1677 The Observing Traveller

For most of my life when I commenced a journey my concern was to reach the destination quickly and safely. I can remember little of what occurred during the travel. Between 1999 and 2004 when I travelled first to help support my birth and care mothers in their home and then to visit my mother in the residential home where she had been placed, making the log journey to outer London from the North East and back at least once a month, I grew weary of the hours spent driving focussed on the behaviour of other motorists and of the hours spent on the M25 nose to bumper for mile upon mile, I broke the journey with an overnight stop at a Travel Lodge, especially when the firm started to offer amazing concessions at certain times of the year but available at the least popular locations.

The stop over mean that I could start the day leisurely and go the cinema en route before making the stop over, having a good meal, and then the following morning also make a visit, perhaps to the property of National Trust or English Heritage.

It is only since deciding to write about my experience on a daily basis that whatever kind of journey is being made, I find myself always on the alert, observing, listening, making notes which I can sometimes read back, thinking about what I am seeing or hearing and trying to draw conclusions which anyone else faced with the same situation would also make. The extent of random coincidence always interests, as well as situations which have a similarity those which have been experienced several decades earlier.

The weather was unkind but the journey by car last Thursday was surprisingly good, having slept well and risen early and packed everything the night before. I had also simplified the usual mixed packing arrangement. I use medium size soft rectangular bags with a carry handle rigid base. In one I placed some reserve tined, a jar of olives, some decaffeinated tea and coffee and the carton packed croissants and Danish pastries. The second contained the two lap tops, one to watch DVD’s and the other for the internet and writing, The intention had been to use the internet on the DVD use but I forgot to bring my code for the spectrum registration which is automatic on the older laptop. There is also the digital radio and clock and my camera, plus map, guides, reading book, and DVD’s. There third is for clothes. The Marks and Spencer’s Cold bag has the milk, large salad box mixture and made up salad for journey, two packs of ham and two of salami, two packs of grapes, and three of fruit salad. There is a compartment at the back for the utensils and sheets of kitchen roll. The rucksack contained a flask of coffee, notebooks, tissues and a tea towel. There was also a hand towel loose at the back of the car and a spare pair of shoes.

There were heavy showers from the start and I regretted not having delayed for a coffee and croissant. The first change of mind occurred as I drove towards the AIM via the John Reid Road and Newcastle Road and could see a significant traffic build up at a stand still. I reversed directions at the roundabout and headed into the Whiteleas estate and Bolden and with a sun burst I turned off into the Azda car parking area and on to outside the Cineworld for the coffee and croissant. The croissant was good but the coffee was lukewarm. A puzzle which suggested perhaps the kettle had not been allowed to boil. I poured it onto the already wet surface and set off, driving without stopping down the A19 and then M1 to the Wakefield service area to eat lunch. As I went to the toilet I was accosted by a man on crutches who claimed he was a diabetic and wanted a lift to Leicester. I declined The situation did not look right, no coat, no luggage, I looked for a TV camera. I was polite but firm and he was angry and abusive which confirmed the wisdom of the decision.

I stopped again for a cup of coffee mid afternoon within half an hour of the M25 junction. There I again saw the same man soliciting drivers of parked vehicles, The M1 has been winded to four lanes and the heavens opened and rain fell sheeting reducing visibility and driving speeds. I dread the M25 as it is rare when one does not have to slow down to standstill for mile upon mile during the stretch from the M40 to Oxford, Heathrow Airport, the M4 and M3 junctions. This time I had a clear run, but traffic was close to standstill for miles in the opposite direction. My route on paper appeared simple. Through the time of the M25 I had usually taken the M25 to the Purley, Croydon junction which is also the start of the M23 to Brighton and on to Wallington or to the Premier Inn at Waddon, or the Innkeeper’s at Purley Oaks. Occasionally I took the route through central London or along the North Circular passed Wembley to the Ealing and the South Circular, Tooting and Mitcham.

This occasion I had to take the next junction (six), where the Travel Lodge was located at South Whyteleafe with a railway station a few meters away. This part of Surrey is full of wooded hills and long valleys, including one called Happy Valley. The Travel Lodge was easy to see on the other side of a dual lane highway with a central reservation but a right turn exit into the entrance of a once farm but is now a large complex of ugly institutional looking apartment blocks with the turn into the Travel Lodge car parks immediately to the right. The building has three floors and about sixty rooms. The Lodge is similar to that at Croydon central with its own food and bar facility. I unpacked and was soon ready for bed although it before 9.30. The consequence was that I woke with the dawn and was able to write then.

I had set aside the Saturday for a visit to central London, unaware until just beforehand that this was a day which the environmentalists had set aside for a march and rally in support of Government’s taking stronger measures in advance of the G 20 meeting next weekend. They were assembling on the embankment and going to Hyde Park. The forecast bad weather could affect the situation in either way.

I had earlier in the visit crossed over the main road and walked the few metres to the railway station to work out that this was on the mainline via Purley Oaks, my sometime place of stay and then on to East Croydon where it was of advantage to change trains to the a fast one from the south coast stopping only at Clapham junction before Victoria. There was only one more station to the end of the line at Caterham, with in the other direction, Whyteleafe central a straggling town, then Kenley, with its small airport for private flying, and Purley, where my former independent Catholic school is located and where the south coast trains branch off to Brighton, Littlehampton and Bognor Regis. Do they also go in the other direction to Newhaven, Eastbourne and Hastings? I must check out of curiosity. From Purley there is Purley Oaks and South Croydon before East Croydon and from there three overlapping routes to either Victoria or London Bridge with for me the most familiar route Selhurst, Thornton Health Streatham, Balham (for entry to the London Underground system and the Oval Surrey County Cricket ground), Wandsworth Common, Clapham Junction, Battersea Park and Victoria, having come from Wallington, Waddon and West Croydon, a route travelled throughout my life with the first trip the day after the V E day parade when the most of London took to the streets. I did travel a few months when I was 19 years on the London Bridge Line when I worked for British Olivetti with our office in the City but I cannot recite the names of the stations on visualise them in the same way. Now there is a train from Brighton to East Croydon which goes to London Bridge and then over the River Thames to St Pancras and if wanted onward to Luton.

Next to the railway station there is a bus stop going into Purley, Sutton and Croydon and a petrol garage which I used on the Friday morning where there is an excellent store attached which includes fresh rolls and cakes and a coffee and snack outlet as well as the usual range of sandwiches and other food supplies. So although the Travel Lodge is out of town there are all the essential services within a few metres and with restaurants and a fish and chips take away in Whyteleafe itself

Although I was going to bed and sleep early I was also managing to sleep on after the dawn for me I was also sleep through so that it just before 10 am when I was ready to go for arraign into London on the Sunday, The ticket office appears to be closed on a permanent basis but there is an automatic machine which takes cash and cards so I purchased a one day all zones travel card for £7.50 which entitles one to travel all day throughout greater London and is exceptional in its value just as the ability of those over sixty to travel free throughout the system and use trains, the underground system buses.

Apart from enjoying seeing familiar places from the comfort of a train seat once more my attention taken up with how two ticket checkers dealt with a young man who claimed he had a student concession to justify his ticket but could not produce the concession card and claimed he had no money and no credit card. I suspected he was an anarchist en route to the demonstration and whole believed his commitment and concerns meant that he did not have to work, claim benefits, or pay for his travel and other aspects of his lifestyle. He said he lived with his mother and that she would pay. He would given a note to give to the ticket collector guard at the end of the line. I wondered what the outcome would be and if it was true he was travelling to London without any cash on him.

This dependence on a parent was reflected very differently in the next overheard conversation after I changed trains at East Croydon and sat behind a Spanish young man and the young woman with whom he had a difficult conversation in which she was doing her best to engage, sympathise and understand his negative and pessimistic viewpoint which he insisted was realistic but which masked a disturbed, hurt and bitter young man where he needed such a companion partner but she would be wise to steer clear of him me thinks he would betray her in the same way he argued that everyone one else had betrayed or would betray him.

Just before Victoria Station a new block of flats is in the process of construction hidden from view by a covering and appearing to advertise a new luxury development, but I wonder if the sales literature makes reference to being close to one of the busy stations of London?

There was plenty of time before the film and with rain again I made by way again since the hastily arranged visit for the funeral of a relative to the seating at one end of the floor of the restaurant and fast food outlets and where I passed another meeting taking place before a lap top. This reminded that on the afternoon coffee stop on my journey to London I had also encountered a meeting at a adjacent table between three men who appeared unconcerned that their conversation could be head by me and another man who was also sitting closer to them. I learnt how one of the three had set a new business with others after some failure or problem with a previous enterprise. One of the three posed the questions. I speculated was this a secret millionaire; was he a venture capitalist or considering a take over or partnership in the business. I was reminded of some twenty five years before when I was privy that a Take over bid had been agreed at a motorway service area meeting. Perhaps the view is that in such a public place media attention, competitors or others who could benefit from the knowledge of meeting was unlikely.

I could see outside from my location and although I was tempted to write more notes as soon as the rain stopped and skies commenced to clear I decided I needed to do some walking and made my way across to Victoria Street to where Billy Elliot the musical was showing at the Palace Theatre. I was tempted and added this to the list of possibilities for the day if I changed my mind from the morning plan. It was at the road junction close to Catholic Westminster Cathedral on the other side of the road that I was stunned by the new glass edifices that had risen since my recent visits.

