A Yorkshireman of a certain age who likes most genres of music and most makes of old car. Travel is a joy, not least to escape the British winter. Travel by bicycle is bliss and if I’m not lost in music then I’m lost in a daydream about a hot day, tens of miles to cover and the promise of a great campsite and a beer. I like to think I’m always learning and becoming wiser. However, on the latter point evidence is in short supply.
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If you can appreciate the pressure that Chris Froome is under on his bicycle, in the most difficult bike race in the world, then it humbled me to see him interviewed after a Stage. He must have been weary, he’d been attacked by hostile competitors for 5 hours and then had to help some insistent journalist get a story; he’s class personified. His fourth Tour victory has been well earned not least when those classy French spectators boo’ed him in Marseilles in the stadium during the TT. He’s ‘badged’ as a Brit but really he’s a Kenyan. We’re lucky to have him on loan.
Food Banks are a sad phenomena but it would be even sadder without them if people need them. I fail to read the Tesco notice advising what not to donate as well as what they want and tip toe up to the box hoping I have it right. It did make me smile that these recipients maybe don’t have too many demands but are sadly getting healthier despite no ambition. No one puts anything in the box that isn’t nutritious, sensible or worthy! Even I selected the pineapple fruit chunks in juice rather than syrup!
Last weekend saw a trip to Trent Bridge, Nottingham for a day of cricket. The weather forecast had advised on the morning of the day we were attending that there would be heavy rain at 11am through until 1pm. So we set off later to avoid sitting in it with no cricket being played. You’ll possibly not be surprised to learn that not a ball was lost through rain and we missed four South African and two English wickets! Unfortunately there were a lot more English wickets during the rest of the day and rain would have been welcome to delay our heavy defeat.
On the horizon is one of my rare trips to the cinema. Dunkirk portrays the events of June 1940 when, over several days, nearly 340,000 men were evacuated off the French coast in 800 boats of various shapes, sizes and seaworthiness. It was not a victory but spawned ‘Dunkirk spirit’ as a phrase and summarised what many of us would hope shows the resolve and adventure of the British spirit in the face of murderous adversity. In times of continuing tragedy then we receive these events, on the surface at least, with outrage, exaggeration, bewilderment, needing a political party, organisation or person to blame and often analysis that borders on virtue signalling or smug cynicism. Imagine in 2017 approaching pleasure craft owners i.e. civilians, often in their retirement, and asking them to sail 20 miles over open sea with the scant cover from the RAF and Royal Navy whilst calamitous hell rains off the French coast from German artillery and the Luftwaffe. You do this for no money, compensation and maybe the risk of losing your life and boat. Remarkable.
Today, as the boats sailed, we’d have journalists investigating the appalling circumstances that led to the need for this activity, the absence of any British plan to cope with the humiliating retreat, the British absence of an evacuation plan, the absence of a health and safety assessment, the absence of a plan of what to do immediately with 340,000 returning soldiers. At the same time as social media explodes with hate and anguish then we’d probably have something like a Court Injunction to stop any movement until we have further actions or information clarified and agreed. Delightfully on prime time as the TV and radio channels fight for audience share we’d have interviews with Nazi experts agreeing with the enormity of the project and probably an ensuing debate on whether surrender would be the better option.
I don’t want to brush all our current tribulations under the carpet but when you put much of today’s challenges against history then are we who we think we are?
Lastly, there was a little merriment as my sister was selected by her grandson to read him a bedtime story. The pleasure was that we were not selected. Less merriment was had when said grandson appeared downstairs without his grandmother. He had survived the bedtime story but she hadn’t and was now nicely in the Land of Nod!
‘Lord I was born a ramblin’ man’ sang Gregg Allman in 1972 and the riff from this classic Rock song is one that everyone knows because it became the theme to Top Gear. And so this is me again, the latest jaunt sees me load Samantha (Morgan Plus 4) onto the Hull to Zeebrugge ferry with a vague idea of where I am ramblin’. I enjoy driving the car, French camp sites, seeing new sights and generally being off the grid for a week or so.
Any holiday that starts on a ferry has a large frisson of excitement and despite spending a disproportionate amount of my children’s inheritance on this tug every year then I still have the same anticipation when I get on board.
Day 1
The pleasure starts when you drive off and attempt to drill into your numbskull that Johnny Foreigner drives on the other side of the road. Anyway with the hood down I soon strode across Belgium under sunny and then stormy skies.
First stop was the Decathlon superstore at Lille, their head quarters. Daughter No 2 (or Number 1 in her mind) worked in London for the French sports retailer and I just love the selection and prices! So I got to the store with the hood down and came back to the parked car (hood up!) to be in one hell of a summer downpour. This deluge continued as I headed south east down the main motorways for several hours.
Eventually the sun appeared but my once immaculately clean car was filthy and with this dark cloud over me I headed into some motorway services on the French / Luxembourg border. I only ever thought of this little country as a tax haven and irritant by being involved in World Cup qualifiers but also I really don’t like its foremost politician – Jean Claude Juncker. With Brexit looming he made a speech in French eschewing English given that we will be soon gone from his club. I thought this was childish and the prevalence of the English language unstoppable. And so it was in the services with the cashier clarifying matters for all people in English!
Border security has now been reintroduced and at every border there are traffic jams as gun toting police scrutinise the cars and trucks as they file past them presumably in search of terrorists. The implication was that I lost considerable time on all the borders. The longest delay was between France and Germany. Ironic really because I’ve noted that the Germans do not indicate their borders!
Eventually the motorway became too wearying and monotonous and in the late afternoon I find some side roads and look for a campsite. The car is bliss on windy smaller roads providing the road surface is good. The two most horrifying words in French a Morgan driver can see are in the photo below:
Eventually I find one. I last visited it in 2011, by bicycle, in Verdun. I passed this way when looking at the French and German WW1 battlefields. Job done for the day.
Day 2
A bicycle day starts early because there are big distances to pedal. However in the car it is a lot more leisurely. Also I was only sauntering down the road to Villey-le-Sec, near Toul. I have visited this campsite in the car in the last three years and some of scenery is staggering. The Morgan is wonderful with the hood down but if you take the temperature above the twenties then it is like being put under the grill. At McDonalds in Toul where I used the free wifi then the air conditioning was delicious. More memorable was the idiot trying to open my toilet cubicle door and twisting the handle until I came out. His face was a picture of contrition as he thought his work colleague was within (instead of me). Those crazy French eh?
At the campsite I take a familiar spot opposite the Moselle. I have previously seen working barges but over the time I’m there I only see a few pleasure cruisers. I pop out and get some provisions and when I return it’s a literal procession of people who come up and admire the car. Lots of questions about the engine, where it’s made and even one Belgian admirer has one at home. As much as I love the car my heart gently sinks as the next Dutchmen slowly approaches asking if it is still made with a wooden chassis. In fact such was the love that I started getting paranoid. The next morning as other campers passed me saying ‘morgen’ I had to stop and not confirm to them that they were correct and it was in fact a ‘Morgan’.
With this admiring audience I wash the car and then chat with two German cyclists who I tease about carrying too much luggage. They defended the lugging of a cold box several hundred miles on the basis that they always had cool drinks to hand. I wonder if they’ll be so smug when they find more hills as they push on to Marseilles. Also on occasion you come across a lunatic cyclist tourer who is doing it all wrong…
A chap on a mountain bike comes into view pulling a child carrier trailer. In the trailer is fido. However within the trailer are no tent, cooking equipment, clothes etc. So this deranged cyclist finds a tree next to the river to shelter under (a good idea given the heatwave and tropical rain storm combination) and unfurls his sleeping bag, ties up the dog and then goes to sleep. Surprisingly he’s still there the next morning despite the considerable risk of his rolling into the river and floating downstream to the lock.
