with their slum housing and working all hours. Britain was the China and India of today.

Hollywood had attempted to create the atmosphere of the times and the issues in of the first book, Man of Property in 1949 called the Forsyte Women with Greer Garson, Errol Flynn, Walter Pidgeon and Robert Young and which still appears on multi channel TV. It was however the BBC series which brought Galsworthy and the Forsyte’s to the attention of the comparative new TV watching generation.

The main character Soames is as common today as it was then in viewing life as the accumulation of not just of wealth but possession of which a wife and children were part and which the law treated the same as other property. This approach is a fundamental part of all the middle East religions of Jews, Muslims and Christians devised by men and developed for men and which continues to be advocated and practices by the fundamentalists of these faiths today.

I discovered that there were several previous episodes on the ITV player but not all and then that a DVD set was available for under £10. The series had been such an important part of my cultural heritage that I decided to purchase. I will detail my reactions to the series in the New Year. Getting back to the West Wing is taking longer and longer.

Joe was back home on Wednesday signing copies of his singles which is released to stores today. The 500 individuals who obtained wristbands from 8am this morning were invited back into the store for the media covered event. The police attempted to discourage everyone else to stay away. It will be interesting to see what happened.

I finally cracked this week over Christmas goodies and last night I enjoyed a portion of Christmas cake and cheese plus some walnuts cracked from shell. The walnuts were part of a second pack which had been my only indulgence to-date along with a packet of peanuts and raisins .

My evenings have been taken up with three re runs this week, Babylon 5 which has been excellent, and X files which has been so so. The third has been NCIS. The FX channel suggested they were showing a new series so I checked and discovered that have been relaying season 7 on a once a week basis while also showing episodes from an earlier series which I now know went back to the beginning with me catching up at the beginning of this week to last episode of Season 2 number 46 and the death of Caitlin by a Mossad agent who has crossed over to the enemy, son of Mossad deputy Director and half sister of Ziva David who kills him, saving unit head Gibbs and is subsequently assigned to the unit as the replacement or Caitlin. The Unit also a new Director who once Gibbs trained and had become lovers. As two episodes are shown every weekday evening, up to four hours of viewing between six and ten has come to form my evenings this week

I managed to rise this morning to catch the opening of first Test in South Africa and then got on with work and preparations for my Christmas Trip, managing some shopping in the early evening.

1330 Unsettled Interlude

01.30- 02.30 am The transition between Winter time and British Summer time, on a Spring Day which commenced as bright and sunny, glistening across the river, developed into cold and wet, tired and discontented with myself and overwhelmed with negativity. Because I wanted to write more than I had time for before setting off for the football, I arrived later than ever and was very fortunate to find a parking space which involved a little more walking than usual.

It was 14.00 instead of 13.30 as planned, so although I eat my sandwich briskly and always like my coffee hot, I knew I could not wait longer to see if the rain stopped before making way to the stadium. I had my hat and an umbrella was of use as long as it was held consistently in one direction to avoid being blown inside out. In the stadium most of the neighbours who I usually watch arrive were already seated but there was time for a little chat before the teams were announced and the game commenced. There was a bright start and then disaster a silly goal was given away, but the opposition looked just as fragile, at times even more so, and the manager appeared to have abandoned the negative approach which so frustrated everyone and there was some attempt to pass balls to feet or for players to run on instead of the continuous putting of balls to the head of the centre forward for him to knock down pointlessly as none of his team were in the vicinity. I could understand the decision to strengthen the back with the mid field holding position and the long ball helped to maintain this, but when the result a continuous defeat away and a boring and moderately successful home play then even I would get the message and try something else. There were countless opportunities to score, including for the opponents to improve their position but we equalised with a tap in where our player was generally thought to be offside but the replay later on the evening proved that the referee and linesman had got the decision correct and it was a legitimate goal. Perhaps it was because the opponents now have nothing to play for situated in mid table and without home of playing in Europe. But they showed no spine and little will to win throughout most of the second half and we squandered several chances including a couple I was confident I would not have missed even at my age and lack of hand and eye and foot coordination. I am usually opposed to those who leave early in such situations but twice before this season I have done so for an important goal to be scored as I made my way down the stairs and wundabar it happened again as I was on the lower of the steps so I ahd an excelled view of the strike, visited the gentleman’s where everyone was chatting to everyone about the significance as Bolton had surrendered a two goal lead against Liverpool and now look strong candidate for relegation along with Derby, confirmed following a 2.2 home, and Fulham where Oxford beat Cambridge in the boat race as I made my way homeward, having first enjoyed the rest of the coffee. I cannot leave this aspect of my life without mentioning an impressive performance from Michael Chopra who although placed out of position on the e wing showed great enthusiasm from having been recalled into the side and went all over the field to work for his colleagues, showing a side of him which will encourage the manager to think of him again.

18.15 I had a glass of wine, and a few peanuts and set to work and later a spicy pizza and some grapes and around 23.00 a coffee and three wholemeal biscuits.

19.00 22.00 There were lots of little project jobs to do but progress was slow because I was tired with an emotionally stressed tiredness, Throughout the day I had been reminding myself of shortcomings and although critical self appraisal is a constant companion, and the translation of this into the referenced experience in the artistic and creative work of others is an important aspect of project work, to-day it debilitated and I was unable able to divert my attention away to something more constructive. For example the British cycle team have won nine gold Medals at the Manchester venue of this year’s world championship, so far an historic development and I had intended to look for records as with the Boat race but such was my state that I forgot.

22.00-23.30 I watch the Sunderland replay and then the remains of Match of the day without enthusiasm and continue laboured project work

23.30. 01.00 Even more laboured work, and I go bed restless but not feeling like staying up. This was soon appreciated to have been a mistake.

01.30 after half an hour I get up knowing that all I will do by staying is toss and turn and think of things over which I have no control and little influence. It is then I discover that the clock move forward as is registered on my desktop. It is now 02.30

03.21 I write this slowly thinking of this and that along the way. I have remembered to put out the joint to defrost. I will return to bed and find out if I am able to settle. Alas I decided to play a game or two to relax and gain a sense of achievement but did not feel like chess where I had played badly with several drawn games so tried my hand at hearts, a game which I need not yet understand and where the computer appeared to stack odds against you in such a way that even if you avoided being the one ending the game by scoring 100 points it seemed impossible to win. There is some skill involved in selecting cards to pass over and in which cards are selected to lead but unlike chess there is only limited control. I made the mistake of giving the game full attention and then of course coming close to a win I continued until I did. It was well past 5 am when I went back to bed but this time it was not long before I lost memory and awareness.

07-09. I did get up once returning to sleep immediately and it was just before midday when I staggered up. Thus I had slept for seven hours which was remarkable given sleeping during the day twice and had only risen once confirming this trend.
11.55 There were several overnight e mails but no win on the weekend lottery games. One e mail was from a major bus travel company reminding that nation wide free travel commences in April but the list of authorities to contact did not include my own so perhaps the new passes are being delayed to avoid confusion before April1st. I have a delivery expected on Monday but if it arrives before 17.00 I will visit the local transport centre to find out the position if nothing arrives in the post. I returned my completed gold card application for the Metro system in good time.