I have known this area for fifty five years. Between 1955 to 1957 I had walked from the station to a bus along the Vauxhall Bridge Road to Middlesex House where I worked and which is now Random House the publishing company, now within view of the iconic intelligence building but then around the corner from the Tate. Some lunchtimes I would make my way on foot to Victoria Street returning via Horseferry and Masham or vice versa, sometimes just for a walk, sometimes to visit the Cathedral or to the Army and Navy stores where once I had said hullo to Sir Leonard Hutton and bought a signed copy of Just My Story. I had continued to visit this way, sometimes on foot when I attended committee meetings at the Home Office in the 1980’s or by car making way through central London from the North East along the across the Vauxhall Bridge on way to Wallington. I had seen conventional tower blacks of flats rise up but these new buildings are something special and worth exploring although a further rain shower was in the offing.

There are four new buildings with three main glass covered walkways to a central street level glass covered Piazza. There are several fashionable restaurants and with fashionable prices. Two of the new buildings are offices and but the third with some twenty storeys high is apartments. There is also a Mark and Spencer’s with a roof level Piazza of stone and grass and which is reached by the upward of two escalator and where there is a large oriental restaurant and an empty art gallery and other office type facilities plus behind this further interesting looking apartments. It was evident that the development had been designed for yesterday’s economy, so what was the position to day and in the immediate future?

It rained again so I made my way to nearest bus stop stopping off at Trafalgar Square. Along Whitehall there was considerable police presence among the usual weekend tourists. The queue to visit Westminster Abbey was considerable. While the Cathedral remained a place of Christian worship, the Abbey has become a tourist attraction along with the Vatican.

I had debated visiting the Cathedral out of respect for my birth and care mother, but to do so would have raised an issue which I did not want to consider and which was brought to my attention again as I passed by the offices of the Department of Health to the premature and preventable death of my care mother caused by a range of failures by a hospital authority, and community health authority and their individual officers together with a medical practice, regarding the premature and preventable death of my care mother in 2003. The failure to achieve justice will haunt me for the rest of my life.

A candlelight concert was taking place at St Martin’s in the Fields in the evening at 7.30 with two Brandenburg Concertos and other pieces. Tickets were reasonably priced but I wanted to avoid staying out so late after being out and about during the day.

A major refurbishment of Leicester Square is planed and is out for public consultation. A similar consultation is underway in Sutton and both Councils are proposing to change what has been a comparatively recent area restricted to pedestrian use by the reintroduction or increase in more trees and plants and less concentre. There is obviously government euro money available for what is essentially an environmental improvement and is probably similar to that used to upgrade civic parks. Will I try and find out?

Where has the Swiss Clock gone together with the Swiss centre? A new building is rising from where the old one was. The Trocadero building remains an odd concoction. The public toilets cost£1. If one walks a few yards on the same level along the classy underground passageway where now the trendy bars and stores have all closed and into the Piccadilly Circus underground there are large, clean, bright, supervised public toilets as good as any anywhere, for free.

Back at the Trocadero the external escalator to the Cineworld Cinema was not working and in order to get to the right level it was necessary to go down and around to then go up to reach the entrance. My memory was good for once in that after buying my ticket which only cost £5.90 because a concession for seniors still applied for midday showings on a Saturday, I was able to find myself a seat in the lounge area out of the view of the ticket desk and sweet pop corn, coke, hot dog seller in order to surreptitiously eat my mixed green salad with ham and fruit salad. Another old and single men also had brought sandwiches which he eat discretely at a table. There were signs offering a pop corn and drink deal for more that the cost of my ticket. There were no signs forbidding taking food which had not been purchased at the cinema into the waiting seat area as in some cinemas now, as more and more people buy there goodies at the nearest supermarket and save a fortune.

I was going to see Che Guevara Part 2 based on the Bolivian Diaries. There were four others who joined me, three young men and a young woman, all singles. More on the film another day

Outside there was sunshine again but moving clouds indicated a day of showers. Mama Mia was showing at a nearby theatre. I decided to walk back to Victoria station and consider options on the way. Along the Haymarket I was amazed to see that there is a stage production of On the Waterfront. Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen will appear here in May in a new production of Waiting for Godot. The following day on a visit to Brighton and Worthing I learnt that the National Theatre production was on national tour prior to the London performances and the two had appeared there earlier in the week.

Alas it was five minutes after the 3pm matinee had commenced and a few minutes earlier I would have bought whatever available ticket. There was also a trendy restaurant where a bowl of soup cost a fiver and the rest of the menu was upwards.

In Trafalgar Square a rally was taking place. It was a small one where the speakers was not using the natural platform of the plinth and where I had once stood alongside Lord Russell as members of the Committee 100. I went close to investigate and it was about autism and a man was speaking who still believed there were links between the disease and the vaccination programme.

Whitehall was closed to traffic although temporary barriers were being cleared and walking on the East side was difficult because of pavement improvements and work on the roadside underground services. I had wanted to take a close look at the monument to the contribution of women in wartime. It is a more striking and moving construction to the Cenotaph.

As a reached the end of Whitehall it commenced to rain again so I quickly went into Westminster underground entrance along the Embankment and discovered the significant improvements that have been made to the entrance hall and ticket offices. About time too.

The rain decided what I was to do. I would go to Clapham Junction by train and Wandsworth to the Cineworld Cinema to see film about the Life of Brian Clough. I caught a train immediately and then a bus arrived within minutes with a stop just by the entrance to the shopping mall. How I stop to look at the price of meals at an American steak restaurant where once a day it was possible to enter the steak challenge. If you eat four pounds of steak in an hour you did not have pay the cost of £59.95. This only took a minute or two thought.

On arrive at the cinema ticket centre there was a good queue but also several staff and to my frustration I found that I had noted the wrong times and I had probably missed the start of the film by a matter of minutes. Although I had a free admittance voucher I hate missing the start of a film. Instead I decided to see the second Clive Owen film in a matter of weeks (previously the International). This time it was Duplicity with Julia Roberts, a caper involving two former intelligence officers who decided to go private and make $40 million dollars to give themselves the lifestyle they had become accustomed. More on the film another day.

Afterwards with rain spots falling I was luck again to catch a bus back to Clapham within seconds of leaving the shopping centre and crossing the road to the bus stop. At the station entrance I visited the Sainsbury’s Direct for a small baguette. A soft light twist filled with chocolate and Danish pastry. I would have a feast back at in my Travel Lodge Room with salami and strong coffee. There was no train to Caterham listed one the departures board at the Station so I guessed I had missed one so I caught the first fast train to East Croydon and there had only to wait a few minutes for a train from London Bridge. There were more people on board than anticipated. Back in my room I enjoyed the feast and then watched the highlights of England’s game and Slovakia. At least I believe I watched most of it because I came over very tired and got into bed. I do not we scored four goals and had to keep changing the centre forward because of injury. I switch everything off without listening to the after match comments and went immediately to sleep.

1170 Prayer for Mabel

One of my earliest memories is my mother saying the rosary with her sisters during air raids. Because the V1 flying bomb was launched in daylight I remember seeing one over head, its engine cutting out later as we disappeared into the shelter. Today both memories became underlined for very different reasons. This afternoon I watched the first part of Operation Crossbow which covered the trials of the V1 through to the launching of the V2 and the work on the V3 with the power to reach New York from Europe.
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In the early part of the afternoon I said the Hail Mary for my mother with a priest as he performed the anointing and absolution of her sins. She gave him what I can only describe as a radiant smile of recognition. It is usually difficult for me to say words, aspects of which I cannot accept, as being true or appropriate. There was no such difficulty

The previous day my mother nearly ran out of clean nightdresses as with the move from a four bedded ward to a single room and the decision to place her on the "pathway" I had forgotten to check the position so there were four to immediately wash and dry. For a moment there was a little sickening feeling when the dryer refused to work although the on button was lit, so I opened and then shut the door more firmly and it did its required job. I was not inclined to iron until this morning and after the work was completed I decided to travel immediately to Sunderland after preparing lunch.

In the rush I forgot to dry the prawns and the lettuce and realised too late that the rolls would be soggy and inedible by the lunch time. I dried everything, the prawns, the lettuce and the rolls, putting the lettuce and prawns in a container. and the dusted mild olive oil spread rolls in a tin with a good lid, for later, after they had dried on kitchen tissue. One I had earlier this evening with soup and a second in a moment with two slices of cheese and a cup of coffee while watching the second part of the film which was on TCM2 after returning from my evening visit, Fortunately I had bought 3 packs of 4 rolls for £1 so made up two more for the lunch which I took separately adding a banana and small bottle of cold water. There was only time to eat some fresh pineapple for breakfast although later from M and S I bought a cinnamon whirl which was devoured in the car park as tenses. The purpose of the visit to Marks and Spencer's was to purchase pretty night dressers, three to add to those which were now ready and avoid any further crisis during what was expected to be no more than days. A matron of mature years appeared curious that I was examining the female nightwear so I smiled and held one against my frame. "Ooh you are wicked."