I imagine like me he was woken by four rooks that are making a spectacular din as they play/fight between the tents. Given that the French seem to eat anything then I may have a solution that appeals to them.
Day 3
So well awake and up I get on the road and decide that I’ll have a look at Strasbourg. First I stop at Decathlon in Nancy to buy Anna some cycling shorts. Apparently the padding is in a different place to boy’s shorts? I come out to lots of Morgan admirers. One besotted Frenchman after seeing my car and viewing the engine compartment drags me across to see the engine of his BMW Z3. Oh ffs
The decision to go to Strasbourg and avoiding the main roads takes me through some minor mountains on empty roads. Despite the midday heat then the wooded climbs keep me cool and I swoop and climb for many miles. My wife would have been thrilled as I saw a deer amble across the road as I slow for another hairpin bend.
What becomes clear here and in many parts of France is the rural abandonment that probably started 60 years ago but continues at a high pace. A lot of settlements have derelict hotels, mills, shops and houses. It seems the jobs went and so did the people. Whilst these places are not terribly remote then I can imagine, back in the day, telling a teenager who’s 25 miles from ‘civilisation’ that this is a fun place to be would be a challenge. Clearly if you’re a Brit with the dosh you can get a lot for a song.
In Strasbourg the intended campsite is reached, nicely within reach of the centre by walking. However, I am turned away as it is full! When I last drove to the site in 2016 it was shut as it was being refurbished. I don’t believe that I am meant to ever stay here! Positively, however, then I’m offered an option 5 miles away but it takes over an hour to reach. Kehl is on the other side of the Rhine but as there is a border then those cunning Germans have made entry on this busy route into a one lane affair and in the sizzling sun I broil as I inch toward the border. The campsite is super and the obligatory man over 50 appears to drool over the car (a bit like a scene from The Truman Show when a man on a walkie talkie advises the actors that I am now on the campsite and a man must appear to admire the car) and then a bloke from York seeks me out. He regularly comes here. So often in fact that he stays with the campsite owner! Anyway bonding done and I walk back to the bridge/border to get a free tram into Strasbourg.
What a beautiful city. Lovely architecture, probably owing more to German than French design but sumptuous and a magnificent cathedral. My mind wonders as to how much it would have cost to build originally. Mind-boggling.
Strasbourg is the other home of the EU and the MEP’s are meant to move between here and Brussels. The reality is that is a pointless double centre arrangement but unsurprisingly the French veto any talk of ‘shutting’ Strasbourg. ‘Non’.
So after a good walk around I find an outside restaurant and the result was excellent. I was only offered two cooking choices – ‘red or medium’! I get back on the tram to Kehl and then saunter back to the campsite. Another striking factor is the ethnic mix on the both sides of the border. There are many many people from the Middle East and Africa. I guess that there were a lot of newcomers long before Angela tore down the border for refugees.
Back at the campsite I find a German lady who is admiring the car. ‘Ageing crumpet’ will save me a lot of words in describing her (apologies to the Thought Police). She has come to Strasbourg on her bike to meet someone to do something but tomorrow she is planning to escape the heat by going swimming with a Russian girlfriend (…you think I make all this up!) Anyway back in the ’90’s she visited the Morgan factory on a professional photography assignment and was relaying this to me with considerable colour – ‘oh, you should have seen zee factory with all zee walls covered in porno’.
Why she is travelling alone is now becoming a little clearer.
Clearly it is a long time before Page 3 girls were prohibited from being posted on lockers but I remember those years well. Not a loss. All in all I’m disappointed that this was her main memory of the most exquisite of British motor engineering!
Day 4
Anyway no rooks next morning but quite a bit of rain and being Sunday I drive into France to find a supermarket. Germany ‘does’ Sunday and no retail shops are open other than in tourist areas. A little face peaks through my car window as I park up and asks if I speak English? “A little bit”. “May I take a photo?” “Mais oui”.
The drive to Stuttgart up the E5 was horrid. I drank a litre and a half of water in 3 hours just sat still in the car as I toasted alive hurtling east. Along the way with pending late afternoon thunderstorms I decide on a hotel and find one on the internet. Through heavy traffic I get to the hotel in late afternoon to find the door in North Stuttgart locked! I ring the intercom and am advised to type in a code and a key pops out of a hole! The room was hot but it was good to get out of the storm and try and find my lost prescription sunglasses.
Day 5
Alas they were not to be found and I decided to solve the problem by going ‘old school’ to quote Daughter No. 1 (who definitely knows that she is No. 1) and planned to get some clip on’s. Very ‘1985’ I hear you saying but continuing on my travels squinting was not an option. Up the road was an optician and in the morning he had the solution and was prepared to cut the lens to fit my glasses. All for €19.
In downtown Stuttgart I found an underground car park and went in search of Second Hand Records. This is a truly brilliant vinyl record store for anyone collecting older stuff. In fairness they had lots of new but I bought some Humble Pie, The Nice, Santana & McLaughlin, Millie Jackson, Ten Years After, Candi Staton, Cat Stevens, Average White Band and Alvin Lee. Blissfully happy I steered Samantha into the Black Forest on the B roads.
Now this was the sensible way to head south west again. It is lovely although I expected a larger area. I got to St Peter and found a campsite that for views and shower block immediately makes the ‘Tony Ives Top 10 Campsites’ and all for €9 with great wi-fi. In speaking to Anna I demonstrated the rugged side of my nature as she listened to the rain falling on the tent. However real manhood would have been demonstrated as she heard the thunder and lightning that I endured until the early hours of the morning. I genuinely thought that the ground would be so waterlogged that I couldn’t drive the car off the grass next morning. It wasn’t.
In gentle rain I continued south and made it to Mulhouse. Here I popped into the shop to buy a couple of T Shirts at the French National Motor Museum. I went around it in 2013 and it is probably the best car museum in the world. I replaced a much loved T Shirt I bought back then.
Now it was up the mountains in the Vosges. This is where the car excels and it is a pleasure to surge up the hills and take the corners tight on the way down! I pushed onto another Google find in St Maurice-sous-les-Côtes. This campsite was a field of mirabelle plum trees with spaces and a small mixed shower block. In asking a lady when Reception would open I made a friend in Susan and her husband, Immer. She was an English woman, married to a Dutchman, who tuned pianos and painted oil pictures of our currently conflicted world… Trump, Theresa May, discarded plastic bottles in the ocean and miners with bird faces (so very Tony, I know). Knowing that she was a gentle soul I felt compelled to discuss Brexit! ‘Light blue touch paper and retire’ comes to mind. Anyway I hope I assured her that the world will continue to spin and Boris Johnson’s mum loves him even if Remainers don’t. I return to the tent to find the ‘neighbour’ shaving her legs (and trimming her moustache, just joking about the second part) but the Dutch are really a practical nation as was another Dutch lady changing her top in the mixed shower block the next morning!
All in all a lovely very French site with an owner selling local produce and being so courteous and helpful that I must find his site on Trip Advisor to anoint him. Maybe we bonded when he talked about the car on a TV programme that he watched about someone refurbishing a Morgan.