14.00 So far I have managed to change all the clock forward the hour except the phone which is annoying as it did not change automatically. However I want to move on and complete my work on the Lord of the Rings. There as football to watch with the Boro at Chelsea but when they lost a goal in the opening five minutes I turned off to concentrate on the writing. A loss will be a good result for us in that we should then catch them up and achieve a higher position. Similarly Newcastle losing or drawing will be good for us and I mind less now they also appear to be safe from relegation. It is therefore 24 hours since working or writing on the Lord of the Rings which is disappointing but it also illustrates the reality of my life. I shall complete the target of 4 new project sets a day and 120 for the month though.

1318 24 hours again and Vantage Point

12.00 It was cold with a sharp wind and passing a newspaper stand I noted that a freezing Easter is being predicted. I delivered the letter, seeking access to my early medical records, to my doctor’s administrative assistant and then walked to the bank. I noted that Coleman’s award winning fish and chip restaurant is offering OAPs a pot of tea with the sit down fish dinner or tea for £5.99 $3. This reminded of a chat at the football with two other elders about the cost of living to-day and in yester year, so I said my first earning were £5 $2.5 a week whereas another said his were £2 $1 fro a week’s work down the coal mine and his companion said when he had started was only £1.50 $.75. I reflected more on this in the town centre noting as I have before the number of elders with some form of disability and faces which demonstrate the years of toil and bodies affected by poor nutrition.

12.15 There is major works commencing at the junction at the centre of town with the intention of creating more decorative paving and on pavement seating around the restaurants and cafes and just for sitting and for smoking.

12.20 I thought for a moment that there was further work being undertaken at the Criterion Pub on the corner which has had attention to the its façade, a different structure in the main bar area and closure of its first floor restaurant. The opening of new facilities or expenditure on old is interesting given the recent headlines of night life closures and declining attendances except on Saturdays with the cause blamed on the improved attractions at Newcastle and Sunderland.

12.30 The headline sheet at the local news stands is of vandalism to cars in the town centre but the headline on the front page is of a early morning drug bust. I am still recovering from the surprise of thirty years ago when I was summoned by the Director of the Regional Treatment Drug Abuse centre and explained that he was looking after more heroin addicts from South Shields than the rest of the region and wanted to know what I was going to do about it. It took sometime although about a decade later a Department of Health wag commented that there appeared to be more drug prevention and treatment workers in the borough than registered addicts. The Folklore of how we got the problem is a good lesson that unless you deal with such problems nationally, and these days internationally, all that happens is that action in one area results in the problem being shifted elsewhere. In the sixties there was major drive to tackle heroin use in London and a number of heroin addicts who also pushed the drugs in order to feed their habit headed up the motorway and instead of taking the fork into Newcastle took that which ended at the Port of South Shields where there was a Marine Training college and strong middle eastern connections. There was then a steady stream of recruits at odds with their parents and the closely knit parental culture who found solace becoming members of this subterranean world, while their more conventional contemporaries downed pints and smoked fags before love on the dole and repeating the cycle. One lots went to prison or into prostitution and the other lot got cancer and heart disease.

12.45 After paying into my bank account the small premium bond win after three blank months I decided to get the milk and breakfast cereal from Marks and Spencer’s and to use up the rest of available cash on a gift card by taking up their 4 for 3 offer from a selection of Indian, Chinese and Italian, British dishes. The most expensive item was some pieces of lamb in a red wine sauce with potatoes cooked in olive oil and rosemary. I purchased two portions of a seafood salad which includes some salmon and prawns and the fourth and free item was some Singapore Noodles with little pieces of chicken bits of egg and prawns The free item led in effect a 20% reduction in the overall Bill.

13.00 On the way back I still took the escalator up through Asda and could not resist a three half prawn sandwich lunch on the hoof. I used the seat in passport photograph booth to have one half before tackling the climb home.

13.15 Enjoyed the two remaining halves with a cup of tea and then checked the emails and played some chess and commenced to write.

13.55 I am still hungry so make a single slice Leerdammer brown bread sandwich and coffee before taking some cardboard cartons and clothing to the recycle centre and then for a showing of Vantage Point a film in which the assassination of yet another USA President is viewed from the perspective of eight individuals. I remain fascinated by the interest the Americans have in killing their heads of state but my main interest is how the same situation is always seen differently by every observer present, or when viewing recordings or reading accounts.

14.30 Visit Council’s award winning recycling village and deposit some cardboard cartons, a cracked plastic washing up bowl and some clothing to the charities who have specialist containers at the site. I object to the door to door circulation of plastic bags which is almost a weekly occurrence for clothing, and also the teenagers who come round at regular intervals trying to get residents sign up direct debits. I will get around to have a moan to the council about the practice of licensing any form of door to door calling other than democratic.

15.20 I was early at the cinema but resisted the temptation to go for some sweeties. By the time the show commenced there were eight others at the performance in one of the larger screen theatres.

15.40ish-17.30. The film Vantage Point was disappointing with a preposterous script aimed at 13 year olds and their dads who play shoot em and chase em video games, plus teenagers on first or second weekend dates who do not mind what kind of film they are seeing. The trailer presentation that this is a film which examines the same events from different perspective is misleading, but not significantly, because each sequence although having the same starting point does not cover the same events. No one, other than the ultimate Hero Harrison Ford, and perhaps the President end the film with any merit and I therefore have no hesitation, although this a film on release by explain why it is so awful whatever some critics have found to embrace.

The most culpable and unbelievable are the USA security service, who admit they have advance intelligence of an assassination terrorist plot, down to knowing who the terrorists are and the where they come from, to the extent of putting its forces on a moment’s standby to obliterate their base despite its location in a friendly power, one of 150 world leaders that is attending the anti terrorist summit outside of the USA, in socialist Spain, and who then receive confirmation from the terrorists they will attack, The President is not immediately removed to a safe place or the public and other leaders and notables protected. The location in a small square surrounded by tall buildings is such a death trap bombers paradise that those responsible for the venue would in real life be charged with treasonable negligence. Spain would be blacklisted as an international venue for switching off the scrutiny mechanism allowing a satchel of high explosive into the area. While had not many if not most of the local Presidential security command post been killed together with the those guarding the President when they abandon their position protecting him to help other downed colleague, I would have immediately arrested then and charged with culpable homicide from dereliction of duty.

