Poppies

Flowers. It was William Blake who wrote:

"To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour. "

I let my back garden run a bit wild this year. The much heralded revamp is on hold. It was heaven for the insects (bees in particular) to have a range of wild flowers to enjoy, even if it all looked a bit scruffy and haphazard. 

I love wild flowers and the illustration below is a glass panel I had made for me a few years ago to hang in the conservatory, because unlike paintings or posters the colours don't get bleached by the sunshine. Stephanie Bowen is a local Lancashire glass artist with a studio, Morpheus Glass, in Wigan. 

Meadow Flowers - glass panel art by Stephanie Bowen, 2019 

Given that we are close to Armistice Day, I thought I'd focus this flower blog on poppies in particular, since the red poppy (papaver rhoeas ), or red-flowered corn poppy to give its full title, has become the symbol of remembrance for those fallen in battle, in no small part  because of the way it colonised the disturbed soil of the First World War battlefields in the wake of all that bloodshed - although there are deeper connotations as described further on.

But poppies come in a variety of species and colours (yellow, orange, purple, blue, white, pink). As with many cultural practices, the first recorded instance of poppies being cultivated and used for culinary, medicinal, recreational and religious purposes dates back to the Sumerians (in what is now southern Iraq) some time in the fifth millennium BC. They were the first to grow opium poppies (papaver somniferum ), a practice that continues to this day across the region of the Middle East and Asia, providing the world with a precariously regulated source of opium and analgesic opiates (including codeine, heroin and morphine).

From Sumeria, poppy cultivation and poppy folklore spread west around the Mediterranean and east along the silk road to China. Juglets containing opium have been found in Ancient Egyptian tombs and poppies feature in their jewellery and paintings of the second millennium BC. In Crete, Minoan culture of the same period celebrated the Poppy Goddess and later, both Greek and Roman cultures regarded the poppy as a symbol of sleep and dreams (narcolepsy - the Morpheus connection) and of death (repose in everlasting sleep). Poppies featured in funeral rites and as tokens of remembrance even three thousand years ago. There is also some evidence that other pagan religions came to regard the poppy as a symbol of resurrection.

Of course to most of us poppies are appreciated for their vibrant colour, whether growing as wild flowers in the countryside or as ornamental plants in our gardens, and the bees love them. There will be poppies as well as geraniums in my garden after the revamp.

They also retain their culinary and cosmetic uses. Poppy seeds (the non-opioid varieties) are rich in oil, calcium and protein. The oil can be used in salads and in cooking, and many bread products are baked with poppy seeds mixed in the dough or sprinkled on top. Poppy extracts feature in beauty products and are used in the manufacture of some paints and varnishes.

The poppy is the national flower of both Albania, North Macedonia and Poland and is the state flower of California. Poppy has also regained currency in the 21st century as a girl's name and several rock bands have featured it, including (with incisive Scouse humour) Liverpool's Dead Poppies.      

Girl in a Field with Red Poppies - by Frank Buchser, 1878

To conclude, here's a poem I've just written in that eternity of an hour the clocks have given back to us tonight. Its title is from a quote by Dr. Joel Warsh, an American paediatrician. In full, the quotation reads:

"Let’s raise children who can name plants and animals, not celebrities and brands. In a world full of screens and pop culture, let’s encourage our kids to connect with nature and appreciate the beauty around them. Teaching them about the natural world helps foster curiosity, responsibility, and a deeper understanding of our planet. "

Let's Raise Children Who Can Name Plants And Animals

Belcher's Factory tea room,

Monday mid-morning break

women in pink nylon overalls

sit drinking tea 

at tables with plastic flowers,

scrolling on their phones 

or chatting

about weekend dates or TV

when one exclaims 'there's a bird'.

A rare sight indeed.

They crowd to the dusty window

and gaze at the tiny thing

bobbing and dipping

in the gutter of the factory opposite.

'That's a pied wagtail' says the youngest

who's never seen one before

but has the book at home.

'It's probably searching for water

or insects.'

They watch its jerky little movements

with fascination until with a last flick

of its black and white tail it sails off

leaving them to stare wistfully after

without knowing why.

Come on girls! Mugs away!

That sinking feeling,

back to the production of wealth.

And so to bed, as Zebedee said...or was it Samuel Pepys? (Don't answer, I know it was the latter.)

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Wayside Blossoms

He’d said he would be back in the spring with the curlew. But it was June and there was still no sign of him. 

Before Jim left, he’d given Sara a gift, a book called Wayside and Woodland Blossoms. It contained all the varieties of British wildflowers you could possibly imagine, complete with illustrated colour plates and a detailed description of each flower and the family it belonged to.

‘I expect you to have learnt the names of all the flowers in this book by the time I get back,’ he joked. 

‘I’m not interested in wildflowers,’ she said. ‘I just wish you weren’t going.’ 