Day 6
In more rain I head north. Now I’m thinking about the ferry home and edging closer. Again Google finds a site as I’m sat in a McDonalds in Reims charging the iPad and using the ‘whiffy’. I drive to Guise and find a gem of a town with a fabulous campsite. “Where can I pitch the tent?” “Anywhere”. Correct answer. So that means away from the kids and other folk at the bottom of the site! Here in the now warm evening I wash the car. Originally I got the really grim dirt off it at a car washing centre with a high pressure jet but back on the site some further detail work needed doing. After is a stroll into town to meet Stella (Artois). Then back for another episode of House of Cards Season 5, nicely held on my iPad after a Netflix download.
Day 7
Again a leisurely departure and a drive north through arable land and past French and British World War One cemeteries. All poignant. A stop at a supermarket in Roubaix to get some vittles for the ship and then onto the ferry.
There are signs warning about illegal migrants stowing away on trucks and at the ferry port security are checking cars. I am exempt from the search as it become plain that my fitting into the car with luggage is difficult let alone a bloke fleeing Afghanistan.
A routine sailing with me catching up on the blog with a pint of Guinness later.
So back on the road… how exciting! After a winter of injury then to actually pack the panniers and gingerly advance on my trusty steed toward York Station was quite a thrill. Frankly I’m not fully restored but I was anxious to see how the knee behaved as I had planned a tour that by any standards was not a gentle re-introduction.
Lord knows Cross Country Rail is not a thing of beauty and even less so as it arrived 35 minutes late as I wended my way down to Derby to start the ride. The first challenge was loading the bike onto the correct carriage and then ‘hanging it up’ in a special recess. That went well but at the next stop, Leeds, another cyclist was moving my heavy bike to create space for his and clattering it as he grappled with its weight. I was heard to utter a loud ‘whoa!!’ to indicate my displeasure at his manhandling. The weightlifter in question objected to my objection and pointed out that the ‘train wasn’t my personal property’….’’maybe, but the bike’s my personal property”. Anyway I went back to my seat hoping he had an unfortunate accident with a car outside Wakefield Station when he alighted.
Eventually Derby came and I met up with Tony Franco who’d had to hang around the Station until I arrived. Tony and I met in 1985 when we studied at the University of Bradford for our MBA’s. Tony has a busy work schedule but is a cyclist, runner and swimmer. However such a long trip was new to him.
The Marketing Guru led off through Derby traffic for our evening accommodation but gave an indication that it might be three days of intensive supervision when he forgot the directions on the way to his parent’s house! To confirm my suspicions then on this short trip he managed to get a puncture.
Anyway we left Mr & Mrs Franco’s and were later fêted like Kings at his sister and brother-in-laws’ house in Littleover and then retired to contemplate the expedition ahead.
Day 2
A grey and chilly morning greeted us as we cycled to Etwall to pick up Sustran’s Route 68 – ‘The Pennine Cycleway’. This was on country lanes par excellence and made even better by the sighting of an early morning E Type Jaguar on its way, no doubt, to a Show or some such.
The road rose and fell a little but Ashbourne was reached with little distress. We nearly missed it as we were diverted around the edges of the town but stopped at the beginning of the Tissington Trail for a teacake and cup of tea. After this we had a gentle 10 mile uphill ride. We joined a Hen Party on their hired bikes, sporting sashes, grinding along uphill stoically. Being cheery with this hung over party was not completely well received and the future sister-in-law did confide that she was looking forward to the pub stop (it had been promised) not too far away. It also was busy with walkers on the Trail and there were a lot of small teenagers hidden by enormous rucksacks out in the wilds doing their Duke Of Edinburgh awards.
The views of the Peak District were fabulous as we pedalled along and we left the route briefly at Hurdlow for some lunch at a pub. The complete joy of long distance cycling is that you can eat what you want with impunity… we did. At this stop I instructed Tony how to operate his expensive Garmin Sat Nav/Computer sat on his handlebars looking, up until this point, neglected.
Up until this point Tony and I had been jauntily suggesting that our wives could have completed and enjoyed the ride so far and so let’s have them invest in those padded shorts and get their diaries out. As the day progressed then this idea seemed less promising.
After gentle gradients then gravity took a more serious and unwelcome role in our lives as we approached Buxton. Figures like 13% started to appear on my Garmin as I reached for the granny gears on the bike. Close to Buxton the frailties of friendship and consultation reared their ugly head and instead of logically following a trim female road cyclist on a carbon bike up an A Road to Buxton I gave the option to Tony of following the map or the cyclist. Anyway the upshot was a long walk on a shattered track resplendent with boulders and loose stones. If I am to blame for this mistake then it was not to have questioned in more detail a very nice gentleman picking up litter near said track. I just enquired as to whether it was a quick route into Buxton, which he confirmed it was. He also did add that it was quite a decent road surface until all “the four by fours fucked it up”!
We eventually got to the delightful town that is Buxton in warm sunshine and partook of refreshment before contemplating the next part of the ride.
This meant a very serious ascent out of the town and by now I’m feeling like I am punishing Tony with the amount and severity of climbing. He was, in fairness, cheerful and game throughout but maybe my planning had been a slight over optimistic. Toward the top of the hill outside of Buxton the map directed us up another terribly steep hill to where the road became a stony track. Once in a day is careless but twice is stupidity and so a plan was hatched to stick to main roads from here to Glossop. This decision was immediately rewarded by a several mile descent toward Whaley Bridge. A man in a small Peugeot convertible passed with a washing machine in the passenger seat, I wondered if he had ever thought that online dating sites might bring him more success?
At the bottom I rang the pub that we were staying at for the night to be treated like a retard and told there was no reservation. I had arranged everything in early June and so this was not only inconvenient but also simply ignorant. Trip Advisor will inform the world of their oversight: I promise.
So with Tony consuming gel bars and Mars bars we climbed into Glossop and completed our 65 miles for the day and clocked up 1,676 metres worth of climbing. The last few miles were enormously steep gradients. For a novice this was a remarkable baptism of fire… sorry! The Travel Lodge in Glossop had space and after a shower and some food we both separated to sleep soundly
Day 3
I think Lionel Ritchie once volunteered ‘Easy like Sunday morning’. Not if you’re with me Lionel! We went into Wetherspoons for breakfast and consumed a complete ‘heart attack on a plate’. Delicious. I did ask the waiter if they actually served alcohol at 8 am? He said that they didn’t until 9 am. He did say that some lost souls actually did buy booze at 9 am. He liked to think they were off a night shift somewhere but he knew they weren’t.
In line with a developing pattern we climbed out of Glossop and went in search of Route 68. Stopping to ask the locals was quite funny as we asked one chap who gave a very good plan of how to get to it only for him to leave and another bloke to dismiss his directions as tosh as ‘he was new around here’. I can’t pretend we nailed the route to start with but eventually we made progress north until near Holme Moss. Here I foolishly, in retrospect, followed the ‘Trans-Pennine Way’. If that was foolish then the Park Ranger who gave us further directions was even more of a fool. We were sent on a trail that wasn’t fit for bicycles or well marked. The upshot was that we pushed our bicycles up a long grassy hill/mountain to a stone shed that was clearly a dead end. One interesting discovery was that in a space of several hundred square miles cows can crap copiously on a small strip of grass path – the only place where you can push or ride your bicycle.
Holmfirth was eventually reached in lovely sunshine and predictably heaving with tourists. All no doubt seeking a cup of tea at the famous café used in Last of the Summer Wine. It was early afternoon and we had over 40 miles to cycle so we pushed on. The Sat Nav said Huddersfield next and we entered the home of Premiership football in no time and then reaching for our crampons climbed out of the town leaving the speeding cars below us. Tony was now starting to understand long distance touring and was developing his own nutritional solutions – Peppa Pig Gums.