The most ludicrous aspect of this film is that having sets off several bombs maiming and killing innocents including children bombs, and killing a number of friends and foe, the President is saved because the terrorist leader crashes his vehicle rather than hit a child crossing the road. The portrayal of the women in the film is also appalling. Sigourney Weaver plays the cow Director of the on spot CNN like news team, the second main terrorist shows no mercy or hesitation in bombing the public assembled in the courtyard square, leaving her used lover to his death and blackmailing a stupid member of the Spanish Police to commit several murders and help kidnap the President but hesitates briefly when asked kill the man’s brother, and the third staring female is the mother of a small child who takes her into the centre of the town full of demonstrators from all over the world and armed riot and security police, and then after she loses contact with her child, she wonders the streets instead of reporting the child missing to the nearest police officer. Bar far the worst individual character is a black man who combines the worth caricature of the Yankee tourist in Europe with those portrayals of African Americans in pre war and immediate post World War films. I can well understand his wife having a strong doubt about her marriage as he goes off on a jaunt around Europe on his own. He is kind and well intentioned but becomes the cause of the child being mown down by the terrorist vehicle while her mother watches in despair. He has already encountered both as the child knocks into him losing her ice cream and mother is so keen to catch a glimpse of the American President that she refuses to buy the child a replacement or accept an offer from the African American who on finding the child separate from her mother makes no effort to find the mother or take the child to the Spanish police, but takes the child away from the scene until he seeing something which interests him and hands her over to the a bemused Spanish policewoman, who as with the portrayal of all the other women in the film, lets the child wonder off. It is not as if Westernised countries have no experience of their leaders experience assassination and kidnap attempts with Churchill the subject of a score. There are some aspects of the film which are accurate in that all leaders have more than one means of transport with route changes except for the official and long term planned public and state outings. The use of look alikes has also been a feature throughout history with the most well known the stand in for General Montgomery who attended a dinner in his honour by the Governor of Gibraltar in World War II and went around North Africa congratulating the troops. It has also become standard in this type of film from Bond to the Bourne Ultimatum to have prolonged spectacular but unrealistic car chases and other stunts and the film is a timely reminder to American and other World leaders and Presidential Candidates that you should never rely entirely on your security staff if you wish to survive and it is wise to be trained in hand guns and have some always close by whose first duty is to hand your weapon at any time of the day or night day or night. It was only after I left the cinema and was driving home that I worked out that this was a British secretly funded film showing what can go wrong unless you buy our training and method expertise.

17.45 I have a large hot soup with a crust of bread and play some chess.

18.30 I cut up the remains of the pork jaunt and bathe in a hot gravy with one helping of vegetables followed by grapes and then a coffee.

19.45 I watch a depressing game of Football on Satanta between Birmingham and Newcastle who for once do not sell their away fans location.

21.00 I switch to Sky 2 for the next episode of Lost. This does not get off to a good start so switch back to the football during the adverts as Newcastle equalise from a Michael Owen goal.

22.00 This week’s episode ends on a sad note as we move ion the future and learn that the Asian girl has her baby but her husband has died.

22.30 I tidy up yesterday writing and post and then write up some of this, enjoying some of the M & S breakfast cereal.

23.40. I got to bed to read some Antwone Fisher, Finding Fish. I read for a while but I am tired and book deserves better attention.

03.15ish I did check he time as I staggered to the toilet carefully holding on to the banister in the darkness on reaching the two steps and aiming for the doorway and not the metal display units on either side.

05.31 I remember the time as I repeat the venture although this occasion the mouth is dry so I take a large swig of water but do not swallow.

07.20ish and I am now uncertain about the accuracy of the 5.31 it could have 5.15 and then 7.31. It only matters to me, not the precise time but the training of the mind to remember accurately everything which is not immediately noted at the time. I would never make a good witness except under cross examination such is often my self doubt outside those instance when I am certain because I have checked, rechecked and recorded.. Given that I sometimes rise around 5 am when I been to bed before midnight the decision to return to bed and rest at this point is unusual bit I remember feeling physically weak and drowsy . I cannot remember if the dreaming was then or later as it was 9 am when I woke again after three rising in the night. This time because I was breathing through my nose rather than he mouth the saliva was normal. The dream well the theme was a familiar one I was at work, in paid work, of a kind despite my age, but centred on a giant open area where I was going to cut the grass with a machine in my own time but doing so in gratitude for being in work but where I could not open the door of where the mowing equipment was stored. My dreams are usually about work in some form, places recognised and then become different and about being lost rather than loss.

9.38 I place chess having drawn a game before going to be and bleary eyes draw another six drawn from the 380 played with the percentage drawn up from 1% to 2%. I woke feeling a little wretched and sorry for myself and then remember the plight of others but resist the temptation to check the news. I must make progress today on the priority list, however slow that progress is. It looks as if I shall be able to walk also although must remember to wrap up against the chilling wind

10.15 Contact the Inland Revenue to clarify the new tax coding. There is no explanation regarding the new code, and I can contact again when the information on income for next financial year is known. So even if there is underpayment for the this financial year it will not take effect until a year’s time without having to pay interest over the delay.

10.45 Have coffee, play a couple of games of chess and recommence work on annual accounts and master records.

12.00 Completed. First set 19620 and create master list of contents and action

1317 Another 24 hours includes They Came to Cordua

12.00. Will continue this format but first some reminders to me. The FA people have told Barnsley they cannot offer tickets to the general public until both club combined indicate there is spare capacity and no doubt the FA will then suggest a different price structure ho ho ho. I hope to get to see a semi Final or Final at the new Wembley before I die. Some toilet cleaner what’s it, to add to shopping list. Need to put potatoes in with roast say 12.15.

13.00 Letter seeking access/copy of medical records completed. Roasting potatoes were put in oven at 12.45. Decide to also seek the medical records of my mother but one thing at a time.

13.15 Have washed and shaved and now go for roast dinner. Hear about developments in Tibet which I need following given my ongoing interest in events in that country.

13.45 I enjoyed lunch and begin to feel siesta drowsiness. Put TV on discover that Australian Grand Prix is later to day, showing the practice for grid placing. Hamilton goes to front of grid as I write. Button is in top ten, for now. One of the Ferrari’s is on the back of grid after stopping on track and requiring assistance great news. Shell are giving model Ferrari’s away with 30 litres of petrol but how many 30 litres etc? Banana and orange with vitamin tablet. Even greater news Alonso down in 12th. Excuse is that car is no good on single laps but performs better over long distance. We shall see, gloat gloating gloat. Lewis H would have become world champ in his first year had it not been for the behaviour of Alonso. Well that is my opinion although from his viewpoint the was just trying to hold onto his position as the World Champion Driver. Reminds me of the mistake Button made when he switched constructors.

14.00 Go for walk to Health centre. The sky has clouded over and there is a cold brisk wind coming from north and therefore not affecting the daffs and other flowers and plants in the patio, protected by walls. There was no post box so will have to repeat trip in the morning. On way back cut off the corner from Ocean Road to Law Road and notice once more the odd situation because as the road turns right there is a corner property at the L junction with four entrance doors adjacent to each without gaps, what kind of accommodation is involved.? My curiosity is such that I take first lane to look to see if the rear of these properties provides the answer. A mystery for another day. The climb back against the wind reminds of my lack of fitness and extent of over weight.

15.00 For the next two hour and a half hours my time is divided between checking the Blog of yesterday and publishing, the progress of Lewis Hamilton in the Australian Grand Prix. The film They came to Cordura and a few more games of chess.

Around 16.00 I eat four crackers with a slice of Leerdammer cheese. It is of a better quality than the slices used for toasting on bread or making an omelette.

I forget the number of times I have seen They came to Cordura. I always forget what it about until commencing the view and even though I quickly remember such is my regard for the subject and the script, the nature of courage and of cowardice and the few reviews I checked concentrate more on the courage and that the cowardice and forget the key statement by Cooper, the third of his films in a week that has been shown, when he notes in the official record that each within every hero there is a crippled child and that although the men he has identified as meriting high awards, are all subsequently shown to be flawed human beings, but they did what they did, and the film ends on a note when the men remembering what their heroics attempt to live up to their new self image accepting their fate for the prior and subsequent actions which they face as they reach the military headquarters at Cordura.