‘We’ve been over this a million times,’ he said. ‘I can’t stay here twiddling my thumbs. I need to earn a living and there’s nothing for me here. We’re in the middle of a depression, remember. At least you have a job. And they’re always going to need teachers. 

‘But why do you have to go so far away?’ she said. ‘And what makes you think it will be better anywhere else?’
‘Well, I have to try,’ he said. ‘There are always plenty of jobs down South, fruit-picking. It’s not as if I’m leaving the country.’

With that he packed his bags and was gone. A letter arrived soon afterwards. He’d found a job for the harvest season in Kent. He’d be home for Christmas. But Christmas came and went. Next thing she knew he’d gone and signed up to work on a ship. It was an opportunity he couldn’t refuse, he said. He was sailing the next day. He’d be home in the spring.

The book lay on the bedside table all winter. What was the point in looking at pictures of wildflowers during the winter? It had been raining non-stop and the ground was soddened, so she couldn’t even get out for a walk. But when spring came and the weather bucked up, she was determined to make the most of it. She’d try to identify as many wildflowers as she could on her walks.

Soon the first primroses were pushing up their pale, yellow petals along shady banks, followed by delicate white, wood anemones. There were carpets of celandines and bluebells amidst wild garlic, violets, and wild strawberry flowers. The boggy areas were awash with marsh marigolds.

His letters were becoming less and less frequent. Maybe he was too busy, too caught up in his everyday life to find time to write. Or maybe the letters just went getting through. When a letter finally did arrive, it contained some lines from a poem called the Seafarer.

     ‘Sometimes I heard the song of the swan
     seized gladness in the cry of the gannet
     and the sound of the curlew, instead of
     the laughter of men: in the screaming gull,
     instead of the clanking mead-cups.’

What was that supposed to mean? The poem, it turned  out was written by an anonymous poet in Old English. Some said it was a sailor’s lament. Others said that it was an account of a religious hermit in search for God. Would Jim ever be coming back?

Curlews came inland in March for the breeding season, preferring to live most of the years on riverbanks by the sea. Come July, they would be going back there. You had to be careful with nesting birds. They would come at you, screeching in alarm if you got too close to the nest. Whenever she heard their calls reverberating across the valley, she thought of Jim. They became her constant companions.

Whenever she spotted an unfamiliar variety of wildflowers, she looked it up in Wayside and Woodland
Blossoms. There were far more of them than she’d ever imagined. She’d always thought Jack-by-the-Hedge was a weed. It had tiny white flowers and was everywhere. Silver weed, on the other hand, was striking with its feathery leaves which were silver on the underside, but its flowers could easily be mistaken for buttercups. Bistort, an unusual name, she thought, had flowers which looked like pale pink spikes. Bugle reflected the shape of the musical instrument with the same name but unlike the orchid, which it was often taken for, had leaves coming off the stem. It was hard to tell the difference between all the clusters of small white flowers she encountered on Queen Ann’s lace, Earthnut and Ground Elder.

May blossom was everywhere, lighting up the hedgerows. May or hawthorn blossom gave off a delicate, fruity smell, a smell of spring. She remembered the old saying ‘Cast ne’er a clout, till May be out.’ The book said that in pagan times the hawthorn was regarded as a fertility symbol. Hence the ritual of dancing around the Maypole. And in medieval times, people thought hawthorn smelt of the plague and that if you took the blossoms into your house, you would be scourged by illness or death. Thank Goodness the days of magic and superstition were over, she reflected. As a biology teacher she knew that there was often a logical explanation for such beliefs. Dead wood gave off a chemical, called trimethylamine which smelt like decaying animal tissue.

In June, the weather turned windy. The forecast had predicted gusts of up to fifty miles an hour. When she looked out of her bedroom window, the branches of the rowan and elderberry bushes, top-heavy with leaves and blossom, were being blown this way and that. Her fiancé was adrift at sea, being tossed about by the elements. As the branches swayed rhythmically in their hypnotic dance, they seemed to be beckoning her to join them.

Someone had said there were fairy foxgloves growing in the old quarry down by the disused lead mine. According to Wayside Blossoms, they weren’t real foxgloves. They weren’t even native to this country, having been introduced from Alpine regions hundreds of years ago, but they were growing wild in isolated spots. Now was as good a time as any to go and investigate.

She nearly got blown off her feet as she walked along the ridge to the limestone quarry. Once inside the dell, the wind dropped, thankfully. Halfway up the rockface, growing out of cracks in the rock, she spied a clump of tiny, purple flowers. They must be the fairy foxgloves she’d heard of. She needed to take a closer look. She recalled a picture she’d once seen of a long-skirted, Victorian lady, clambering up a rockface in pursuit of some rare variety of fern.