I usually wear black shirts, not to identify me as a Goth or a member of the Toon army but to hide the full impact of a 16 stone rounded tum. However in the circumstances these were no longer appropriate and on checking the wardrobe the only suitable shirts were short sleeved. I selected a pale blue for £10 and then saw a packet of three for £15 which should see me over the next few days given that I am washing, drying and ironing every two or three. The Sunderland Branch of British Home Stores was closed and follows the Sunderland closure of Woolworths and Littlewoods although other stores have taken the place of the latter two. It is odd because Woolworths survives at South Shields and in Jarrow, and only within the past two years has a BHS branch opened in South Shields.

When I rush I create a good sweat, and usually carry a spare shirt and towel. Fortunately I had parked the car on an upper floor with a few vehicles before stripping to the waist, drying and deciding on the pale blue after consuming the pastry. There has been a significant price differential between this car park next to the cinema complex and with the Casino in one corner and the other multi-storey car parks closer to the shopping centre although there distance is small. To day I found an increase from 60 pence to 80p an hour although you get three free hours if you sue the cinema and twenty four is using one of the remaining restaurants built as part of the development. Two have already been closed. This makes even more odd the speculative opening of the theatre restaurant in a block of older buildings all available renting and looking the worse for outside wear in the road leading from the shopping centre to the cinema casino car park complex. The new development has a small entrance with only a normal shop front although this has been replaced by contemporary glass depicting a theatre scene and there are two large lighted chandeliers visible. The advertisements offer a meal with songs from the shows for £35 per head, (I think remember from an add), and reminds me of the all in entertainments and meals offered on the Spanish Costa's, although this seems to be on a much smaller scale. In contrast to style someone has pasted large lettering to say that bookings for this Friday and Saturday are now available. The venture is bold and unlike Sunderland and I will make the effort to check any reviews and wish it well. There has been a large vacant space next to car park which is now being developed with a two storey structure emerging so far. I believe there will be a master plan for this area with the new penthouse tower block on the Bridge riverside with a unoccupied office/shops/whatever included on the road level floor, the riverside development student and private accommodation and the Old Town improvements further east towards the docks and the commercial older buildings, former town houses I assume, lots of lawyers, and some cobbles to the south. I also make a further note that the town's stage school also looks closed. There will be time to find these things out if I remain interested, later

I arrived at the hospital before eleven. This evening over a meal of the soup, a ready made pasta bake and the rest of the fresh pineapple there we as time to watch some of a recording of England 20/20 world cricket competition. There seems to have been just about time for the team to have said goodbye to their families before catching the plane to where (South Africa?) after that excellent win at Lords to take the one day series against India 4.3. Petersen, Flintoff were both playing again and despite a brilliant start by the opponents who yesterday shocked the cricket world by beating Australia Yesterday evening Scotland beat France 1.0 in Paris, a brilliant goal and world class goal keeping from Sunderland's £9 million summer signing. I also enjoyed England's 3.0 win at Wembley over Russia but the news is grim for farmers with a second outbreak of Foot and Mouth near Ingham in Surrey and I listed to an ex warrior talk of what happened to him after being wounded and returning home. He gets flashbacks. These I know can be more frightening that the real experience. I had one once immediately after I returned home from six months in prison to a welcome from my mother and her sisters as if I had been away on some work trip or holiday. We never spoke of where I had been or why and I talked myself out of what appeared to be happening to myself psychologically and emotionally. I never had a flashback again. One was enough, bit like going to prison. I wonder if all recruits who will see active service are psychologically screened these days. Not to do so is negligence of the highest order, criminally negligent I would add. However I suspect it is impossible to make 100% predictions of how individuals will behave when put to the test. You have to recruit killers who will stop killing when you decide and expect them to live with what they have done and seen afterwards.

" Dear Mary Magdalene, I hope you are continuing to enjoy heaven and sorry for not having been in touch much recently. I would send texts but my stumpy fingers are hopeless with small keys and I have to correct and correct the typing and word forms.

I am writing to ask that you help Mabel who is starting on her pathway. Although she is well prepared for the trip my instinct tells me the going will get rough and while her mental determination and stamina remains as tough as ever, the body is getting weaker, nature's way I guess. As you know Mabel was hit with a double whammy because the illness not only churned up her concepts of time and place but increasingly during this year, since her one hundred birthday, has mixed up and stopped some of the signals from the brain to the body so she might get even more confused and lose her way a bit. Having said that if anyone can find where you all are hanging out these days, it is she.

My favour is that you locate the present whereabouts of all her sisters and brothers, as well as her parents and grandparents and other relatives and let them know she is on her way. You will remember she drove everyone crazy by reciting their names over and over again when she first went into care in January 2003 and while I am able to go through something of their lives with her it is difficult to know how much she is able now hear and her focussing has become very limited.

PS I was glad to hear last time how well Judas is doing given his subsequent bad PR, something you will know only too well about. Bye for now. Joseph."

1168 Rick Rescorla

This has been slow Sunday in September. Dispiritied overtired, overeating. I have seen too much of myself and of others and then I saw a programme about the life of Rick Rescorla. The man who foresaw 9/11, lived and died his boyhood dream.

First public reasons for the mood. The sun don't shine any more and a cold wind commenced to blow. It look like rain but held off. I reattached the sleeves to my jacket. Previously the sun came has come out once more when I did this and they had to be quickly unzipped again. Today I think they are on for the rest of Autumn and soon it will be necessary to attach to the coat. Was this pessimism or realism? My forecasting of disaster has always been good.

It was not a morning for walking but I needed to ensure that a letter arrived for the 11th. At the Post Office a small sticker covered the Sunday posting information and the smaller print announced an end to Sunday collections from October. Another example of losing public support. OK the business post was collected Friday Saturday and the majority of human beings in the technologically dominated world prefer to communicate by email, especially as one can also include documents and photos. The majority of the population in the world will not know what I am talking about. There are 200 million profiles on Myspace wow.

I decided to try and resolve the issue of the relocation of Asda. Previously there was a report that the company wanted to relocate because of the limited space at its present location, although it is ideal for those like me living on the Lawe Top to the Flagg Court area who can walk back with small purchasers or use the car on our way back or for a combined visit elsewhere in the town centre. However from the company's viewpoint genuine car shoppers are put off by the limited car parking at peak times, since the manned barriers had to be removed and with it the requirement to show a receipt with the length of stay governed by the purchase. I understood that in order to continue to reduce or maintain prices, volume sales have to increase in competition with other supermarkets. The proposed relocation was along Coronation Street. Placing a supermarket in a street dedicated to the Monarch struck me as another symbolic step towards elevating the role of the Prime Minister and side lining the future Monarchy to a highly commercialised tourist attraction.

There had been a signboard at the existing site saying that a development would shortly take place and according to the press the atrocious and unused multi a storey car park by the old station was demolished to make way for a temporary car park while the existing site was redeveloped. The signboard has now disappeared along with the eyesore, but although this would make a good car park for station, and town centre, it remains fenced.

There is gasometer at one end of Coronation street opposite the new upmarket shopping development which destroys the tone of the proposed development area. There are two municipal car markets both underused, one set back so conversion to free supermarket car parks will not cause to great loss of revenue to the local authority from this source. The site is limited by a rise in ground to the site of the former St Hilda's colliery. There are new signs covering both car parks indicating a food retail development but not who for. There are derelict industrial use buildings adjacent and grassed banking behind which is a site used for travellers. This area has also been sealed while a different company is responsible for sewage work on behalf of the water authority. This will mean always taking the car and although a slight detour, it is on the way to or back from the residential home and now the hospital. However it is unlikely I will still be travelling in this direction when the new store opens. One advantage is that there will be a café restaurant. The extra walking will do be good. Always look on the bright side of life.

I am studying the official Riverside development plan which includes a proposal to develop recreational activities at Mill Dam, extending activity from Market Square down to this area and the Ferry. There is desperate need already to create a safe pedestrian crossing from the Market Square, Coronation street roadsides go the Ferry crossing and Mill Dam as there is often continuous traffic as families, couples and individuals rush to catch the ferry.

Weekends at hospitals have the same problem as at residential homes. OK British workers, especially professionals have got used to the concept of the five day week and they need time off to spend all their extra money. However residents and patients, cannot alter their conditions and needs on the basis of weekdays and weekends. Against expectation relatives and friends visit less at weekends than they do at weekends.

Once upon a time 3pm Saturday afternoon was the time when professional football was played. The FA Cup was also played on Saturday afternoons with replays midweek Then came the live televising of First Division/Premiership matches and the doorway was opened for televising Cup/ European Competitions and World Competition. For several years it is possible to regularly watch the Spanish and the Italian League once British players were recruited. Now the number of Saturday afternoon 3pm games has reduced with some games played at midday and other others early evening, and then on Sundays at midday and at 4pm. There was regularly a Monday evening game with European and other Cup games played Tuesday to Thursday. We have to change our lives to watch football because of the power of Television. The price of tickets continues to increase beyond the rate of inflation as do players wages and transfer fees. But all this happens because of public demand and willingness to pay whether to travel to watch matches lives or the additional fees for Satellite and Cable.

The better paid the doctor the more he controls when and how he works and public needs and demands are considered irrelevant.