Lewis Hamilton wins in a spectacular race where the cars have been significantly modified to bring back more of the skill of driving than the technical superiority of the vehicles. There are pile ups and individual accidents with the safety car being needed three if not four times so that only just over a third of the starters finish and the Ferrari’s are no where although Alonso does make fourth.

I slip up again in a game of chess around the mid 80’s. I will lick my wounds and start again later. One indicator of resolve.

18.00 Cup of tea time and main project work for rest of the day although I will watch the Ice Dancing Final and then Lewis. Lark Rise to Candelford has ended and I missed final episode and will see if it is available on BBCi

18.45 The first task has been to create three new MySpace Blog double set volumes in preparation for new work. 5570 71, 72 73 and 73 74. This involves inserting the clear pockets for the A4 cards and then creating the registration card for each which includes the number of the card, the number of the accompanying artman glitter card. Then there is number of the sets above and the of the range of individual cards eg 133609- 133632- 33656 is that for sets 5568-5569 completed together with any set title MySpace Blogs 2008. The date when this card was prepared is 13.03.2008. Set 5568 was completed on the 13.03.2008 so has already been recorded under the list of Creative work sets, This list is based on the set numbers so I can ensure that I do not double register or if I make a card for a set and then change my mind about completing this work. There is also the running total list and the newly completed set 5569 is the 7113 set to be completed overall, thus giving a total of 170172 cards overall. I will now photograph this two set volume, ensure that the titles are recorded in the list of Blogs where I am now giving each a number. The photographs remain on a computer until they have copies to CD or DVD in batches. I make two copies and these are stored in secured places and then the number of photos is also listed on a spreadsheet so I have a running total which is now over the 270000 mark.

19.00 Dancing on Ice begins. Missed semi final result when Gareth gates was voted off my the judges. I am a Gareth enthusiast since he came second in the x factor to Will Young and he commenced to conquer his speech impediment. Semi final is misnomer because three skaters were left at the end of the evening and tonight they performed an aerial number, then their favourite performed for the series and then two voted by the public performed the Bolero which brought Torvil and Dean Olympic gold and where I saw the subsequent show twice, in London and Nottingham in a Big tent. The ultimate winner this evening was given a perfect series of 6 out of 6 twice for her two performances and was also given the nod by the chairman of the judges, and something which the public echoed.

20.00 I made a ham salad followed by black grapes. The work was slow with the distractions and the numbers of events sets went astray with signature cards have to be repeated once the error was recognised.
21.00 It was then time for this week’s episode of Lewis, nearly said Morse, and Oxford. This was a well crafted plot on the theme that our sins, and crimes will find us out the more we seek to deceive. The relationship between the Inspector and the Sergeant continued to develop as this week it is Lewis where his recent unfortunate past comes back to haunt him, the death of his wife in
a hit and run accident

23.00 continued working on 100.75 project

00.40 complete work for the day and play chess 10 games in new run

01.05 bed

03.15 Toilet

06.30 Toilet
08.00 Toilet

08.10 Main rubbish bin put out

08.15 Play quick chess aggressively to wake up
09.11. Coffee and washing up.

09.21 Computer time as it is running about 6 mins ahead of actual time according to British Winter time a la Greenwich. I could not find the coffee measure until my brain waved and looked for it in the coffee container, a standard Columbian while I try and remember which container has the decaf and which the hot kicking one. I should be able to tell from sampling but not first thing in the morning.

9.36 procrastinate before work, first after thinking about events in Tibet switch on news only to find that ethnic nationalistic violence has occurred in north Kosovo as Serbs feeling threatened, perhaps threatened by Kosovians with short memories have been revolting with NATO guardians coming under small arm’s fire and a Serbian s commentator indicating that if NATO intervened the situation could escalate with Serbian official intervening to protect Serbians living in Kosovo. I have no idea where blame rests except that the Serbian leaders have precipitated western Europe into dreadful carnage during the last century and there should be no toleration of any behaviour which could create further loss of life of non combatants. With British the British position in Iraq under fire at home and abroad and the lack of moral fibre in the greater part of Western Europe for taking proactive action in Afghanistan and the USA tied up in Iraq and the Presidential elections, it is understandable that wicked med everywhere will attempt to exploited situations for their own ends regardless of the consequences on the innocent and those with the power and the authority to intervene will stand by as is happening in parts of Africa.

10.10 Have a bowl of cereal. Have checked e mail and MySpace where there are Blog comments. In background is an Ian Hendry Film Girl in the Headlines in which he plays a detective finding out the reality of the life of a murdered Supermodel and her friends back in the black and white 1960’s which covers the familiar story of a sixteen year old who gets pregnant by her mother’s lover who then committee suicide that is the lover and the girl and her mother comes to London for an "operation", after which she runs off sleeps around and becomes famous with influential escorts, throughout taking drugs. The film uncovers the influential figures behind the drugs importation and supply but this is all a red herring involving other murders and mayhem and providing no clue as to who shot the woman, her mother.

10.45. Shave wash and get ready to venture out to return to the Health Practice, journey on to the bank and back via supermarket for milk and cereals.

11.30 Out walking for the rest of the morning. Better late than never.

Afterthought 6 points out of ten for exercise and the same for nutrition and quantity of food. Five for project work and overall this has been a 6 out of 10 day

1316 24 Hours

My work is about translating past experience into 24 hour day sets of displayable work

12.00. Get washed shaved and prepare for going out.

12.20 Post brings letter advising that information re1950 care application unlikely. While dwelling on this and while writing up Blog 313 think about medical records and downloading information from Dept Health site..

Chris Baber Lost and Found CD Volume 1 also in post and changes my thinking and feelings. This is a digitalised recording of live concerts of Sister Rosetta Sharp.1957. I bought her CD and although I cannot remember seeing her live unless she and Chris played at the 100 I cannot remember who played at Cy’s except his band and Mick Mulligan with George Melly, I remember their base player had a ladies floral garter around his instrument top. I did see the second bring over from the USA part of the CD Howard McGhee and Sonny Terry in 1958 when I saw them live on a Riverboat Shuffle to Margate and back on Sunday. I bought their record but did I also seem them separately. I have an uncertain feeling I did but again only if they played the 100.

12.25 Listen to CD listen for a short while and then rush to make a ham salad, a yellow pepper, tomato, but no olives or cucumber, and afterwards two slices of brown bread and some green grapes.

12.45 Download information about obtaining access to medical records and mentally kick myself for not thinking of this before. Will do letter to GP this evening or Sunday

13.15 Ensure I have season ticket book, lock up but forget to bring front door key.

13.30ish Pass near former home, scaffolding is down but major work being undertaken at home of recently deceased disabled solicitor who used to whiz about in his electric chair and would come swimming with his wife at Hotel Leisure club. She went first and then him and their house was up for sale and then sold. There is now no one left who lived in the eight, now nine properties in the Lane from 1974. Lost count of change of owners of the two private hotels. The house next to family home which was the first choice but because of the delay in the selling chain it was bought by Sunderland AFC for its new commercial manager and then changed hands again when he left the club. The former solicitor lived next to this property and next to that there were several owners with one selling the adjacent land for a new detached house to be built. Then a more modern house, rather out of characters with the other properties in the Lane until the second new property was built, that of a former bank manger and his wife both long since departed.