Just as she was nearing the ledge, a curlew came screeching overhead. She must be close to its nest. She put her hand out to protect herself from the encroaching bird. Thoughts of Jim flashed through her mind, as she lost her grip and fell.

Jenny Palmer 
First published in Creative Mind No 5, Preeta Press.

Editor's Note:

This short story is just one piece among thirty in Jenny Palmer's latest book, 'Butterflies and other stories'. It's out now, published by Bridge House.  It is available from Amazon, linked here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Butterflies-Jenny-Palmer/dp/1914199685 and naturally it comes with the highest Dead Good recommendation.

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Tulips

The question I have to ask myself is whether I would sell my house for the bulb of a flower in the hope that in a few week’s time I could sell the bulb to buy a mansion. I’ll think about it.

In the meantime let’s have a look back to Holland in the early 1600s. The introduction of tulips to Holland in the latter part of the sixteenth century coincided with the fashion for the newly emergent middle and upper classes to keep gardens. Their gardens either adjoined town houses, or were in separate plots outside the city walls. This was a form of conspicuous consumption, a way in which the newly rich could display their wealth. Tulips were an exotic item from the East, newly imported at a time when global trade was just beginning to have an impact, of which the Dutch were leaders. In time other plants would be all the rage, but in the 1630s it was tulips.

The Dutch East India Company earned huge profits and their shares increased greatly in value. The demand for tulips soared, and in response the number of tulips available for sale rose accordingly; by the mid-1630s there were more than 500 varieties. Some perspective is given to the Dutch craze by the fact that France had already experienced its own tulip mania, where prices reached similarly unfeasible heights.

England did not experience a craze for tulips, but there are parallels with other fashionable plants in England, not least the orchid, for which there were weekly auctions in London in the Edwardian period. The author Rider Haggard tells of a Mr. Tracy, who was offered and refused seventeen hundred guineas for an Odontoglossum Crispum “Think of it! He refused the value of a good sized farm for that one frail and perishable plant!”

Tulip Mania - Jan Brueghel the Younger, 1640

The phenomenon later described as Tulipomania arose in the autumn and winter of 1636-37 when, according to the best evidence, very small offsets increased in price between four and ten times in the last three months of 1636 and large bulbs increased in price five fold. The demand for the tulip trade was so large by the end of that year that regular marts for their sale were established on the Stock Exchange of Amsterdam in Rotterdam, Haarlem, and other towns.

It was at this time that professional traders got in on the action and everyone appeared to be making money simply by possessing some of these rare bulbs. It seemed at the time that the price could only go up, that the passion for tulips would last forever. People had purchased bulbs on credit, hoping to repay their loans when they sold their bulbs for a profit.

However, the bubble had burst by the end of 1637. Buyers announced that they couldn't pay the high prices previously agreed upon for bulbs and the market fell apart. It wasn't a devastating occurrence for the nation’s economy but it did undermine social expectations. The event destroyed relationships built on trust and people’s willingness and ability to pay.

It should be said that there were no discernible bankruptcies amongst the participants and little or no effect on the wider economy. Remarkably, also, considering the scope for fraud, there seems to have been little or no criminal activity.

The Tulipomania story became notorious upon the publication in 1846 of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, which has never been out of print. His source was a series of three propaganda leaflets published anonymously in the aftermath of the events, in particular one entitled Dialogue between True-mouth and Greedy-goods. As the title suggests, it is a satire, and as it is in the very nature of satire to exaggerate to make a point, it would be unwise to rely on it as being necessarily true.

Much of the information above comes from articles by Jonathan Denby, Faculty of History, University of Oxford, Tulipmania: About the Dutch Tulip Bulb Market Bubble by Adam Hayes (Investopedia) and Doug Ashburn (Britannica Money).

No, I wouldn’t sell my house as I like my house and the area I live in. Anyway, if I had a mansion just think of all the cleaning.

I couldn’t resist this poem by Dylan Thomas:

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Flowers - Bloomin' Lovely

The garden is looking sorry for itself. Chopped down for winter, the three intertwined buddleia are naked sticks protruding from the soil, shorter than the fence. They look dead, but I’m sure I haven’t killed them. I can’t say the same for the annoying bindweed that was wrapped tightly around more branches than I realised. It has disappeared for now. Springtime will see it re-emerge, ready to attack, and once again I’ll be fighting the losing battle of trying to keep it away. I’m considering training it on to some trellis somewhere at the side. It is an attractive plant, just damages other things. We’ll see. The buddleia didn’t flower very well and I didn’t see a single butterfly, though I was away for most of the summer.