The treatment of those with severe memory loss illness is also changing. When my mother was first diagnosed and the question of residential care arose I was told that there were no establishments which would take those with this psychological and those whose condition was primarily physical, although over time those with the psychological develop physical problems which overshadow the psychological and those who enter care because of physical problems also develop psychological. The distinctions become blurred. The situation in the home were my mother was resident, I begin to use the past tense, is that those with physical problems inhabit the ground floor and those with psychological the top but there has been some planned mixing for special events or in use of the garden and external smoking area.

In hospital there are two problems, as there has always been in relation to the elderly. Mixing those who are going to get better with those who are not and mixing those with major psychological problems with those who do not. Sometimes there are no solutions which meet the needs of everyone

So I eat too much, I did insufficient exercise, I played around with a communication, dissatisfied with what I had said and what I had not, perhaps it will not be sent at all. There are piles of work to be sorted to be made into sets grows, and correspondence issues, some could save money lay unattended. There are various jobs around the house to do or organise, some involve getting help. The battery charging unit on my digital camera is playing up again.

The day turned evening and dissatisfaction with myself became stronger especially as I missed the beginning of the man who predicted 9/11. I watched the rest of the programme and became even more dissatisfied with how I had spent my day and my life

I watched 9/11 as it happened. I was visiting my mother and her sister after they had a full lunch and I light one because of going out for a celebratory meal in central London that evening. The television was turned on for them and when the first plane crashed I thought the burning tower was part of the afternoon disaster movie. I had arrange a cable channel which was as much for me and for them so when I realised that the scene was on going I switched quickly between ITV and BBC and then to 24 hour News, BBC, ITV, Sky, and the USA news services, CNN and Fox and realised that this was a live happening and switched back just in time to witness the entry of the second plane. What did I do, watch on with the sound which would considerably upset my aunt, although seven then I was not certain how my mother would respond as she would often become upset without apparent external cause and unaware of situations which would have in times past, or find something else for them to see. I thought the event too important to not watch and continued to experience with them until it was time for me to walk to the railway station and make the forty minute journey into London.

The mood of travellers was difficult to gauge as it is always is in London at rush hour times as mostly people do not know each other or want to. Usually it is only if one travels at a time when children are going or returning from school, a family is making an outing or tourist visitors are onboard that one is able to overhear conversations. Today a sense of what was happening outside, and its impact, was obtained when two young women, school girls, but on a mission of some kind arrived and one was in constant use of a mobile phone sharing information with the other. The conversation was centred on the purpose of their visit but there was also references to the impact of events in New York and Washington on the centre of London, with reference to the banning of flights above the capital and then rumour that London was being closed.
The restaurant arranged for the meal is usually very lively full of talk but that evening it was notably quiet. I watched the TV for the rest of the visit and then when I returned home and the event had the same impact as when I switched on the news one morning ten year ago and learnt that Princess Diana had been involved in a serious accident, and then of her death. I was devastated by both events, more than I had been by then by some personal experiences in my life beforehand. I understood that the grief was also for those situation previously unexpressed but after 9/11 it was for all those involved, and it has remained so.

A wound that remains to be healed and where I hope for the future of humanity it never is, along with the reality of Stalinism, Fascism and Pol Pot, of Rwanda and, and, and the list is endless. Of course those directly affected must find the way to live on purposefully and enjoyably because otherwise individual self sacrificing would have had no point. What upset me now is that that I did not know the story of Rick Rescorla before. I have yet to settle on a list of 101 heroes of my time and those already added since the first brief list are all recent discoveries. Rick Rescorla is one more

He was born only two months after me as Cyril Richard Rescorla in the town of Hayle, Cornwall. I have visited Hayle and its long and wide beach of sand dunes, known as Towans staying for a fortnight in a cottage. Thirty years ago were a large number of holiday homes on stilts not encountered elsewhere until visiting Gruissan Lanuedoc-Rousillian, Southern France.

In 1943 Hayle became the headquarters for the 175 Infantry regiment the US Infantry Division and Rick came to idolise the visitors as they prepared to free Europe from Nazism and the War and the experience of the US allies affected him greatly.

It is only to this point that our lives had connections because Rick who hated the name Cyril, I also wonder if he also Casablanca as a child, was a good sportsman and an avid Boxer. I wanted to join the school boxing club after my first and only fight in the inter school House competition. I was hit hard and noted that this was OK and was upset when the fight was stopped in the second round of three and thrilled when the House captain suggested that I join in the school club and very disappointed when my aunt in particular said no. I went to some Boxing club matches to lend support but this only reinforced the feeling of a missed opportunity. It is not stated if Rick attended a professional match between a British and USA Heavy Weight but he is recorded as having supported the American contender.

Rick joined the British Army in 1957 training as a paratrooper with the Parachute regiment and surviving with an intelligence unit in Cyprus and a paramilitary police inspector in Northern Rhodesia. He joined the metropolitan Police after service which I assume was part of the National Service, where as I failed the medical.

Rick met the man who was to become his best friend, Daniel J Hill, an American while serving in Northern Rhodesia where Hill is said to have worked as a Mercenary having a background of service in Hungry, the Lebanon an was also involved in the Bay of Pigs mission.

The two men enlisted in the US Army in 1963 with a view to combat in Vietnam and he graduated an officer as a Platoon Leader in the 7th Calvary participating in the 1965 Battle of La Drang described in the book and film We Were Soldiers once, and Young he is the soldier on the front cover. He is also mentioned in a book about involvement in the battle, called Baptism by Larry Gwim and there is a chapter entitled Rescorla's game. He was awarded a Silver Star, the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, a Purple Heart and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.
The TV programme highlights that what in fact marked out Rescorla from other men was not his personal bravery but his involvement with his men. He knew all about them, their families and their former lives, and he viewed any injury and loss of life as his personal responsibility and failure. It is said by his friends that the loss of men was at the core of how he reacted on 9/11.

After Vietnam he seized the opportunity to become a US Citizen and participate GI Benefits of a university education gaining a Batchelor's and Master's degrees in Literature at Oklahoma, moving to South Carolina where he taught criminal justice for three years and published a textbook on the subject. He continued to serve in the Army reserve retiring as a Colonel in 1990. He married and had two children moving to New Jersey to join the financial services firm Dean Witter as their security director. When the firm merged with Morgan Stanley in 1997 he became the director of security at the Morgan Stanley HQ at the World Trade centre with the firm occupying about 20 floors at the top end of the building. His marriage ended in the mid 1990's . He then developed prostate cancer meeting his future second wife Susan Greer in 1998 and when the cancer went into remission he sand the Cornish Ballad, the White Rose sending her white roses every week. The couple were married in Florida in 1999. This is the background to one of the most extraordinary of men in relation to events at the World Trade Centre.

In 1992 Rescorla had warned the owners of the World Trade Centre on the possibility of a truck bomb attack on he pillars in the basement garage. No action was taken and when Islamist used this method in the1993 attack he was instrumental in evacuating the building and was the last man to leave.
It is at this point that his story becomes shockingly surreal because he and Dan Hill prepared a report for the Trade Centre Owners on the possibility of crashing civilian plane into one the towers. No action was taken. Rescorla suggested that his employers leave the building as a consequence but although it is said the suggestion was taken seriously the company were committed to a lease which did not expire until 2006. At his insistence all members of the company, including senior executives practiced an evacuation of the building every three months. As employees at all level stated on camera he instilled in everyone the message at the first indication of a problem you immediately leave the building.

On September 11th 2001 Rick was not scheduled to be at work but covered the shift of a deputy who was going on holiday and attended a lunchtime meeting to discuss a Morgan Stanley lawsuit against the site owners regarding security lapses which led to the 1993 attack. Rick should have been preparing to attend the wedding of his step daughter in Italy.

It is recorded fact that officials of the building owners not only asked those in the other buildings to remain where they were after Tower one was attacked but request everyone to return in Tower 2 when they commenced to follow the orders of Rick to leave according to the company approved security plan. The reasoning behind the his request was that the mass departure would hamper the rescue work in Tower 1 and those involved did not expect a second attack or that the building would collapse, both realistic assumptions and the problem of departing numbers getting in the way of rescue operations was a real one.

It is also recorded testimony and Rick who loved to sing after insisting that the 2800 employees in tower 2 and 1000 and a separate building on the complex leave in an orderly fashion remembering they were Americans and everyone will be talking about you tomorrow, Sand God Bless America, military and Cornish songs over his bullhorn to help evacuees stay calm as hey left the building. One song was an adaptation of Men of Harlech.

On my recent visit to the Theatre Royal I climbed up and then down four flights of stairs and this takes time and careful effort. At Football matches I so experience he problem when a mass of people all want to exit at the same time and the number of stairways is limited. At the WTC tower 2 some Morgan Stanley staff had to descend 75 floors to ground level. On six of the Morgan Stanley employees did not survive 2794 did and that number is worth remembering. Moreover because of ongoing telephone communication Rick is known to have been on at least the 72 floor checking that it had been cleared and he was on the 10th when the building collapsed. He also needs to be underlined that his managerial responsibility was restricted to Morgan Stanley and not the lower forty floors. He could have left when he had done his job. It is established that Rick continued to feel strongly that he had failed the men under his command who died, and those who knew him well say now that it was not in his blood to have left before he was certain all those who could had left and that while he would have wanted to leave and return to his wife, family and friends, he would not have wanted his death to have been otherwise.