Elland was a wonderful discovery only because of the amazing descent shortly after you pass beneath the M62 and from here we aimed for Halifax. It was here that my nutritional solution was adopted – McDonalds. Being a cool dude then Tony had heard of this fast food outlet and apparently close relatives of his frequented these popular temples of delight. Unfortunately, he had not sullied the premises in his living memory and I’d like to think I helped him overcome some psychological barriers as he ravenously consumed a Chicken Legend, fries and two large Cokes.
Pleasure was short lived as Halifax provided more steep climbs and continuing heavy traffic before a long descent into Hebden Bridge. Here we checked out letting the train take some of the strain and found out we could get to Burnley on the 16:52. So a quick spin around Hebden Bridge and even a look in a record shop before back to the Station to catch… the wrong train. Anyway Manchester Victoria was nice and Tony bonded with an older lady who remonstrated that the train driver had failed to stop at Smithy Bridge (no, we had never heard of it either). We felt her pain and no doubt so did the train driver who she bolted toward when we came to rest.
Given my accumulating transgressions for this murderous route then I was keen to re-apportion blame for this mistake and Tony accepted my opprobrium with good grace. So catching another train to Burnley we got there with a bijou 13 miles to complete to get to Barnoldswick. I had telephoned ahead to the hotel/pub to advise we were coming but worried that we might not get food on a Sunday night in this little place and urged Tony for one last push. Poor chap he was cycling on memory by now but uncomplaining and up for the challenge.
So through Burnley, Nelson and Colne we pressed on in the early evening sunshine noting the differing communities and the surprising number of elderly immaculate Mercedes and BMW’s being driven by young Asian lads blaring out the Top 20 from Karachi. Another feature of the communities was a sewing machine shop! There must be many dressmakers to keep a shop in business and it momentarily reminded my mother and her dress making back in the day.
The Fountains Head was a noisy pub with rooms upstairs – yet despite our being late, smelly and it being very busy with many patrons we were ushered in and fed magnificently. The room was super but to be honest we could have slept on a clothes line by now.
I am a great believer in the maxim that you should only tell the truth if it serves a useful purpose. To this end whilst paying the bill at the bar a fairly well oiled woman perching on a bar stool made the perceptive observation, probably driven by my being in an orange lycra jersey, cycle shorts and looking knackered that I had been riding a bike. I confirmed her assertion and then went onto to outline the route (“never heard of Glossop, is it in Kent?”) and the distances involved. She then opined that as I was ‘getting on’ then clearly this was an achievement…. I never did like Barnoldswick.
‘Scores on the doors?’ – 54.2 miles for the day and a mere 1,360 metres of climbing. (Sorry, again).
Day 4
Rain! This was the greeting as we stepped out of the door after our ‘thank you’s’ to Carole, the owner of said hostelry. However before this we were befriended by Dave Dee (or Duxbury to his bank manager and doctor). Dave made breakfast, sadly not a core competence, and then regaled us with his disappointment at large families living off Benefits whilst he made do on a lot less, his time as an undertaker (loved the job), Night Club Singer (Tamla is his forte), his broken earlier marriage, child bereavement and his discovery that his real father (he was adopted) sang on cruise liners. We needed some quiet time on the bike to process all this…
Carole suggested picking up the Leeds to Liverpool Canal towpath at Skipton. Between Barnoldswick and Skipton was a poor path apparently. So we joined the Monday morning rush hour on the horrific A59 to Skipton – awful!
Once in Skipton I found the canal as Tony sped past into the centre of town with me bawling “TONY!… Pay attention 007”. He dutifully turned around. The towpath after Skipton became a muddy track with large stones and tree roots – no fun and after a coffee stop in Silsden I was thinking that I cannot ride this for another 25 miles into Leeds. Fortunately about a mile south of Silsden the track became a made up towpath and from here into Leeds got progressively smoother and faster. After the earlier two days I owed Tony something flatter and the ride into Leeds was a gradual descent from the top of the Pennines.
This canal was opened in the early 19th Century and cost £877,000 to build. However miraculously you could leave Leeds on a Wednesday and be in Liverpool on the Saturday. I expect that the railway soon led the canal to lose its traffic and with the motor vehicle the waterway is now a beautiful relic. In fact we saw few barges and if you did it was as they were queuing or within the locks that help the barges deal with the terrain. The canal was picturesque and the towpath sparsely populated.
There was a lot of development near to the canal as we progressed toward Leeds and I expect residents wanted a view of the canal and its calming influence. You could see some imposing and large converted mills along its length that foretold a very different history to the de-industrialised world we now cycled through. A beautiful ride and easy to boot. Frankly, I am not sure why I have not heard of more folk doing this.
Lunch was taken at Rodley in the outskirts of Leeds and then we literally cycled past the entrance to Leeds Station where Tony bought a train ticket to London with the rejoinder that for the same price he could have booked a return flight to Barcelona!
This ride from Barnoldswick totalled 38.1 miles and a mere 159 metres of climbing.
I then dragged my weary body up and out of Leeds and found some of my regular cycle routes near Thorner. These took me back to York where I amassed 62.8 miles for the day and 469 metres of climbing. I didn’t envy Tony who had to reawaken those screaming muscles at Kings Cross and persuade then to function through London rush hour traffic on his ride home.
A great whirlwind of a trip. Great company, memorable cycling and at times captivating scenery. Can’t wait for the next one.
Purgatory by Tyler Childers will be another candidate for those crowded end of year lists. Whilst Americana will claim him then this is proper Country before auto tune, rehab, radio and the major labels sanitised it. It is saturated with violins, guitars, banjo and tunes to die for. There is a lot of music out there to catch your ear but Childers, helped no end by the production of Sturgill Simpson and sound engineer, par excellence, David Ferguson, has been helped to release a fabulous record that show cases his talent brilliantly and hopefully this will put it above the rest on people’s play lists.
Sturgill Simpson is the latest Americana bright light after having won awards for his last album A Sailor’s Guide To The Earth and his association is quite an affirmation of Childers potential. Not only does his experience and talent come to the fore behind the desk but he brings along his band to play.
Childer’s has paid his dues and these songs drip with life’s experiences and make for heartfelt stories that tell you about his early rebellious and often dissolute lifestyle. Like Simpson he hails from east Kentucky, a land of densely wooded hillsides, semi-trailer trucks hauling coal on narrow roads and no little deprivation. His picture of life comes against this backdrop and makes for a compelling listen.
He started singing “Feathered Indians” in 2014 as he made his living playing small venues but in 2017 it makes it onto disc. This lilting acoustic guitar melody, complimented by violin, is an awkward love song, possibly reminding you of Jason Isbell, Ray LaMontagne or James McMurtry, of a man who starts to emerge from wayward ways to see that something is worth reforming for:
“Looking over West Virginia smoking spirits on the roof
She asked ‘ain’t anybody told you that them things are bad for you?’
I said ‘many folks have warned me, there’s been several people try
But up until now there ain’t been nothing that I couldn’t leave behind”
The voice is his passport to stardom – demanding, tuneful, expressive and with a smidgeon of loud ‘Outlaw’ edge. “Honky Tonk Flame’, a straight down the line traditional Country song, pulls all this together and we have the troubadour drifting from bar to bar and suddenly finding ‘the love of a woman was all that he needs’; with this anchor then he’s more complete but:
“Still on the road ‘cause I ain’t good for nothing
Except writing the songs that I sing
Beating them strings like their owing me money
And chasing that honky tonk flame”
“Whitehouse Road” has that Steve Earle country rock chug and yet more talk of ‘running these roads’ with moonshine along the back roads of Kentucky. A belter of a track that really benefits from Simpson’s band behind him.