I believe there have been five deaths of residents among the nine properties from at least 50 adults and their children is not a worrying ratio over a period of 50 thirty years, in older properties, or is it, I have no comparison information to judge.

13.40 Find last possible parking space in area close to ground by driving vehicle on pavement on corner, but this is allowed on match days. There is a cold wind so enter ground and buy coffee also a programme hoping it will mark the day we do a Barnsley, I pray that we are not humiliated. For £10 bet the odds are 75.1 for a 1.0 win with a name scorer. 25.1 for a 2.1 win.

14.00 I have until April 4^th or is it 5^th to renew season ticket at this year’s price, Consider doing this but asking if I can have a lower level seat and near end of aisle and work out area of possibility.

14.15 Take my seat as the back of the stand shelters from the cold wind. Carlos Edwards is playing for the first time since injury Chopra and Richardson are not even on the subs bench although these days they sit in padded and heated hairs with back and head rests.

15.10 After promising start we give away goal from poor marking. However for the rest of the half and then in the second the performance is encouraging, worthy of a win, had we taken any of the three clear cut chances. Roy has got the plot back. We have a number of winnable games left, but we will have to win them which means playing as we did and putting the ball in the back of their net.

16.45ish Leave a few minutes before final whistle in order to not to imprisoned at the back and needed the loo. However reach the car and drive home with no traffic problems.

17.15 arrive home and decide to have some crackers with cheese and a full glass of red wine.

17.30ish check on the Arsenal Boro game but decided on third day of New Zealand V England Cricket Test. Switch between the two as Boro take the lead and England lose wickets.

17.45 Do a Beef Stir fry, with banana Pepsi cola

19.00 Borough manage a draw and England do not reach the hoped for lead of 450 with only one wicket left. But although there are two days left the total should be more than adequate given the condition of the wicket.

19.00 Drink a pint of chilled still water,

19.00 Play chess against computer, about a dozen games of quick level one chess throughout evening. Wins this streak are 77 335 games played over past 10 days with three draws including one run of 95,

19.30 For the three hours I attend to issues of income and expenditure and income tax. I work out that under the new system where the10% rate for the first £2230 of taxable income is abolished to be replaced by single rate of 20%, two pence lower than before there should be a net gain of between £150 and £175 over the year, However the main issue is personal allowance which for those 65-74 can be as much as £2000 more than the basic allowance for the current financial year and which rises by another £1500 for the next. However there is a total income limit which if you have more means that have the difference between the ceiling figure and what one actually gets has to be taken away from the difference between the standards and age allowance. If for example one has an income for £3000 over the ceiling figure to qualify for the extra allowance, this is divided by2 and the amount of £1500 deducted from age allowance which is roughly £2000 more so one gets an actual additional age allowance of £500. These calculations involve a sorting out of papers in the two key financial volumes, one containing a full set of copies of original documents. I was tired after the sorting and working out and played some more chess before finishing the Blog for the fifteenth and uploading to MySpace and printing

23.45.Completing printing and then move onto new friend requests. One rejected and one accepted.

24.00 Sort out emails, some printed, some deleted some saved to PC

00.30 Sort out completed cards for set making and registration work to morrow

00.45 Decide to make these notes to herald new style of Blog writing as commence major work for the year.

01.30 Remember to put the pork roast out from freezer for overnight defrosting

2.55 Go to bed over tired but still mind thinking and not sleeping which I usually do when I hit the pillow, but as in such situations the assessment of time measurement is dubious.

07.00 I guess this when I struggle up but carefully hold the stair banister as I approach the two steps before the toilet and relieve myself returning as quickly as I can to bed and back into slumber. I guess the time as it is light and given the time of going bed and before sleep came it is not unusually to sleep for longer than the usual two hours.

08.45 I awake again, and I now guess the time, for I stayed in bed full of sleep but want to visit the toilet once more and still hold echoes of the dreams but am ready to move on into the day.

09.15 I make strong sugarless coffee open the curtains enjoying the sight of the daffodils, ten of which have moved from bud to trumpet, and in the two wicker hanging baskets, bought in the first spring smaller yellow flowers, can one have yellow Irises, I ought to have noted the various names for this moment. There is only green growth in the two of the three green plastic hanging tubs fitted to the beam cross this end of the garage roof. They were bought because of the content of training flowers, and I debate if they should be replaced with matching wicker, this spring, balancing the additional expense and what to do with the three existing containers. It is a moral dilemma.

09.30ish Andrew Marr is interviewing Jonathan Powell Tony Blair’s Chief of Staff who has written a book about his years of involvement with the government, especially their role in achieving a peace in Northern Ireland when it is admitted the will was there after to Omagh bombing atrocity and the Clinton’s played a major role in helping to change the will into a lasting reality and then into a new form of independent self government. It is an important interview and I am very impressed with the man and want to read his book and wonder why he is not still in government in some form, although it may be he can achieve more by talking to those who now wrestle with the problems about his experiences The programme ends with an interview with Seamus Heaney the Nobel Literature prize winner whose work I am ashamed to say I do not know but will make a priority because it is about the internal conflict and I am tempted to devote more of the morning but apart from doing a quick internet check on them both I will move on.

10.25 It has taken me twenty five minutes to add these notes. I wish I could think and type quicker. I commence internet check after switching on the laptop. Playing chess while it warms up

10.35 Game takes twice as long as it should because my oppositions surrenders some keys pieces early on but I am not prepared to think hard and draw on what I see and the instinct of experience.

10.40 There is no we have exciting news for you from the Lottery, so number 15 has not worked its magic this week or six and nine. There is message 601 on MySpace but I leave until later, I print but do not read what Wikipedia has to say about Seamus Heaney. I did not spell his Christian name correctly despite seeing it on TV.

10.50 The print out of information on Jonathan Powell. What is there is brief and no reference to his book. Is there a book? What there is refers to his power, his influential background, his being taken on by a bank, his attitude toward Brown, his diplomatic experience. I resist switching the rest of my morning to him continue with planned priorities.

10.55 switch on hot water for washing up and washing me and lose location of mobile phone. Do not feel like doing anything physical still or exercising brain or emotions. Decided do some sorting out work but then realise I need to decide about lunch, and decide to do roast so will have some cereal which might spur me to do washing up and should I go for exercise walk? Feel if I do not make the effort now I will not later, At least I have not checked what is on television and become governed by that.

11.30 washing up completed and stuff to take to recycle got ready, Decide to do roast for midday and light oven. Have cereal small portion. Will do application for medical records and walk down to health centre after lunch, but will do some other work now after one or two more games of chess.

11.45 two games won brining the winning streak tom 80 and tempted to continue bringing me to the noon and first twenty four hour experiment of moving from single working written pieces followed by gap and corrections rethink to a diary format but written as the days progresses with an final overview to get back to the original conception that my working experience should be available on line 24/7.

11.55 The time is used to check the address of the Health centre and also reminds to note the telephone number of my doctor. I was given a leaflet when I registered at the old building only to find it demolished and replaced when I went back during last year, although I had noted the building work across the way and wondered what it was for.