James B Stewart has written his biography Heart of a Soldier and the documentary I watched last night was created in 2005. In 2006 after a campaign led by his wife a statue to Rick was unveiled at Fort Benning in Georgia

As his wife points out in her web site rickrescorla.com there are countless others who merit similar attention for their bravery and self sacrifice that day especially his deputies Wesley Mercer, Jorge Valesquez, and Godwin Forde who followed him back up the stairs of the burning building to check the situation and perished with him. Remember all of them.

See had hear Rick in interview in 1999

http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/voice_prophet

1673 The significance of Jade Goody

Jade Goody was a media creation of this era and was a symbol of the worst and best aspects of contemporary British Life. She was first made into a contemporary devil not once but twice, and on both occasions the same media switched their positions when the public gave her and not them their vote, such is volatility of the British populist press. Now with the sincere help of Max Clifford she is being turned into a people’s saint with a legacy which could outlive that of Princess Diana and help hammer further nails into a coffin for the British aristocratic monarchy and its supporting establishment, especially when younger royalty apes the former Ms Goody’s baser behaviour.

Jade Cerisa Lorraine Goody (born June 5, 1981) and according to her official frank and honest fan site www.janegoodyonline.com her grandfather Winston Coyne arrived in England from the West Indies in 1956 had two children by Jacqueline Goody who Jade claimed ran a brothel and had a crack habit.

Andrew Goody, Jade, father was only was only 16 when he made 21 year old Jackiey Budden pregnant. Their relationship was brief and according to her mother she threw him out of their home after discovering guns when Jade was only 18 months. According to the views of Telegraph, BBC and Guardian I found out that Andrew became a heroin addict, a small time pimp and spent many years in prison because of crimes to feed his drug habit, dying at the age of 42 from an overdose in the lavatory of a fast food restaurant in Bournemouth. My! My! How the image of some British towns has changed over the past three decades of uncontrolled capitalism and irresponsibility by people who know better and usually profess to be Christians?

Her mother appears to have been an equally tragic figure who was described in her autobiography by Jade as a drug using, petty thief and a clipper, that is a woman who pretends to be a prostitute but who disappears as soon as money has changed hands. They lived in Bermondsey in a culturally and economically poor area of London. She taught Jade to smoke pot from the age of five years, announced she was sexually orientated towards women and then lost the use of an arm in a motorcycle accident, using Jade as a crutch, keeping her off school, bullying and beating her to the extent that Jade was placed in local authority care for her own protection.

Unsurprisingly with this example of parental love and authority her attendance and behaviour at school suffered. Jade was expelled from one school when her mother hit another mother and from a second when her mother hit a teacher. Jade has owned up to having been a bully at school and to physical violence. Her schooling at Britain’s first inner city technical college in Rotherhithe, followed by attendance at a special centre for the most deprived and disengaged young people was so successful that the she became an iconic example of the illiterate, ignorant, crude, rude and profane.

I have found no reference to her life as an adolescent and young adult until being selected by Channel Four. It is evident they intended her self exposure to reveal just how awful slutty immoral and ignorant is the underclass, she was intended to represent, and at first the populist media joined in throwing every insult they could. Usually politicians, the establishment, the government and the responsible media attempted to keep a lid on the underclass and limit their potential harm to the community and Britain’s reputation. They are scum, a stain, and a threat to the our future. In this instance Jade lived up to expectation with overt sexuality, nakedness, crudeness and much display of her ignorance. She was so stupid that she had no awareness of how she was being exploited and humiliated. She was proclaimed as the worst example of this type of young woman and Britain’s enemy number one but the more she was attacked and behaved outrageously, the more she was supported by the public and soon the media, subject to market forces, changed tack and declared their support because she was the most watchable and entertaining of the animals in this form of zoo. She stayed in the competition to reach the final, at which point those voting showed they were not as tasteless as previously suggested and she came fourth. Whereas the first three quickly disappeared from public view Jade went from strength to commercial strength, emphasising the failure of the Labour Government’s absurd policy of university education for the masses. Lots of people made lots of money by the promoting the culture of drunken inanity and then expressed shock horror when they same individuals started to kill each other with knives and guns, terrorised our city centres, became dependent on benefits and petty crime and produced a new generation of delinquents, state spongers and ignoramuses. Big business was content because this provided the excuse to export jobs to countries where there was a work hungry poor and any gaps could be made up from the expanded Europe with a tradition of hard work for a good day‘s pay as the right developed across Europe to come and work here for wages and hours which the underclass rejected because of the welfare state support structure and the underclass black economy.

It was no surprise when she was brought back to liven Celebrity Big Brother in 2007 with her boyfriend and her mother. It is believed that she had made several million pounds from her celebrity status, her book and a perfume promoted by Super drug. She then exposed herself further as a bully and a racist and Channel Four were forced to remove from the programme as she became public enemy number one for fulfilling the expectations of the programme promoters and populist media. Some fifty thousand complaints were received by the TV Regulator and Channel Four and her celebrity career was deservedly in ruins.

My own view was good riddance because the attention and prominence given to the underclass was at the point appalling and only served to underline the failure of political short termism to address the underlying causes of the social inadequacy and ignorance being transmitted from generation to generation. Her two children were born to one man and then had other sexual partners, She was accused of being a thief and physically attacking a 51 year old grandmother at a cinema and the man she married is also a criminal. She reminded of the first family I was sent to meet in Manchester by the Manchester and Salford Family Service Unit where the mother now grandmother had appeared on TV such was her status as the head of a problem family which had spread a second generation and third generation with children in care or under probation supervision, criminality and prison, illiteracy and unemployment, multiple sex partners and diverse parenting and a dependency on state benefits and charitable support. However for two hours she gave her opinions on the multitude of social and other workers who visited the extended family over two decades. When you look into the abyss the abyss looks into you. I learnt the lesson and also to understand the background of cause and consequence.

I am sorry that she acquired terminal cancer and has died but I found the media attention obscene and an affront to also those young women who die from a cancer and suffer in silence and are unable to provide for their husband’s to give up work to look after the children and who all have to grieve alone with the families without public support. I was pleased to catch an interview with an organisation providing grief counselling to surviving a parents and their children in such situations and public attention and funding should be directed to such bodies than one individual. This morning the I was horrified to see the extent to which the newspapers are cashing in on the funeral and that a commercial war has broken out between those trying to cash in further with publications and souvenirs of various kinds. Statements made by the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury are perplexing.

However all this has to be put into perspective. It is comparatively harmless and will do some good in persuading other young women to be tested at an earlier age than presently. I am concerned that it will be used by politicians to divert further attention from their own part in putting hundreds of thousands of hard working men and women out of work, losing their self respect as well as their homes in some instances, because of the unashamed greed of bankers and financial speculators and their continued sickening lifestyles. Jade was no more than the underside of the sickening power and wealth structure in the UK which continues to exploit the working and middle classless for their immoral and unchristian ends.

1672 Seeing what is there

I am enjoying being seventy more than I was being sixty. This is to do more with the respective circumstances of my life than the physical being.

The celebratory mood continued over the weekend with some good meals although overall I am sticking to the new regime of mere exercise and nutritional and healthy food. I resisted a cooked grill or fried breakfast at Morrison’s before my car journey was fully underway, having called at the garage for petrol and a necessary tyre pressure check, and settled for a low fat and calorie sandwich and home made coffee sitting in the car in the brilliant early morning sunshine somewhere in the North Yorkshire countryside. It was a great day to be alive. I appreciate it is always a great day to be.

I was able to arrive at my destination in time for a country pub lunch but this was a different experience from the previous, involving a long wait and misunderstanding about the orders. Everyone was out and about because of the unusually warm and sunny Spring weather, more like an ideal summer’s day in midsummer so they were unusually busy. My dish was a make up from the menu with two giant mushrooms on a bed of spinach with a sauce which I forgot to note its composition but which involved garlic and also a grilled tomato. It should have been in a hamburger type bun with chips, but I abandoned the bread and changed salad for the chips. It was expensive for what it was, but enjoyable and the ambience was good, and afterwards there was an exceptionally pleasant walk by a river with geese flying when disturbed by the occasional passing boat or because they wanted to join others in a nearby field. Some of the riverside properties were worth a few bob as they say. Later there was time before a show for a pasta salad and an apple turnover. It was another glorious all day and above average warm for the time of the year and a still wind. Oh for a summer like this.

I was staying at a Travel Lodge in a new location and the following morning I woke early to find the sun streaming in from a gap in the curtaining and another good day to mark the spring although there was a lot of cloud with the hint of rain as evening approached. My attention at ten minuets past seven was immediately focussed on the Tesco direct across the car park where the first customers were entering and leaving. Later I went on an explore to find it well stocked and although on the edge of town the Sunday trading laws were presumably by passed because it was acting like a motorway or garage forecourt, except that there was no garage and it was exceptionally well stocked although in addition to a newsagents news agents it was licensed to sell alcohol as well as a bakery, grocers, butchers, and the rest from 7am until 11pm seven days a week. Later I had cause to visit the main Tesco so a comparison of prices confirmed that there was premium for the special hours of service but worth paying, unlike the second Travel Lodge stay where there was a machine selling cold drinks with bottled water £1.20 compared with 45 pence at the supermarket.