Like so many of these artists he is out on the road and even makes it to London in July playing some minor venue there. There is no easy way to fame but I’ve slowly pedalled up the rolling hills of east Kentucky, looking for predatory dogs (!), and seen the economic challenges and the schools proclaiming they are ‘drug free zones’. Not a place that has an easy future ahead. It may suggests that this is a new arduous route worth taking.
Purgatory, I feel, is the closing of a chapter. He sees his youthful path as full of missteps forming him but out of the darkness comes the hope. Childers and this album deserve a big future.
One of the joys of being married to the opposite sex is the never ending review of your ‘plans for the day’. As most retired blokes know then apart from tasks that are weather related – scarifying the lawn, washing the car etc. then there are, blissfully, seldom any ‘plans’. Stuff just crops up and gets done.
This morning my wife enquired as to ‘what are you doing today?’ but expedited matters by running through my usual options – a bike ride was had yesterday, continuing to clear a moss and weed strewn path was unlikely due to a back strain and so all that was left was another activity that she particularly admires – my swearing uncontrollably at my rapidly slowing iMac.
She hasn’t realised that the pleasure in this latter activity is that it doesn’t answer back…
Negotiating something when you are not heavily concerned about the outcome is a luxury but a burden for those who are involved, inexperienced and do care. My youngest daughter and boyfriend have been buying a flat and as we are also putting some money in then they have had to suffer me having a view on the property and haggle.
They are acquiring a flat in Didsbury from a vendor who has refurbished and extended a large old house into eleven flats. The property has been shoddily restored and the vendor has ordinarily sold flats to very keen young people who are ‘hot to trot’ with the transaction and will respond to deadline threats despite issues to do with quality, installation and assurances. That just winds me up; in clarifying the detail and snagging has therefore been protracted against a backdrop of deadlines.
We’ve had a right to ask questions. Sophie and Harry have performed well if not a little stressed by our involvement. The exchange of contracts and deposit will take place against some minor brinkmanship. For me it is an insight into some cowboy and high-handed actions by the vendor. A sign of the times, I think.
After my absorption and delight at Breaking Bad I had to dabble with the spin off – Better Call Saul. What a fabulous box set and a superb script and amazing acting. Saul (Bob Odenkirk) is sublime. It’s been a joy and I have two Seasons to go.
So two brief holidays are in the offing, one with the love of my life… Samantha. She’s booked onto the Hull to Zeebrugge ferry and we depart in early July. Hopefully it will be dryer than last year when a canoe would have been more comfortable to navigate through Northern France in torrential rain. One epic morning last June saw Sophie and myself driving through flooded roads near Lille whilst the condensation was so great in the car that we had to stop!
Before that I’m off on a brief cycling tour up the Pennine Cycleway Route with an old pal. Three nights exploring our Industrial revolution heritage and the odd pint of bitter. Stay tuned.
How could I go a year without a Beatles album amongst the selection? The challenge was to decide which one. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road or the Double White Album? I could pick any of them but the Double White (The Beatles) sticks in my mind as the one that had the most diverse selection of styles and genres and so provided an introduction to different music to my then young ears. Such is the mental imprint this gave that I can visualise the radiogram and room where I used to dig this out of its sleeve and play it.
The Beatles were able to move between genres with no critical comment or censure and I would say that this blessing meant that I embraced many sounds. I could run through each track of this 1968 record with affection as somewhere there is a brilliant riff, wonderful tune, experimental or surprising arrangements and freaked out lyrics that appealed to me. So lets talk about a few tracks.
Side One kicks off with “Back In The USSR”, clearly an anachronism in 2017 with BOAC and the Soviet Union long gone but at the height of the Cold War this intoxicating mix of Rock ‘n Roll, transatlantic air travel and the portrayal of Russians as humans was quite a thing for this 14 year old to absorb. Paul McCartney composed this as a supposed Beach Boys parody. However, the Chuck Berry influence dominates. Intriguingly Ringo Starr didn’t play drums as he quit the band briefly during their recording.
George Harrison composes “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” with the magnificent Eric Clapton helping on Harrison’s Gibson Les Paul guitar. This was a coming of age for Harrison, he started to compose more, rather than just play, and this might be seen as the best track on the album. The lyrics are certainly influenced by George’s reading Chinese philosophy at the time albeit at his mother’s house in Warrington! This was a typical Rock song paraded on both sides of the Atlantic over the next decade.
Paul McCartney’s “Martha My Dear” has Music Hall styled piano, I just loved it. McCartney has never been constrained by being hip and this along with ‘Honey Pie’ bears no resemblance to Rock music. This inclusion legitimised my parent’s record collection as a catalogue of enjoyment and made me adopt the position that there are only two types of music – ‘good and bad’.
We have the acoustic beauty that McCartney became synonymous with in “Blackbird”. This is such a soothing and healing song with it’s metronomic beat, what lyrics:
“Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise”
If this is a memorable set of words then the story that “Rocky Racoon”, a British folk style tune, recounts is of a Dakota gun fight over a woman between two love rivals with wry humour.
Even Ringo gets to write on the album, his first solo Beatles composition “Don’t Pass Me By”. Ringo tracks were something you never looked for but usually his talented mates were often able to elevate anything he wrote to something tolerable. On this then there is a violin/fiddle solo. Which British acts were using this instrument in its US guise on their albums in 1968?
My wonder and education continued with “Yer Blues”, a John Lennon composition with a faithful blues treatment that inevitably brings George Harrison to the fore and he nails it throughout. In between passages of fluidity he makes it wail and screech. Delicious.
Even artists of this stature wouldn’t be allowed to sprawl on so many styles and indulgences over four sides of vinyl today. “Revolution 9” is a cacophony of sound and voice clips as they play with the capability of the recording equipment. This was not something that my record collection went near: until now.
After this musical journey we come to rest at the end of Side Four with “Good Night”, a song written by Lennon for his young son and sung by Starr. Lush strings turn this into a perfect lullaby and somehow is the beautiful and reflective ending the album deserves.
The Beatles are still revered around the world and not least in the USA. I have stories of asking Americans, on my bike travels, to identify three famous Britons only to have these guys regularly be named. We’re fiercely proud of them, a true gift to mankind.
(This was the last Beatles album to be mixed in mono and stereo. I have a mono version on vinyl. This was only originally sold in the UK. It shifted over 300,000 copies in the UK and so is ‘relatively scarce’. A quick look at Discogs sees my edition selling comfortably between £90 to £200. However, I’m not in a hurry to dispose of it anytime soon).
Zephaniah O’Hora and The 18 Wheelers – This Highway
One of the delights of rummaging around for old vinyl is that you can find music, for a proverbial song, that you wouldn’t normally find and if you’re lucky then the original owner didn’t play it and so it is mint! I captured a Buck Owens Live at Carnegie Hall Concert gem recently and felt it was a real piece of luck as I was transported back to 1966. The same experience came to pass with this delightful release by the improbably named Zephaniah O’Hara with the 18 Wheelers.
With his producer and guitarist, Jim Campilongo, O’Hara recreates the sound of 1960’s Bakersfield and Nashville with an authenticity that would enable you to stick any of the tracks off this record on a Rock-Ola in a 1960’s Honky Tonk and not worry that someone might pick up that 50 years that have elapsed since the machine was loaded with Ernest Tubbs, Loretta Lynn, Red Simpson or Merle Haggard. To emphasis the point the album sleeve is also wonderfully retro.