1315 Childhood reflections and thinking Gibraltar

Hopefully I will be able to look back on this week, and possibly next. as important days when I found a new resolve to tackle personal problems such as my weight, attend to necessary household repairs and begin to resolve some of the great mysteries of my early life. I need to do this if I am able to write about the relationship with my birth mother and my care mother and their older sister and who provide a family home until I went to work as child care officer in 1964 and rented a partly furnished flat in the city of Oxford. I am hesitant and cautious knowing the emotional roller coaster than my days have become with self confidence rising and falling, feeling as I did when I was physically younger and then within moments being an old man approaching his end of effective days.

I have decided that 15 maybe my lucky number this year because if you add the two digits of my age together they come to 15 and 15 is the number added to my birth certificate against my second name of Joseph. I resolved the mystery of this during the week and why below this is typed Josephine with a typed line through it. This information was not included in the shorted certificate obtained by my mother when I was eighteen, or in the full version which I subsequently obtained, and was required to send somewhere and was not returned, and in the days before the home copier had become a standard item. I first received this entry in 1999 when I commenced to try and confirm the information given me about the identity of my father. I assumed this was a copy of the register entry rather than a typing mistake by the copier, although it was odd that it had not been mentioned before. The latter possibility brought home to me the impact of such errors for which I was responsible when in my first job I paid insufficient attention to the writing out of new registration log books and vehicle licence renewals and made mistakes such as writing Private, Private, Private, instead of Private, Morris, Blue, or entered the grading of a P.C.T, Pedestrian Controlled Road vehicle incorrectly on some fifty or more milk delivery vehicles in a fleet.

The present registrar’s office has confirmed that this is the copy of an original corrected entry and that my registration was the 15th error recorded by the Registrar at the time. I wish to believe that this was the 15th of the particular year which given my birth in early March means that there could have been some 60 to 90 such errors over the course of the full year, and therefore my own event was not of special significance. However this means a high number so I suspect this refers to errors during the period of work of the Registrar as in the margin is the code 15=T.B. and T.B are the initials of the Registrar, something which I had not previously worked out. Sometimes I see too much or what I do not want to see while at others I miss what is evidently there, or its true meaning. This is an important aspect to the second mystery which may never be resolved.

This is in the form of a question. Was the intention of my mother that I should be placed for adoption or to be brought up as part of her sister’s family with whom she came live in England in 1938?. What part did the Catholic Church play and was it the church or an older brothers who left her in do doubt that she could not return to her homeland?

Back in 1938 Gibraltar was nothing like the community city state it has become today. The era of the day tripper from Spain had not commenced, and individual and family holidays on the continent was restricted to the upper classes within a much more stratified society, Bearing in mind that that the total resident population was between twenty and thirty thousand, (reminder to check the figure) was primarily Mediterranean, that is those born in Gibraltar Spain, Italy and Malta, and some North African and of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern religions, overwhelmingly Catholic, but with strong Jewish and Muslim communities, with the white British Service Officers and Colonial Managers forming the minority but influential Protestant social and economic upper class, leading their separate lives ignoring the smuggling of tobacco, coffee team and the like, way of life of the masses, and where the economy centred on the naval docks and the Military Garrison, and where domestic and manual work was primarily undertaken by Spanish workers crossing the border twice a day from the neighbouring frontier town of La Linea de la Conception, a town which supplied the fruit and vegetables and more openly supplemented the taverns and other places for masculine entertainment, than those directly provided the Gib town centre, and the subject of a publication about Gib scandals which should have appeared in January but interestingly remains to be published. Censorship ?

Although the area of Gibraltar is small with the greater land mass taken up the dramatically soaring Rock whose impact and domination has to be experienced to be understood, individual communities developed around what is in effect an island and the Catholic church in particular, directly accountable to the Pope and Vatican City rather than Madrid or London, was sub divided into church communities who independently of their priests or together with their priests went about things their own way, and could and did make or break the Bishop, along with the power of the Mother Superior of Convent, according to the present Bishop’s researched brilliantly honest history, The Church under a Cloud. It was a later Mother Superior who was responsible for the role my mother was to play at St Joseph’s School and where the records of the Order, long since departed from the Rock, may hold significant information about the circumstances in which she was told not to return to her homeland after my birth.

That my mother was required to leave and not to return to Gibraltar was a severe financial blow for the rest of her sisters, one had become an unsupported single parent with two sons who had become young men, one was severely disabled because of childhood meningitis, one had not worked outside the home, one who could only obtain employment as a governess to girls in a Spanish families from time to time, and one who had moved from being a pupil teacher, to teacher for the Convent run schools, and whose long standing fiancée had disappeared from his training as a Doctor at the University of Madrid during the Spanish Civil War.

Although my mother who at first I knew only as an aunt was told not to return, she provided no mothering to me, was always distant, and was unable to acknowledge me as her son, and only did so after she was admitted into residential care in 2003, shortly before her 96 birthday and when she was in a severe state of memory loss with psychosis. When the British Government decided to evacuate all "non essential" Gibraltarians because the Rock was being turned in to a military and air base HQ for the Mediterranean in World War II and where because of Franco’s superficial neutrality with Germany it was assumed that Germany would try and take the Rock early on as obtained information revealed at the time, my mothers five’ other sisters became part of the exodus. One married shortly beforehand and moved into army supplied quarters in England and where I was evacuated for a time during the War. My uncle in law rented a larger house in a neighbouring town to provide accommodation for these sisters, and my existence could not be kept secret from them and the aunt who I remember provided some mothering, she would give me baths and occasionally tell me a bedtime story, was tot take me with her when she married one of the three army Sergeants to whom she became engaged, and where it was only in her last days aged 93 in hospital that the explanation why she never married was revealed.

There is therefore a question mark over what was to have been my upbringing, between my mother’s arrival in England in 1938, my birth and the arrival of her sisters, This happened before the creation of Children’s departments in 1948. In 1999 and 2000 when I made enquiries, primarily to seek confirmatory evidence about my father. I approached the Catholic Church and Catholic Care bodies covering Croydon and my former schools without success and it is only recently that I decided to approach other bodies where records might have been kept or placed in official archives. It was only today that I realised that I had neglected one other possible source, medical records as since the early 1990’s it is possible to gain access for a small fee.

The second remaining area of some mystery concerns the decision to place me in care in around 1950. Until about then I shared an ordinary size double had with three adult women, my care mother and me at one end and my birth mother and the eldest sister at the other. This was not an appropriate situation, but even in the later 1940’s there were plenty bomb sites waiting for the shortage in building materials and funds to recover from the war, especially in the area where we lived which then only had one small area of local authority housing and no flats. I remember vividly being interviewed by a lady and being asked about my mother and father, saying my father was dead, and unbeknown to me, he was to live for another decade and a half, and that I denied who was my mother, having been told not to disclose her identity to anyone outside the household. I also remember being taken with a case to a warm and welcome home where there several children. I cannot remember if I stayed there over night, for a few days or just for that day, but when my care mother who had taken me visited, I pleased to return home and did so. The same happened when I was taken to hospital for a tonsils and adenoid operation and terrified I had pleaded with her to return before the admission and she had agreed. Subsequently with the help of our Member of Parliament we were allocated a top floor flat in a requisitioned house close to my childhood home and then when the property was returned to its owners, we were allocated one of twelve flats in a small development of two three storey blocks, newly built. It was about a decade later that I was taken by someone from our church to delivered Christmas presents to a child care home in the town and immediately recognised the property to which I had been taken, Again in 1999 2000 I only approached the Catholic authorities and agencies without success. I have now approached the statutory bodies but without expectation that any records will be found.