On my previous visit I explained the difficulty of find my way into the Travel Lodge site from the road bridge across the motorway into adjacent village and had to travel up the motorway to the next turning into a village by a garage and which enabled to return on the right side of the road into the service area which first comprises a little chef eaterie, then the set back Travel Lodge and parking and then a petrol and diesel supplying garage before the slip road back onto the motorway. Usually as one exits the mind is concentrating on the traffic flow and judging the speed at exiting to quickly fit into the traffic stream. In this instance I suddenly saw the no entry sign fixed on either side of an open gate post in front me and a narrow road running parallel to the motorway the to other side of the hard shoulder for the fifty yards before the turn into village which is necessary to get to the road bridge to the other side. The entrance to this road is at sharp at the entrance to the village but unmarked and appears to be an exit from the farmhouse. It is obvious why it has been designed so and is not marked because it would be tempting to be used by lorries and other vehicles calling at the garage to get across the motorway without first joining in the traffic flow and then entering the village causing an accident as the roadway is only wide enough for one private car in one direction. Those using the route to enter the Travel Lodge site have to take great care because they will meet vehicle leaving the garage with their minds set on joining the motorway traffic flow. As I will talk about later it is all about the nature of perception and we sometimes do not see what is there because we are not prepared, attuned, focussed, although we can also see what is not there is we are similarly attuned, focussed and prepared.

I had brought my own salad box for the trip and on Sunday enjoyed half with a large piece of smoked mackerel, also half a vacuum pack, followed by a fruit salad of melon with grapes. Later there were two lamb chops and mixed vegetables and a sorbet with more fruit salad. My serious nutritional change does not commence until the beginning of April so breakfast on Sunday and again Monday comprised a large chocolate croissant. The rest of the made up boxed salad with the rest of smoked mackerel was enjoyed for lunch and this evening I made a 250 gram stir fry from half a 500 box of crunchy vegetables with bean sprouts and sweet peppers to with I added some Thai spices and half a portion of a stir fry sauce which I eat alongside a pork chop. At £1 for the box this is an excellent buy a new line for Morrison’s which will I look out for again on visits to Sunderland and Empire Cinema on Tuesday when there is the reduce priced every seat day, on Tuesdays. Morrison’s have also introduced two new lines which I have not noticed before. The first is a cuppa soup under the brand Eat Smart, now there is a name, and the second is a range of over/microwave ready meals 400 grams for £1 each with no more than 3% fat content which I assume is good and where the chicken Tikka dish has only 1% and even better. These are also Eat Smart. I also obtained the 500 gram carton of stir crunchy vegetables, bean shoots and peppers previously mentioned. They are obviously joining in the sell chickens cheaply contest with Azda and Tesco offering two medium size birds for £6 which I also acquired to freeze and eat in April along with a pack of five large pork chops at less than £1 each. There is a change in the price differential of meats with chicken extraordinarily cheap and lamb extraordinarily expensive and pork catching up beef, or so it seems to me.

The journey home on Monday was not enjoyable as there was a sharp cold and gale force blustery wind which has enveloped these islands together with showers including one brief torrential downpour as I was travelling through Yorkshire. Having said that, there were no traffic hold ups and the traffic was sensible with one exception when a young man driving an expensive car suddenly appeared on my tail in a two lane highway as I was overtaking a lorry at 70mph and then disappeared after I quickly moved back over when past the lorry, suggesting he was travelling at 100 mph or more. There was no good news re the National and Euro Lotteries while I was away so no new fancy transport for me. The National Lottery have a new web site which is awful and where I could not print out information.

There was also gloom on the regional radio as all three teams lost over the weekend and the Boro and Newcastle are in the bottom three and Sunderland are just 3 points clear of them. It is going to be a nail biting end to the season with goal differences and last game panics all round. Manchester United are also having the wobbles losing for the second time. Alas this does not omen well for their visit to Sunderland which I have elected to attend at Easter.

I arrived at my over night stay in time to see the first of the new Lewis Oxford police detective series (who do you think you are Kevin Whatley) and this story had an amusing twist as the main murder victim was an academic authority and author fantasy novels on C S Lewis and the Inklings which included Tolkien and his Lord of the Rings. One of the problems as the series progresses following on Morse is rather like John Nettles and Midsummer murders, everybody seems to killings everybody within a small area, everyone has lots of unspeakable skeletons and no one has an ordinary routine and boring life. The programme was very enjoyable and I did not work out who had done it until just before everyone else was told. One of the suspects, James Fox, is only a couple of months younger than me he has a stage, acting, film and TV career going back to 1950 while still at school. I am looking forward to having a few hours in the city this year during the summer.

I was given a book several months ago called Don’t Sleep, there are Snakes by Daniel Everett and although I have only managed 25 of its 383 pages, (a previous BBC Book of the week published by Profile books) I immediately understood why it had been chosen. Daniel is a Christian Missionary and Linguist academic who commenced to live with his wife and three children with an isolated and “primitive tribe in Brazilian rain forest. The adventure commenced thirty years ago. I hope he will say more about his amazing wife and mother who was the child of missionaries and lived as child in the jungle with her parents and local inhabitants. Without this background it would be surprising if any woman would migrate their young family from civilization for six months a year into such dangerous and potential hostile environment. On an early night he found a giant tarantula had hoped onto his lap which he pushed off and clubbed to the surprise of the locally who explained they did not kill such creatures because they eat the cockroaches.

“The primitive” tribe, I have put in the parenthesis because I suspect they will be found not to be primitive in the sense of human qualities, community spirit and capacity to live together peacefully, but are just markedly different. The Pirahas, there is a inflexion over the second a, have a language which is not derived from any other and remains unaffected by the languages of those who have made contact. The language is said to have only three vowels a, i and o and eight consonants p, t, h, s, b and g, the glottal stop and k so words almost sounding similar have different meeting. It is about the tone and accent. The other difference is that of perception. In the prologue the author describes a situation where all the Pirahas became excited with an appearance on the beach of something which the author can not see and which confirms my understanding that if we believe something strongly enough a reality perception can occur which can be shared unlike the perception of dreams and which does not rely on conjuring tricks or the use of magic .

The book title is taken from the explanation provided by the Pirahas why they sleep as little as possible, because there are real dangers and they need to be on the constant alert and because sleeping is wasteful time to them. I look forward to the rest of the book and will make the time.

I wondered what the Pirahas would have made of the civilized young people flooding the centre of a town in their special tribal costumes as they made way at ten pm Saturday to the night spots. Perhaps they would find them so alien they would not see them.

1161 Riverside Morning South Shields and daily Chronicle

Usually when I sit down to write I know my purpose. The most basic level is to practice attempting to find a combination of words which will accurately communicate to someone else what I am thinking. It is only possible to establish the success or failure of doing this if someone else reads the words and indicates that their understanding is similar to my own. This creates the first problem because my understanding changes over time and this is only known to me or to others if I also publish every draft, both mental and written. The same process also applies to any other person who communicates in written words about what I have written. The process is simpler if the thought is emotionally neutral. If I write that 12 words are divided into 4 groups of 3 everyone reading the statement will have the same understanding once they have accepted the basics of number and division. It is not as simple when I ask the question : "what happens when I divide the number 4 by 3," because the factual answer 1.333 recurring does not directly communicate my intended purpose of raising the philosophical issue of what has happened to the missing portion of 4 as three times 1.333 is only 3.999 recurring? However it is still an emotionally neutral statement which requires a process of further thinking about to grasp.

Such writing is not intended to have an emotional reaction although it will have if for example a reader knows that some one else has previously written about the subject using the same or similar words and I have not made an appropriate attribution, or if the reader does not like me and therefore reacts whenever they encounter something that I have written. It is normal to react to what someone writes because we know of them and like them or we do not know them or like them. A reader is more likely to pay attention to writing which asks the question what happens when you divide 1 by 3,6, or 9 if they are interested in issues of number or philosophy or the use of language and I was able to add to the writing that I was a Doctor of Mathematics, Philosophy or Language or I had just won £50 million pounds in the European Lottery or the Big Brother House, become elected Prime Minister or engaged to be married to Prince Harry or William. Alas being none of such individuals no one will pay attention.

Sometimes when I sit down to write, I am a clear what it is I am trying to say but frequently I decide to concentrate on something very different because it is of greater interest to me or I realise that I have not thought enough or undertaken the research and that the effort required will take more time that I am willing to allocate because of other things I need or want to do. Today for example I had decided to start to write about the Jarrow Crusade for work, as I am in the process of reading the definitive work by Matt Perry of Sunderland University who published his work The Jarrow Crusade, Protest and Legend 2005, and which I purchased last year and decided to read as part of my walk to St Paul's and around the Jarrow town centre where I lived for six months when I first came to work in the North East in 1974. A week to day the Jarrow Town Hall will open its doors as part of Heritage weekend.