Originally from that hot bed of Country & Western music (not), New Hampshire, O’Hara plies his trade nowadays in Brooklyn, NY. With his band then you can imagine them occupying a small corner of small bar as folk two-step in front of them.
The sound has that gentle Country & Western feel with pedal steel, from Jon Graboff, providing a beautiful embellishment and the band never pushes but backs the measured tenor of O’Hara. “I Believe I’ve had Enough” hits its stride and we hear O’Hara’s plan to take it easy whilst the guitar picks around him with a gentle honky tonk piano filling the gaps. The pace can vary and “This Highway” takes things down and O’Hara croons his best Jim Reeves. “High Class Girl From The Country” sees Campilongo switch to acoustic whilst the pedal steel takes the melody. O’Hara tells us of her ‘chasing down those dreams and the years show on your face’. The full nine yards of 1960’s Country pathos. “I Can’t Let Go (Even Though I Set You Free)” is a lyrical gem, so dark against a bright and cheerful tune:
The roses I bought are on the floor
You tried to walk out the door,
This gun will keep you here with me,
I can’t let you go, even though I set you free
Needless to say we go on to talk about graves and the presiding judge. A three minute 32 second classic.
Apart from the unnecessary cover of the Sinatras’ “Somethin’ Stupid” with Dori Freeman duetting then these all appear to be original compositions and confirm that O’Hara and Campilongo love this era and sound such, that at a stroke, they could compile this collection. I love it and kudos to Round-Up Records for letting this see the light of day. Tell a friend who likes the old stuff: they will never be able to thank you enough.
Finishing off our breakfast at The Delaunay in Holborn Tim turned to a story about resuscitating his car, which wouldn’t start. He’d ask a ‘man who can’ to inspect and resolve the elderly Jag’s problem and eventually telephoned him to get the prognosis. As Tim said then the last thing you want to hear is “Tim, actually it’s a fascinating problem…”
His man went onto tell him that it was all to do with the “brains of the car, Tim”. Again Tim felt more anxiety and mystification. The ‘brains’ in this case was the ECU. Anyway £300 got the old girl to cough back into life.
That was a happier event but the week contained the burying of an old friend. I wrote about Jason and the final chapter saw us bury him in a beautiful little churchyard in Barnston, Essex. A very tearful and draining event made more difficult, for me, by the fact that in line with Sod’s Law it was also the date of another funeral 150 miles away (Steve) which I had to miss.
That weather behaved in Essex but it tipped down during the week as I headed up north to talk to the Easingwold Yorkshire Country Womens Association about my bike ride across America. It is still a pleasure to recount mountain ranges, churches, Kentucky dogs and the kindness of strangers. It seems that they are up for some music next year in my talk about cycling down the USA in search of the centres of American popular music.
I’ve been submitting record reviews to The Americana Music Show for some months and enjoying the experience of writing. Just as pleasing was to see my efforts on the shelves of W H Smith via the monthly magazine Country Music People. People comment that I’m able to do this stuff but it still seems that a bloke who spent his working career shuffling through Board papers and concerning himself with all things to do with kitchen cabinets wouldn’t now be writing about Americana and Country music for circulation in the UK and USA. Maybe I’m getting this retirement project sorted.
It doesn’t seem to be possible to fail to mention the General Election. No pre-result doubts about the result, no potential ‘nip and tuck’ and no doubt that it would be the inevitable confirmation of what you expected to happen. It was the 10pm Exit Poll forecast of a Hung Parliament that nobody expected. If my social media feed and news headlines are to be believed then the winner lost and the losers won. Whichever way then it isn’t to be business as usual and we’ll limp on for some time, at least, to see if it all works.
Lastly a picture of some cars! Anna and her friend Zelma arranged a drive up to The Sportsmans Arms in Wath-in-Nidderdale for a bite to eat and by way of reward the men got to drive their toys including a 1965 Triumph TR4 and an early 1970’s Triumph TR6. Great fun.
I was watching a video of a chap cycling in Norway, in the sitting room, thinking that he had a very fine soundtrack accompanying his ride when Harry, my daughter’s boyfriend, appeared around the door and asked if I liked Kaleo? Kaleo were the Icelandic band playing electric blues rock on the video. Never heard of them!
Iceland has produced some fine popular music of late including Sigur Rós and Bjork. Granted, both are acquired tastes but nevertheless remarkable. Kaleo may shortly be seen as important. So who are these frozen Blues practitioners?
Starting in the west of Iceland in 2012. This four piece hangs off the singing and song writing of Jökull Júlíusson – a voice that is drenched in blues and can hold a melody beautifully with Sam Smith-esque falsetto and no little nod to Rag ‘n’ Bone Man. You may have heard them on adverts for Boots and Netflix and their relocation to Texas in 2015, as a base, meant that this album was recorded in Nashville, LA, Austin as well as sessions in London and Reykjarvik.
Released in 2016 we slide between authentic Delta blues to their more popular version of driving blues rock (“Hot Blood”, “Glass House”). However their signature sound comes with ‘No Good’ and the muscular Paul Rodgers style vocal fronts a wicked rumbling lead guitar and thumping drum. What a way to start the album! The electric lead guitar of Rubin Pollock is certainly a blues force and gives all the songs quite a soulful yet, on occasion, jagged edge.
“Broken Bones” begins with a 1930’s Alan Lomax inspired Press Gang chant. As the song develops again with that thumping bass drum accompaniment, it tells the story of a prisoner in chains looking to the Devil to set him free. “Way Down We Go” is more of the same, which is fine by me.
To add some variety they can mix it and the bright acoustic “Automobile” is a road song with mentions of San Diego, San Francisco and Mexico. Similarly the album closer, “I Can’t Go On Without You”, takes us out in a reflective mood and the beautiful love song showcases a terrific vocal.
It can be no coincidence that the polish and dynamics of an often multi layered sound comes from much of the production duties falling to Jacquire King. His cv includes Buddy Guy, Tom Waits, Kings Of Leon & The Editors. He has the feel and knows where to place the guitar in the mix for sure. Also it helps to be signed to the Warner owned Elektra label – an organisation with resources and clout to promote.
As a total package it is a triumph and note that it’ll eventually appear in the hippest of record collections.
Steve Jessney (Group Design Manager) reminded me that he was a former employee! He is somebody that I have had a lot do with since about 2009. Anyone who looks at the web site will know that I have a passion for music and in addition I love podcasts. So back in the day in a trawl of the internet I came across, by chance, a podacst for Blues music and I recognised the name of the presenter.
Steve designed, with a team, furniture for Geo A Moore & Co and Moores International before leaving for MFI in the late 1980’s. This was a weird time when George Moore lurked at the top of Queen Mary House and was only occasionally sighted as he swept in and out. Weird because the top corridor staff created an impression that George was a celestial being and if you went upstairs then the corridor had radios playing to mask any noise of important conversations (?) being held within the inner sanctums.
I was the Group Purchasing Manager at the time and the components Steve specified we bought. I never knew of his love of the Blues and if he left me with anything then it was his job when he left, as I became the Group Purchasing & Design Manager. Steve now works as the Head of Technical & Design at Omega PLC.
Steve produces a weekly radio show for Vixen 101, which comes out of Market Weighton. This then becomes a podcast and as we speak I have over 8 days of the show stored on my iMac hard drive! The Show plays mainly new release Blues records but he dips into older stuff and regales us with seeing Derek & The Dominoes live in Scarborough every quarter. I love it and it follows me on my cycling trips as well as innumerable hours at home. I owe my sketchy knowledge of the Blues to him. If you like this genre then there is absolutely no better place to be.