As with former victims of sexual, physical and mental violence in their childhood, it is fair to ask why wait for so long before making such enquires or making complaint. In my instance the need to know was not sufficiently strong to justify the potential impact on others or my relations with them. Now I accept that it is unlikely that information will be available which will confirm or help, but I need to make the effort.

1312 Reflections and a Film The Sailor of the King

I am tired verging on exhaustion, and have arranged the British Telephone company to give me a reminder waking up call at seven am tomorrow with delivery of the new refrigerator anytime between 8,50 and 12.50, with the vehicle driver, fitter and collector telephoning me from two hour before the approximate time of delivery.

I will therefore go to bed soon, and have felt like going back to bed for much of the day. I cannot remember why I did not do this as when I have done so , even if is for half an hour, I felt that much better and productive afterwards. Today has been a struggle and not without mishap.

I developed an interest in Poland because of World War II but did not meet someone from Poland until towards the end of the 1960’s, an emigrant and his family who had lived through the time of the Nazi’s, and then the time of the Stalinist’s, before coming to the UK. I paid attention to the progress of the Solidarity movement and then my mother and aunt told me of a Polish priest who befriended them after coming to their parish for a summer. They had taken him out to lunch and when returning to Poland he had written and sent them a Christmas card. When he returned to the parish for a second time the condition of my mother had deteriorated and my aunt had recognised that she should not go out unaccompanied and which also meant a sitter for my mother who could not be left on her own. They were still determined to take their friend out for a meal and so they contacted a Catholic couple who lived nearby who in turn made the arrangements with the priest and they were therefore able to take him for a meal at a Wetherspoon’s pub restaurants which had taken over the old and closed Odeon Cinema building close to Wallington station, and where as a child I had gone to the cinema, every Monday and Thursday evenings for several years, for the Saturday morning Children’s show and occasionally for the Sunday evening when there would be a long programme and the cinema organ would rise up to be played during an extended interval between the two films.

The lunch was reported to have been a success although the two had sat smiling throughout the meal, saying little, and insisting on paying everything with cash. Later I met briefly one of the early new arrivals from Poland before the entry of their country into the EEC commenced the major exodus with an estimated half a million coming to England and some two million leaving the country in order to find a better life for themselves and their families.

What happened is that having boarded a train from Victoria to Wallington we were told that the absence of a driver meant we had to take an alternative train which involved a different route for part of the journey but which would take us to West Croydon where there would be a train to Wallington from London Bridge, or we could wait to the next scheduled departure half an hour later. However the information was inaccurate and this was not realised until instead of the train going on to West Croydon it commenced to turn in another direction and I was one of several who alighted in dismay on an unfamiliar station with no idea how to continuing the journey without retracing the route back to Victoria. It was sufficiently late in the evening for the station to be unmanned. It was during a period when I was staying at the former home of my mother, and had visited her in the morning and then gone into central London to see an International film. Those of us who alighted and remained on the platform engaged in conversation about our predicament and this included a young woman who also was heading for Wallington and who had a little English and who was from Poland. Together with some of the others we worked out that we had to take a train back a couple of stations and then get on another train which took us to West Croydon and then I and my new companion went on to Wallington and during this mini adventure I mentioned about my mother and aunt and the Polish priest, as she attended the same Church. On arrival at Wallington as it was late and dark I escorted the young lady part of the journey to where she was living and then she was able to continue more of the way with another lady who had also alighted at Wallington and was going in the same direction. I though of her again tonight as I watched the programme on the number of her compatriots following in her footsteps.

I was also reminded of this incident because of an earlier film which I had watched as part of the British Season which is being shown on TCM and Channel Film Four channels, called The Sailor of the King. I had seen the film before but forgotten that it was shown with two endings and the audience invited to say which they preferred. In the film Michael Rennie is a young navel officer during World War I who engages in conversation with a young woman in his train compartment as they travel from Portsmouth to London and which requires a change of train at stop where there is just an Inn which takes in lodgers, and where because of the war they find the next train involves a wait of three hours so they go for a meal to pass away the time, and then a walk, and then miss the train, and discover there is only one a day, so they have to stay overnight, with the consequence that she find herself pregnant and goes to Canada to have her son, who grows up a Canadian but enlists in the British Navy and wins the VC during a naval event in which Rennie is the senior commander of three vessels en route to escort a merchant convoy during World War II who become involved with trying to sink an important German raider. WOW. The relationship on the train journey is a sub plot for the main story of the film which is that because of limited fuel Rennie has to take the decision to send the two other ships in search of German raider and because only one encounters the vessel, it is sunk with a loss of all hands except for Rennie’s son and one other severely wounded rating. Before being sunk the British ship successfully damages the German boat with a torpedo forcing the captain to take his vessel into a natural harbours hidden by tall rocky cliffs to make repair. Advised of the development Rennie is one of several British ships who go in search of the their enemy, in the hope of catching up before the repairs are completed. Rennie’s son devises a plan to hold up the repairs by stealing a weapon and ammunition, making his way to the top of the cliffs and finding a secure position from which he is able to kill and wound making the repairs. He survives blasts from the ships main guns, and going without water in intense heat for the rest of the day. The repairs are made during the night and a party of armed men is put ashore so that the following morning he is prevented from delaying the German ship further. However when they put to sea they are sunk by Rennie and a German officer who is picked up ensures that the Captain hears about the sailor who held them up for a further 18 hours which led to the sinking.

In the first ending the son is killed and his mother receives a posthumous VC thus meeting Rennie again at the Palace who is next in precedence to get his knighthood. In the second the son survives so they receive their honours together. The son is assigned to Rennie’s command which involves escort work in the North Atlantic which will enable the son to visit his mother and by inference for Rennie to meet with his brief encounter once more. Because the film was planned before World War 2, it is based on a C S Forrester World War 1 story but not completed and released until 1953, the fictional event was updated to the World War II but even in the early 50’s such was the general attitude towards illegitimacy, pre marital relationships and the treatment of sex in the cinema and in society in general that much of what I have said about the relationship between the brief encounter, and that the young hero is the son of Rennie, is inferred and written in such a way that it is not evident that that he knows of the relationship when the film ends. The mother is the kind of woman who will keep such a secret even when she meeting the father again because it appears to be in the best interests of everyone concerned. Now isn’t that a familiar story!
An important theme in the film, expressed by Rennie in a conversation with a junior officer and in a manner which men, until the present decade, were always discouraged from having, he bares his soul about not having always acted as his first inclination, and the missed opportunities and regretted decisions with hindsight as a consequence. He took the sensible and justifiable decision not to engage the German ship because of the fuel shortage and consequently risk to the convey there were still to meet up with, and the result was the loss of another vessel with possibly all hands. While at an early age I learnt not to have regrets when with hindsight a different choice or different action might had led to a more positive outcome, this has not prevented me to think about what might have happened, an especially what happened to and other individual involved, however casual and brief our involvement..