Now I will stop and lose my train of thought because there is the clearest of blue skies and ideal for walking. Yesterday it was similar but by the time I went out dark clouds emerged with a cold wind and I was at the hospital when it changed once more, and I wanted food, a rest and to experience the final moments of Big Brother House when for once I successfully predicated the order of departure, Jonty, Carole, Ziggy, Liam, the Twins and Brian the winner, although I hoped that Ziggy would be the first to depart of the seven.

Saturday 1st of September, the first day of Autumn and I set off midmorning with the intention to walk around Cleadon Village and its hill. I decided on a stop off at the town centre which involved investing 60p for a minute's walk go find that the bank was closed in order to check that a £20 note issued on August 17th is legal tender because if so it will be worth significant more because of nature of the potential mistakes rather than a fraudulent intentioned fake. Later I am told these are the new type £20 note and this is confirmed which I check on the internet.

It is not only sunny but warm I change my mind again and decided to try and work out what is planned for the Riverside development although I do not have the plan to hand. The area begins by the ferry landing which is opposite the Market square and former Town Hall building and where there is now an open space of grass and the beginnings of the proposed riverside embankment which presently ends outside the Customs House Entertainment and Arts Project at Mill Dam. The first question is to find out what is proposed for here? Restaurant bars, artist studios and workshops or the present open vista across and along the river in both directions?

Then them there is the important roundabout first with the Riverside Pub at the head of the road down to Mill Dam and then two roads with rub westward parallel to the river coming to an apex at the roundabout where once the La Strada night club stood but now a humorous work of contemporary art. There is also a road at right angles to the river parallel to market square and the King Street shopping centre which runs to a development of new upmarket brand stores

I first take the Commercial Road and stop the car in a side road leading down to the riverside. I have passed the new Law Courts on my left covering both Magistrates and County Courts. There is also the rear of the new police headquarters with its entrance off Station Road where there is a B and Q store, a Nationwide AA garage part of a retail store selling everything you may need for the car or bicycle. Across from this is remains of St Hilda's Pit as a tourist attraction, small business units and a couple of larger household stores. There are substantial sites in this quarter of a mile, half mile area without direct access to the riverside although close to the McNulty Yard at Middle Dock there is a small grassed area with a close up of the drilling platform to the left and of two North Sea Ferries across the river. Tuck away close to the river among dereliction and site clearance is an very attractive public house restaurant the Rose and Crown, a little away long the forlorn deserted Commercial hotel and then at an apex junction leading to the Port of Tyne Dock and Jarrow slake there is the attractively modern Trimmers Arms with its Lobster restaurant and across the way the more traditional looking Dolly Arms. It is presently difficult envisage how this will look in five to ten years time.

There is a second roundabout at the inland Station Rd junction Crossgates which leads directly to the splendid Victoria Town Hall which I first encountered in the late autumn of 1973, a lifetime before and the long Western Approach which marks the Eastern boundary to the development plan area. Along the first part to the next roundabout at Laygate there are blocks of flats which reflect the continuing sad facts of local life that over three decades the local authority has overall failed to progress from having the greatest level of unemployment and urban deprivation. Twelve of twenty of the local government wards are among the most deprived nationally with the second highest unemployment rate of 9%, and where there significantly fewer economically active adults 20-34 than the national average and significantly more older people 64-84.Mortality from circulatory diseases is 65% higher than in Europe and 30% above the UK average. Teenage pregnancy rates are 50% higher than the national average and there is below average educational attainment.

The situation which the borough continues to face is summed up in the area of my second walk after parking my car near the modern pharmacy health centre between the Western Approach and Frederick Street. In 1974 Frederick was a thriving shopping street which served local needs but which also had a range of specialist enterprises. Now only half the 100 premises continue to function with the majority at the southern end not only closed but showing quickening decay. At the Northern end is Laygate with what was then an attractive street, and a half, of colourful post-war shops with flats above. One side of street is being demolished to make way for a new supermarket development. Opposite this is Ahmed's international store which equals anything you will find anywhere for range of groceries, especially spices. However near by is a Public House where several decades ago I ventured and heard talk which suggested extreme right wing leanings with a short distance away a National Unionist Club and then the South Shields Mosque where Mohamed Ali held a marriage ceremony within a couple of days of the Queen's Silver Jubilee visit held at Gypsies Green and which is now to become a major hotel and conference centre. In between there is Laygate Assessment centre. Originally a traditional day nursery there centre has been developed over the years to provide an importance local resource for children and their families. Together with the Law Top area and Ocean Road the area is home to the small well established ethnic minority community although this has been significant increasing over recent years with the enlargement of the European Community and the expansion of the Marine, general technology and education College with its two centres in Shields and Hebburn.

Parallel and running almost half the length of Frederick Street is a large factory unit now deserted. This used to part of the Plessey empire, and then Viasystems and then the Electronics firm Circatex. There were some 750 jobs here five years ago, and 650 a year later. There were less than 200 with a management buy out from the Administrator three years ago. All is not gloom and doom however because next to the closed factory is an estate of manufacturing and other business which includes a substantial modern looking factory producing Asian frozen foods. Tucked away within the estate is an adult training centre for adults with learning difficulties intentionally located in an area where it was hoped there would be possibilities for some to transfer into more commercial enterprises. The move of this centre from the outskirts of Cleadon Village with open views of the Cleadon Hill will be covered as part of my walk around the village to hill overlooking Temple park to the west and the coast at Marsden and Whitburn to the east. Meanwhile I barely wait until next week to re-examine the ambitious riverside development plan with its3400 additional jobs and 2000 training places with 400 business enterprises.

I returned for a prawn salad before going to visit my mother in the hospital for the afternoon. She was asleep for the three hours of the visit so I was able to listen to Newcastle managing to miss a hatful of easy goals against the ten men of Wigan, although the curse was lifted when after nearly six months of failing to score a goal at home, Michael Owen was able to do so within seconds of the full time whistle. I was then able to return to watch the warm reception with Roy Keane received from over 70000 Manchester united supporters as he brought his Sunderland team to the city. Sunderland looked as good as they had in the first match of the season when they beat Spurs at home, which is just as well as he further signings brought his total of spending to £40 million in one year and to the purchase of dozens of players to gain promotion and to now survive in the Premier League. This time the team gave away a goal at the end of the match, but by the time of the next home game after the break for international Euro cup matches over the next fortnight, I am confident he will have created a survival force.

1151 Seaburn walk

After the dreadful weather of the weekend the sky was blue this morning, so I decided to continue my two rivers walk with the Seaburn promenade between Whitburn and the Marriot Hotel which is one end of the road which leads to my former home of three decades. I packed a lunch and arriving at the supermarket I could not ignore the cloudy threatening skyline or the chill wind which even with my jacket zipped did not make for an enjoyable walk into town to deposit a cheque and buy some of the large juicy cherries and plums from the stall under the Metro station bridge. At the car I debated what to do, even considering a return home, but chose to first check what it was like along the coast.

I stopped for an early brunch at the Whitburn Country Park selecting a space on my own and sheltered from the wind and enjoyed a mixed salad and two Ciabatta breads, and some water before testing the air sufficiently to contemplate continuing the planned trip, although first I went for some petrol and then a cup of tea at Morrison's supermarket, during which time there was opportunity to reflect on the change over the past thirty three years. I also could not resist a naughty naught treat, a packet of liquorice allsorts, the first for at least a year. Delicious.

I then failed the first test to remember when several of the South Bents fisherman's cottages at the southern end of the row were bought up and developed into attractive beachside homes with first floor verandas. There is a pleasant pathway between the cottages and the narrow sand dunes before the sand beach, although these do provide some screening for sunbathers and couples seeking a little privacy, although their behaviour can be overlooked from the roadway at the top of the bay next to the tea and ice cream kiosk by the Whitburn coast car park, especially as this is a good spot for the police to park one of their observation vehicles from time to time. I also once encountered a trio of cyclists from Gateshead station and was pleased to be able to advise a fourth where they were after they said he had gone astray, when I saw him looking for them at the nearby garage.

After the cottages there is wide bank of grass separating the coast road from the promenade alongside the beach. On the other side of the road, after leaving the Whitburn cricket ground and park here is farm land which stretches eastward about a mile to the main Sunderland Shields Road until the Sunderland Academy. Along the roadside there are pleasant private houses until the block of three story private flats where once the Bay provided a beach and sea view from its first floor restaurant or on warm days and nights to sit outside the ground floor bar to take a drink after a walk from home. The disappearance of the Bay reminds that in South Shields I notices that the Sand Dancer appeared to have made an instant recovery so stopped to investigation from my car. The restaurant bar is still called the Sand Dancer and around one side and two corners the facilities have been extended to enable smokers to eat and drink in the open air, under awnings. There is also a Crab seafood bar to be explored. The speed of the transformation is amazing.

Back to Seaburn Promenade I was pleased to find that the Little Italy restaurant and Bar has survived and appears to be thriving. This restaurant is directly on the promenade and built into the gassy bank above. It is the only permanent food outlet on the promenade side of the road at Seaburn, although there are others at Roker Beach which I plan to revisit later in the week.