With Jim Brady (Sales Administration, PS Sales & Installation) we dined with Wendy Looker (Sales Administration) and Sharron Street (Customer Care) near Saxton to shoot the breeze. I did suggest that photos of Jim in consecutive issues of the blog was not a good idea but the ladies insisted! Sharron works for the City & Guilds organisation in Wakefield. She runs the part of the business that monitors that standards are maintained by the companies that run the courses. A story about a record by reggae legend Prince Buster (‘Wreck A Pum Pum’) in Jamaica and the subsequent need for a cleansing trip to church by the visiting City & Guilds representative after the use of supposed foul language did highlight the cultural gulf that they straddle even in countries where we have a common language. Wendy is flourishing and full of excellent advice on all things healthy.
I had cause to catch up with Martin Appleyard (Export & Installation) recently and life sounds good. He’s now the Group Operations Director of DBD, based in Hemel Hempstead. This company supplies and installs upmarket German kitchens and appliances. He’s responsible for the installation of all this: but into every life a little rain must pour… he’s also responsible for overseeing their Health & Safety programmes and policy! Down time includes lots of cycling.
Winner of photo competition – both Peter Lawson (Supplies & Purchasing) and Philip Turnpenny (HR Director) got that it was David Moore (IT or was it DP Manager). Peter had the inside track, as he was on that holiday and it was his bike that David was leant against!
So who’s this? An unhelpful clue is that both Martin Appleyard and myself attended her wedding reception!
Trundling through the Yorkshire countryside on my bike yesterday I was miraculously transported back to Florida thanks to the presenter, Calvin Powers, on the Americana Music Show podcast. He made reference to the Suwannee Roots Revival Music Festival in October and talked through the acts about to appear.
Usually it is hard to remember a day in your life in enormous detail but I well recollect passing through Suwannee County on a hot day in late August 2015 on my bike. After cycling down the USA and taking in its magical musical history I had got to New Orleans, duly worshipped, and was heading east to the coast to meet the family. In fairness another 700 mile bike ride from NOLA isn’t inconsequential but after the earlier adventure it would be a flat run to the coast and the hell, that is, Orlando.
To my surprise I enjoyed the ride more than I ever thought. This part of Florida bears no relation to its angry, busy and prosperous eastern ‘pan handle’. It was relatively flat, very wooded, lots of African Americans and not too wealthy at all but in an unexploited and rural way. In places though it was very quiet and had that Southern combination of lethargy and debilitating heat.
On such a potential day I left Tallahassee early in squally rain (they had said there would be implications from Hurricane Erika, gosh those crazy Americans worry about anything) and headed east into a dry afternoon of heat and emptiness. As the 76 miles for the day ground by then I found myself on the ‘Ray Charles Memorial Highway’. Here in the middle of nowhere I quickly discounted it was the great man’s asphalt but slowly as I got nearer to Greenville then it became apparent this is where the African American Rhythm & Blues legend had spent his early years, his mother’s home town.
So I ‘collected’ another musical institution – saw the monument and took the photos and continued east to a State Park where I hoped to camp. The camp was in Suwannee State Park. Again in my heat dazed brain then Al Jolson came to mind with ‘Swannee’, his first large commercial hit written by George Gershwin in 1919. This became a world wide famous song. Digging around finds that Stephen Foster first adapted the Suwannee river to ‘Swannee Ribber’ in his song ‘Old Folks at Home’. From here with the river in circulation George took the name for his song.
So with all this musical history amassed I argued with the Park Ranger about charging me the same price as an RV to pitch a miniature tent (without a hook up) in this parched forest ($24) for a night. It was good to be detained and argue because the air conditioning was delicious and I noted in a tank, within the Ranger’s office, was an imprisoned Corn snake. It lived off frozen mice and as I wandered out of the office, defeated, but consoling myself that I had just cycled past a nearby gas station that sold beer and also that my exorbitant fee would keep the snake in chilled rodents for some time to come.
I have some Moores items to post but tragically some other news has come to pass that I feel I should advise before the usual lighter stuff.
Steve Johnson (PS Sales) had died after a very short illness at his home in Sherston, Wiltshire, he was just 60 years old. From feeling unwell to his passing was only around a month. This has left everyone not only deeply saddened but utterly shocked at the sudden turn of events.
You may recollect from a recent post that Steve was holidaying in South America and not least indulging in one of his hobbies – photography. If you wanted to take some epic images then you couldn’t do better than Antartica.
Steve left Moores in about 2010 and went on to run an internet business. By this time it was the end of an era for so many Moores people and we were all well past looking at our former glories. However, Steve had driven the order intake in the ‘East’ of the country, by 2005, to £11.5 million.
At this point he was a Sales Manager after starting life at Moores selling the Single Living Accommodation solutions. Given that Public Sector prices were very competitive in the market then through his efforts and the importance of the LHC his profitability was exceptional. He never dwelt on this but I did raise with him these achievements. He saw it as a team effort. However in my opinion then someone rightly gets to stand on the top of the podium.
A point that always surprises former managers is how many younger people who worked in their teams learned and developed with them. I expect those associated with Steve will feel enormous respect, affection and gratitude for this part of their careers.
Ironically the future in front of Steve looked financially secure and leisure beckoned with his partner. A thoroughly splendid, generous and interesting man then this cruel turn of events makes you realise how precious life is.
Surprising what you learn at Costa Coffee. I was stood in the queue with a rat trap, when the Barista (or the bloke behind the counter who made coffee but had a fancy title dreamt up by a Marketing agency) commented on my purchase. Much to our distress we have had Roland running around the garden for sometime and he’s quite a size. The Barista wasn’t hostile to my death mission but did comment that he kept them as pets. Deciding that he was mad I limited our exchange but did enquire, on my exit, as to whether his neighbours knew about his hobby?
After an uncertain period then we appeared to have let our vacant house. As always we have now refurbished and cleaned it up such that it seems a shame to hand it across to tenants. The market has been slow due to various excuses from the Letting Agent. Explanations include – seasonal drop off, General Election and the considerable building of purpose built student accommodation in York, which has proverbially drained the swamp! Anyway they are not in yet but fingers crossed there are no hitches.
As I’ve reported then after a further DVT I’m on a pill a day to prevent a re-occurrence. It doesn’t seem to be a problem other than remembering to take it. However, when I replenish my stock then I am still a little amazed that I get them for free as I am over 60. I note that the Conservatives are clawing back some benefits from the wealthy if they get re-elected. As the ‘baby boomer’ generation that has pensions, high value property and, sometimes, savings it seems a nonsense that the younger less well off should subsidise them. Thank you for the free pills but really you shouldn’
By any standards then 70,000 miles is a long way to ride a bicycle. This week I clocked up this total. As I am male then I have recorded just about all my bike rides and so when this milestone came around even I was amazed. For those who look too closely at the details then yes I have got slower (!) over the years but also the mileage is accumulated on a variety of bicycles and the slowest times (mph not kph!) include hauling heavy loads on a rugged steel bike up the Pyrenees, Alps, Rockies or the Sierra Nevada.
Lastly the events of the week in terms of atrocity must have floored everyone. I don’t think you could have received the news without becoming tearful. Slaughtering innocent people has now reached 8 year olds. Beyond belief. Everyone was interested in the details and the news channels went into overdrive. A lot of people in Manchester were literally overcome by the severity and affront of it all. I am proud of my hometown and I can well understand their reaction. However the only thing people can do about it, it seems, is hold a vigil, provide support and comfort to those affected or helping and, lastly, call for unity. This last thing is vague but I imagine is about not allowing racism to take hold. They’re right.