Yesterday I was reminded of the amazing coincidence when undertaking my final period of practical work in the summer of 1964 before qualifying as a child care officer, I had met in the street the person who had ended a sales course for selling office equipment, second to my first position, and by a quick thinking had been appointed to work, the best available territory with success and now held an important position in the company. For we had both found it what had happened to each other five years later and that the outcome had been mutually positive.

This was not the significant unplanned and unexpected encounter during my placement that summer. I have previously written of my first experience in work at the age of sixteen in a local government officer in central London. I had been attached as an office junior to a section of six men who had all fought for their country, one in the first World War and the others in the second, one at sea, two as pilots and the remainder in the army. The section was one of three, led by the brother of a former Labour Government Minister and attended by a typing pool of I think three, maybe four individuals who were also responsible for providing everyone with tea or coffee, morning and afternoon. Shortly after my appointment one the ladies had decided that I should be asked to also help out with the tea making. I had never made myself a cup of tea or coffee, let alone anyone else, having been raised in households with aunts, and I was too shy and embarrassed to explain this inadequacy and my Effort was duly disastrous from a, combination of not keeping the kettle on until it boiled and not putting an appropriate quantity of tea in the pot. This happened in 1955 and in 1964 I went for my lunch in the County Council staff restaurant and met again the very typing pool lady who had decided I should make the tea. She had changed her location the service which had employed us was altered and moved from central to west London. There was yet another encounter with someone from my past, in this instance the very recent past. I went to Ruskin College from 1961 to 1963 where the deputy principal was a fine theoretical economist and former economic adviser to the government and he had rated my economic essays and examination papers highly, to a level which would have enabled me to be recommended by the college for interview to an Oxford College to read Politics Philosophy and Economics for a second public Examination, gaining a credit for the first public examination and which would have involved a paper in Latin. I had significant less contact with him during the second year, so it was a pleasant surprise when walking from my lodgings into the city centre on a sunny Saturday morning I also met him in the street, walking to his lodgings as he had come to the city for a weekend break. I suspect from, time to time most people have an encounter of this nature, but to have two and then three within a period of three months in one place where one had not been before remains special and memorable.

Another event which reminded of these occurrences was more in the vein of the sailor and the young Polish woman and train journey encounters. One weekend towards the end of the placement I had taken the train from the city into London, on my way to seeing my birth and my care mothers, and their older sister. An exceptionally well groomed and attractive air hostess in uniform, entered and sat opposite me in a compartment where we were joined by one or perhaps two others. I was feeling unusually confident, possible because I had heard that I had passed the theoretical examination set by the university, or that it had been intimated that my placement had gone well, and that despite earlier difficulties I was on my way to obtained formal approval to practice, but I engaged in conversation with the young woman, not with any romantic intent but as a mark of my new found self confidence. I can remember little of the details of the conversation except that we both talked away oblivious to the presence of others and that she readily accepted my invitation to for a coffee or tea in the buffet car and such was out chat that the train was soon drawing into the terminal and it was time to collect our things and depart, me to Victoria and to Wallington, and she to London Airport. I said goodbye, and I can still see the look of disappointment that we were parting without any exchange of information or agreement to have further contact. For a moment I considered catching her up, and then the moment was lost. Had it been a Hollywood film then the outcome would have been different. I know how my life subsequently turned out and indeed over the next three years it was change dramatically in a number of positive and undeserved ways, so the only regret is never knowing if I had been right in the interpretation of that moment and what had happened to the person subsequently. I have always understood why as part of some religions there is the belief of the resolution of such questions.

I cannot end this writing without returning to the substance of the programme about the movement of at least half a million Polish citizens and others from Eastern Europe to the UK since their entry into the EEC, and where the programme focussed on the impact on the former new Town of Peterborough, and where a former Labour Council leader had once hit the national headlines when his Council had been among the first to offer a home to Ugandan Asians after their eviction by Amin. He had become only one of many others long standing local citizens who felt overwhelmed by the impact of tens of thousands new residents which had swelled the population by at last one tenth since entry into the EEC and among those expressing concern was a woman of Asian background

Some of the complaints and concerns were justified in reality, particularly the problem of the primary schools becoming full to bursting and the problem of trying to educate an increasing majority of children where English was not the main language,. However most of the complaints were valid in terms of being able to blame the new arrivals. This was expressed by one resident one resident who admitted the area was becoming run down but he put the blame squarely on the younger generations local whites and this was borne out soon after, by the behaviour and comments of a group of beer drinking uneducated racist yobs, the kind who beat to death older white folk who tell then off because of their unacceptable behaviour. The local man made a point of saying that the Eastern Europeans were not a problem because they worked hard and paid their taxes.

There were two examples of this work hard ethic in the programme. Both involved long hours of manual work. In one the employer said that not only did his new employees arrive on time, but if the could not find the next task themselves they came to him rather than wait around to be told. A similar recommendation was made by the farmer struggling to keep up with demand for his products and who was offering £7 a hour which might not seem much for a 40 hour week except he was offering all the hours of daylight and one young man said he was getting £2000 a month which enabled him to run two cars, one for work and one for pleasure at the weekend. When the local white youths were told of the job opportunities available, they were not interested, one admitted becomes it meant working with the Eastern Europeans, but all the others because it involved hard work and they preferred to sign on.

This is not to minimise the problems being created with the most important the feeling of being overwhelmed by the pace of change and feeling a foreigner in one’s own land. This is understandably more difficult for those of the older generation who tend to look back rather than forward. The point was also made that because of the number of single men or men on their own there had been an increase in the number of houses where it was known young women were offering their specialist services. This is always the situation where they are itinerant workers or service personnel. I once did a Drug Advisory service visit to a residential and affluent county area where there was a significant increase in drug use and the provision of young women offering similar services because of the deployment of a couple of thousand workers building a power station, although it was only part of the overall problem but it was only part of the overall problem, as the other young women had been providing services including drugs to American servicemen at the local air base, where the problem had come to attention after a B52 had flown upside down over the town when under the influence The young women involved were said to be organised day trippers from another city. There was also a regular and long standing market for drugs obtained from Europe via the local ferry, aging former flower children were known to be continuing to grow pot on their rural premises, and London city commuters were known to have become partial to cocaine as a recreational drug, as were young people who took over city and town centres at weekends, overwhelming public houses, restaurants and night clubs. There appeared to be few Asians or migrants in the area concerned.

However if many of the concerns are more of feelings and coping with rapid change, in Poland the departure of so many of their working age men folk had become critical with significant shortage of workers at all levels. As expressed by the former Leader of Solidarity and elected President people had such high expectations of personal economic advancement as well as of democratic freedoms which had not been realised and which were unlikely to be realised despite the latest change in government. By moving to the UK and elsewhere in Europe they could earn in a week what it took them a month back home. There were some gainers with women now being able to do jobs previously restricted to men, thus increasing their personal and family buying power, but also this appeared to be doing was to increase their appetite to move to the UK and other European countries. A point which was brought home when one Polish city government official came on come back home mission to Peterborough and only one person at a meetings aid they wished to return because they were homesick, adding but she would have to be able to earn more before doing so. The explanation for the popularity of the new arrivals, especially those from Poland was demonstrated by film of a local Catholic church where the congregation had increased threefold. I wager the only reason why the yobs interviewed have gone anywhere near a church would be to desecrate it.