Across the road the private housing ends with two restaurants. I have only been twice the Paradise Garden, I think. Once for their fixed price lunch and once, recently for party of three with one young person where a variety of dishes were sampled from the revolving tracks at the table centre. Given the quantity of soft drinks and after meal hot drinks and the selection of dishes, this is place for good food at a reasonable price and it is not therefore surprising that it was packed on both instances that I remember. After the Paradise Garden there is now the Waterfront Café and bar, under what appears to be a new transformation. This was once an Italian restaurant, and the a more traditional cafe after the Paradise Garden took over the tiny tea room which was sandwiched between the two. The tea room was popular for all those who did not want to walk all the way to the one at Whitburn,
By the Waterfront is a bus turning half circle for vehicles which do not continue along the coast to South Shields by two routes, one along the sea front and the other on a long tour of estates which doubles the journey time, but was useful when I moved my car to servicing at the AA garage after the garage/car sales firm which had serviced and provided vehicles for many years closed. Two years ago the AA garage was taken over by Nationwide recovery but they continue to be recommended by the AA.

Then there is the Seaburn Camp showground. This large enclosed grassed field appears to be used on only two occasions each year although it is available for hire. Durham Caravanning and Camping has recently made this an annual venue although previously it used the recreation grounds which separated my former home from the seafront, a home where the painter Lowry would take afternoon tea with the former owner on visits to Seaburn where he stayed at the Seaburn Hotel, now a Marriott. Irrespective of where the annual seaside trip is held the one certainty is that the weather will be foul. Almost as certain is that the weather will improve once the children have returned to school.

Immediately adjacent to the showground is Morrison's. I cannot remember when it was built. Everyone managed before two small supermarkets on either side of the main road through Fullwell, at the top of the hill which leads down to my former home and the seafront. At the other end of this road is Seaburn station once the railway stop before Sunderland. Now the trains only stop at Hewarth and run infrequently, continuing on to Middlesbrough. They have been replaced by the Metro which now stops twice before reaching Sunderland town centre at the new bus station, and then continues to other parts of the city, including the expanding university which has helped to transform the city. First one of the smaller supermarkets closed with the arrival of Morrison's, and then Morrison's bought the second which did not reopen after a fire, although it was reinstated, More recently it has been reopened as a mini Sainsbury. There was always open all hours convenience store and then a new outlet opened, and which has been taken over by the local chain of newsagents.

When I first moved I missed Morrison's returning once a week as part of a visit which included the new cinema, casino, leisure complex completed in the city side if the main bridge. Now I visit only once a month for a shopping, although I have parked, had a quick meal or cup of tea, getting petrol, cleaning the, car or when as now promenading.

Until few years ago there was a traditional amusement arcade, sandwiched between one side of Morrison's internal roadway and the amusement park. This is now Go Bananas, and while I have read the notices about its new purpose, I have never looked inside until today. It has been redesigned as an indoor adventure and activity centre for children of primary school age. What is a good idea is that the internal café is located at the centre so that mothers can take refreshment and chat while keeping one eye on their offspring who can be kept always in view.

The amusement part is only open during the Summer season and because it is a couple of miles into the town centre, has not thrived as does the all year centre at South Shields. Today there was a solitary customer and her daughter in view, thoroughly enjoying having a ride all to herself. This weekend's bank holiday will be one of its busiest with the annual air display and exhibitions, the other. There is then a more traditional Arcade centre before Seaburn Hall When first arriving the hall was a traditional looking local hall which was subsequently transformed in the Bier Keller with disastrous result. Once I and a local policeman helped to sort out the fence of an elderly neighbour which had been knocked down by drunken youth. The constable told me of the incident when two youths and continued up to the top of the hill and then continued south along a quite road heading for the city centre parallel to the coast road. One had become so drunk that he had be left on the pavement while the other went to try and find a taxi. When he returned with the taxi hey found the companion lying in the middle of the road. Both his legs were found to have been broken as it appeared that in the dark a vehicle had run over him and driven on.

The old hall was knocked down where the area was redeveloped and replaced by a sports and fitness hall which can be converted into a theatre which ahs been used for performances of the Royal Shakespeare company and where this Friday there is to be the Sunderland version of the X Factor. The hall is used on Boxing day as a monster changing room when over 1000 people of all ages out on swimming costumes and fancy dress and fancy objects to then go in groups on to the beach where they are hosed by the local fire service before having a knees up in the sea watched thousands of onlookers out for a stroll before lunch. Local charities gain from the ever increasing event which sometimes makes the national news.

Next there is the purpose built Pullman Lodge Hotel. This has always been an interesting and unusual establishment. At the front are two restaurant carriages which serve as a restaurant only open evenings and at for Sunday lunch. The hotel is a motel on two floors, a building at right angles to the main road Behind the carriages was a two story restaurant and bar, with entry gained at the first floor level. This was once a carvery separate from the carriages, but now the building has been transformed into a large sports bar with meals, with the atmosphere of a Victorian railway station with at the centre an oval bar. IT is not clear how entry is made to the ground level banqueting suite above which was a Wintergarden type of sitting and drinking area and outside of this a veranda. The veranda continues for smokers but about half the Wintergarden space has been padlocked shut, I imagine since the smoking ban came into force because it would have been a good spot to have a quiet smoke and drink while still under cover. The other half of the Wintergarden now consists of a third railway carriage which I can only assume was purpose built within the existing building. Families can still sit at table within the carriage because there is access from the first floor gallery above the main area. Behind the Seaburn Hall and Pullman Lodge there is a purpose built outside play centre for children and across the internal roadway is the Lambton Worm.

The Lambton Worm is a legend about the battles between an heir to the County Durham Lambton estate and a giant worm which terrorised the local villages. The creature is comparatively small according to some legends but grows in size and becomes poisonous and grew to such an extent that it could encircle local hill renamed Worm Hill which is within the areas of Washington, Sunderland, the original place for Washington DC. The worm is alleged to have eaten sheep, prevented cows from producing milk and snatching away small children. The Lambton heir having returned from the crusades and discovered the havoc which the worm had caused, does battle with the creature on the advice of a witch, having found its new location wrapped around a large rock in the river Wear.

The Lambton Worm was made into a two act opera in 1978 and Ken Russell made a film in 1988, The Lair of the White Worm while adapting a Bram Stoker novel. About 20 years ago the worm was made into a physical form for the Gateshead Garden Festival and was then acquired by Sunderland Council and placed in purpose designed gardens in the space behind the Seaburn centre.

Next two the Pullman Lodge is another amusement arcade centre which also sells fish and chips. Backing in to this is a pool hall and with Italian restaurant which is an odd combination which I will explore further on a future visit. At this point on the beach side of the road the promenade also emerges at road level but out of view are ice cream and fish and chip kiosks, the life guard centre, a place to hire wind breaks and tent and toilets.

Between here and the infamous roundabout one upon a time European funded fountain roundabout, there is a continuous row of seat built into the sea wall and facing the roadway. This is ok except that there are times when the sea crashes against the base of the wall and rises up over the seating. On the opposite of the road, Minchella's has a combined ice cream and fish and chip kiosk along side of which is a second fish and chip kiosk thus make 3 within yards of each other an where during the summer there are regular all day queues.
On the main road corner used be the closes Arcade to my home, which was then closed and recently reopened as an Asian restaurant offering banquets at £22.50 a head, although there are lower cost deals. There is a doorway staircase leading to a first floor restaurant which over the decades has switched from Greek with music and plate breaking to Italian and now Indian. Santini's has also switched from American Tex Mex to Italian, as is now Gabrielle's although was it once French? The Seaburn post office used to exist at the corner where the rebuilt Seaburn and Marriott Hotel extension stands. It then moved to Seaburn Parade and it over a year since I have visited. It remains only as a memory with the newsagent, off licence, DVD hire, mini store expanded. There another Indian restaurant and a pub restaurant the Promenade which still serves inexpensive traditional Sunday lunches as well as combining with a Sunderland supporting sports pub on match days.

The final building is the Seaburn, now Marriott Hotel. I stayed at the hotel when I came for interview in 1973 for the job which brought me to live in he North East for over 30 years. It was so dark and misty that I had no idea there was a beachside sea view until the morning, when I had succeeded subject to Ministerial confirmation after interview before the full 66 members of the Council. Later I was eat Sunday lunch sometimes at the bar restaurant at the corner overlooking what was then an ordinary roundabout. This part of the hotel was then knocked to form the present leisure club with swimming pool, steam room, sauna and Jacuzzi plus fitness room, and where such was the initial demand that I had to wait for a vacancy before being able to first join in 1991. Later the three storey terraced housing used for administration and which included the post office was demolished to make way for one of two extensions. Later still the number of rooms was reduced to fit into the Marriott concept. The prices of the rooms, the leisure club and the restaurant have risen accordingly.

I ended this park of the Seaburn and Roker coastline by trying to remember what the roundabout was like before it became a large cake of a fountain with large chimney sweep broom head at the top. This rarely worked but provided great enjoyment every time packets of soap powder were contributed and suds flowed over into the roadway. It remained a controversial eyesore because the Council would have been required to pay back the Euro funding had significant changes been made within the first decade. When Sunderland City complete its mini Eden project tropical Wintergarden complete with a circular tree top walkway, exotic plants appeared at different levels of the fountain. Eventually the offending structure was partially demolished. I thought it was always fun.