Never once did I really hear a thoughtful analysis on disaffected youth who feel outsiders in their society through the colour of their skin or religion, the divisive arbitrary drawing of borders between countries in the Middle East by the colonial powers in the 20th century, the hopeless and nothing short of murderous regimes run in Middle Eastern countries by Saddam Hussein, Bashar la-Assad, Colonel Gaddafi and then, the icing on the cake, the intervention of Western countries militarily in the Middle East. On this last point then Britain with the French bombed Libya to a ruinous state and now it is a disaster with no ruling party or system to control. However it is rife for pouring out more grief toward Europe. Even Obama censured Cameron for this failed intervention.
The above being said then no one has a right to commit murder and if they do then they should expect justice in whatever form it takes. The security services are brilliant and unsung, I’m grateful for their professionalism and overall success. Even at the risk of curtailing civil liberties then we need to have more controls and monitoring of those who might kill us.
I’m not very anxious about signs of my own mortality. It’s along the road but it seems to be out of sight at the moment. However for one good friend it came dramatically into sight before he got too close to 60. Such is my mental process that after I received a text from Marion I immediately thought of ‘First Of The Gang To Die’ by Morrissey, not least because Jason Field was.
I met Jason when he became a resident in a house I shared in Billericay in the late 70’s/early ’80’s. He was a young undergraduate engineer on a placement with Ford Truck. The rest of us in the house, Paul, Peter and Tim, worked at Ford, whether Tractor, Cars or Trucks.
It was stupid lads together who either balanced buckets of water on top of doors, invited the most vulnerable to a complimentary sandwich saying it was chicken but enjoyed their reaction when we told them it actually was frog leg meat, let off horrendously loud boat fog klaxons at 3 am next to someone’s bedroom and not least enjoyed rolling up to the pub for continued ribbing.
Jason at work was a star and a hoot out of it. A confident, opinionated and slightly know it all from Newton Aycliffe. More fun continued when he borrowed his dad’s Morris Marina Estate and, with Neil, we drove to Austria for the Grand Prix – many memorable moments not least him carrying out some engine servicing at a campsite that eventually necessitated getting the equivalent of the RAC to visit to swap around the plug leads that stopped the engine firing!
Clearly from this photograph we must have been invited to a fancy dress party back in the day – I recognise my old school cricket pullover, if not the bearded lad in tinted glasses with masses of hair..
We all left the house and moved on. Jason finished his degree at Manchester University and not least caught the eye of his bride by turning up at the Hall of Residence bar in bedroom slippers. (At my age this seems logical but at 20 years old or so then I can see the fashion crime). He returned to Ford and moved up through the grades that we had all originally coveted. On his stellar rise he ran a night shift at Halewood, ran the White Body Plant at Jaguar, looked after the manufacture of radiators at Dagenham and ended up in the Czech Republic joint running a Plant that made air conditioning and light components for just about most major car manufacturers in Europe.
We’d kept in touch albeit loosely, as blokes do, and met up over the years. In 2009 I cycled with a another pal, Jim, to his house in Kunin, just over the Czech border, from Krakow in Poland (via Auschwitz). There we were treated royally by Marion and Jason before trundling back. He was now in his early fifties and thinking that he might retire back to England. The pension seemed good and life was good.
Despite Christmas cards then the communication tailed off. People can be like that I thought. However, in 2014 I received a card from Marion saying that it would be great if maybe I could invite him on Facebook? He was now wheelchair bound with Multiple System Atrophy. This very rare condition leads to a failing of the body whilst the intellect remains in tact. Of course I went to Essex to see him and admired their fortitude and spirit coping with this wickedly random tragedy. Over subsequent visits with Jason, now in care, he was always cheerful but for a man of such energy and capability it all seemed unforgivably cruel to be reduced to such captivity.
I was getting frustrated looking for decaffeinated coffee beans at Tesco (they didn’t have any) when Marion sent a text saying he’d passed. I’m sure when I next visit that aisle I will have a terribly heavy feeling.
We’d tried to visit in February but he’d been rushed to A & E, it was not uncommon for him to have episodes that needed hospitalisation, and it was in our plans to try and visit again on May Bank Holiday.
So a part of my life has gone but frankly my loss is incomparable to a widow’s. As they say seize the day and look after yourself.
I recently heard a story that a friend of a friend had a kitchen installed. The kitchen installer then sent his final invoice by email. The email was hacked and the invoice altered such that the account and sort code were changed to a Nigerian account. Unsuspecting any problem the recipient of the invoice paid on line to this now altered bank account.
All was quiet until the kitchen company asked where the money was? Eventual investigation revealed that the money had been paid into a ‘new’ account and that the kitchen company had indeed not received its money. I’m not sure where the impasse has got to but you expect that the owner of the kitchen may have to pay twice.
So be cautious in paying direct on line against an invoice received by email. Maybe my chequebook isn’t completely obsolete yet? Isn’t it about time that some form of cyber security initiative controlled Nigerian email? Not only is there this horror story but also we all suffer from junk mail; should you be unlucky enough to click their attachment or links it will expose your computer to fraud. Always check the address of the email sender – on junk mail it is usually some nonsense and not PayPal, a bank or whoever it purports to be from..
The family suspects that it is a toss up whether my being in the company of small children or dogs is preferable. This is very unfair but probably true. However, I am not cruel and when I visit Wales to see my sister then I diligently walk the dog – Blossom (…don’t ask).
I might have been more positive about dogs were it not for the modern etiquette that demands scooping up its droppings wherever it might randomly deposit them. The old days of leaving it anywhere weren’t good – I remember a long bus ride home from central Leeds to my home in the country with smears of it on my leg, this happened when I was nine and may explain a lot! Anyway me and Blossom had a nice long walk and usually she keeps any surplus until she gets back to the house and drops a load on the back lawn: not in line with the reason why she was hauled around but it does avoid inverting the poo bag and gripping the warm, smelly and slimy gift and then carrying it home at arm’s length.
As we cruise country paths surrounded by grass and farm animals then it crossed my mind that should Blossom develop the need then some relocation of the mutt into the long grass might hide the deed and we might proceed quickly from the scene of the crime undetected. So imagine my horror when we returned and got on the street where she lived and she adopted the pose on the verge… oh no! I did contemplate checking all the surrounding windows for surveillance and if the coast was clear then dashing for our front door afterwards, however, the risk of ignominy and future pointing was too great a risk. So thanking the very empty canine from the bottom of my heart I collected the bountiful donation and went home wondering if I could find a plug on Google for next time.
After advice from my physio I joined a gym in order to use specific equipment. I’m not a stranger to physical exercise but gyms are not my scene. The Council run one nearby and as it is chocker full of kit then I signed up. Gaining access when getting to the gym however remains a baffling experience.
At Reception I presented my gym membership card and my York Resident’s card. The Receptionist chirped back “£5.80 please”. No I smirked back, “it is £3.90 as I is am a York resident and an old person entitled to a discount”. Okay she confirmed, “May I see your concession card?”
What! I had already got two new cards to attempt to penetrate the gym did I need a third? After asking where I might get the third card and what it looked like she said it had to show proof of my age on it. Warming to the conversation I enquired as to whether she had my age on the system as I had to go through an induction and form submission initially. Yes, she the system noted my age but I still needed to show proof. Now I’m all for detailed checks if buying a shotgun, accessing large Social Benefit payments, boarding a plane and the like but for an hour wasting myself on a Bosu ball and a Leg Press?. Anyway she relented… on this one occasion, and allowed me entry after I gave her another card… my Debit card to pay the £3.90.
Tony Ives’ Blog 