I'm not a good gardener, home or away, but I make an effort and do my best. Bulbs are planted for spring. I look forward to daffodils, tulips, irises, grape hyacinths and something I’ve never heard of that looked very pretty on the box. I do this every autumn, full of enthusiasm, expecting to grow the best spring garden ever and the wonderful flowers will compensate for every ache and pain. Something is always lacking – green fingers – so, in all seasons I try to plant things that will flower nicely and look after themselves. A favourite is the Totally Tangerine geum. They come back stronger each year. There are two, in different flower beds. In bloom, one is more stunning than the other. The slightly weaker one was bought when I was feeling cross about someone connected to football and I think it shows, but it doesn’t matter now.

I love to have flowers in the house. Last week I was overwhelmed and delighted to be given beautiful roses including yellow ones for friendship from a lovely friend of many years. She didn’t know this, but things have been tough for me lately. The flowers, with their special significance, really helped to cheer me up.

I always have daffodils in remembrance of my father. When he passed away, his garden path was lines with an abundance of shades of yellow, cream and orange created by an amazing display of various daffodils. It’s nice to see them appear in my garden.

I hope I have success with poppies next year. They always look lovely, but can be so delicate that they don’t last very long.

I’ve chosen two poems,

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth 1770-1850

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae 1872-1918

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Flaming Spontaneity

Fair warning: I'm going gruesomely spontaneous this week, taking a look at a phenomenon that has long intrigued me, and maybe some of you as well, spontaneous combustion.

Simply put, it's when things suddenly burst into flames seemingly for no apparent reason, through no external agency. One minute they are not on fire and the next minute they are - spontaneously.

Things that are on record as having spontaneously combusted include hay, charcoal, coal, cotton, copra, compost heaps and manure piles, linseeds, pistachio nuts, motion picture film and human beings.

What is actually happening is this (our Saturday science lesson, gentle readers). When a substance with a relatively low ignition temperature, such as the majority of those materials listed above, begins to generate heat due to exothermic internal reactions (by oxidation or bacterial fermentation), because these materials are also good thermal insulators the heat cannot escape, leading to what is called thermal runaway (i.e. rapidly accelerating temperatures as heat produced exceeds heat dissipated). Given sufficient quantities of fuel, heat and oxygen (the three sides of the 'fire triangle' many of us will have learned on fire-prevention courses) autoignition results and whoof, your hayrick, coalmine, cotton store, mountain of pistachio nuts or refuse heap is ablaze without prior warning.

As a side note, that's the reason why hay or straw bales, which are known to be very good insulators and are used increasingly in the building trade, have to be treated with a certified fire-retardant before use.

Having worked for over thirty years for the photographic film manufacturer Kodak, I was intrigued to learn that the fire which completely destroyed the 20th Century Fox film storage facility was a case of spontaneous combustion made possible by the New Jersey heatwave of 1937. Motion picture stock being made of nitrocellulose, the stock in the vaults - the master tapes of thousands of silent movies - quickly went though the exothermic internal reaction/thermal runaway sequence and once alight, as nitrate film produces its own oxygen supply as it burns (it's highly flammable even under water), the whole store and the building housing it was destroyed in a savage fireball. By the early 1950s. film stock was virtually nitrate-free.

But I know that you're all really dying to know about the phenomenon of so-called spontaneous human combustion. What are the facts? Does it actually exist? Is it anything more than pseudo-science? 

The net result of my copious (and rather unsettling) research leads me to believe that in the majority of the hundreds of reported cases of human beings burning to death unexpectedly, the majority can be explained by a combination of the physical condition of the deceased prior to the conflagration and the likely presence of an external heat source.

By that I mean that most victims have been elderly, relatively immobile, often alcoholics and/or obese, and a nearby flame (candle, cigarette, open fire) was the probable source of ignition. Immobility meant a low chance of the victim extinguishing the fire, clothing allowed the flames to spread and acted as a wick in combination with fatty tissue or alcohol. And the fact that the bodies burned but not the surrounding area can be accounted for by a combination of the nature of such fires (flames are small and vertical, as in a candle, without horizontal spread) and the relative isolation of the bodies (lack of surrounding combustible materials). 

The scientists claim, with some justification, that the probability of human beings spontaneously combusting is extremely low, what with there being billions of people on the planet but only a handful of claimed incidents (less than two hundred) over several centuries (i.e. less than one per year).

And yet....and yet....I'll leave you with the details of a recent case, the death of Michael Faherty in 2010:

"The body of 76 year old Michael Faherty, was found in the living room of his home in Clareview Park at Ballybane in the Irish city of Galway on 22nd December 2010. The scene was searched by forensic experts from the Gardai and the fire service. The fire investigators concluded that no accelerants were used and that the open fireplace in the room was not the cause of the fire. A post-mortem carried out by pathologist Grace Callagy noted that Faherty had suffered from Type 2 diabetes and hypertension but had not died from heart failure. Callagy concluded that the extensive nature of the burns sustained precluded determining the precise cause of death  The coroner in the case could not identify the cause of the death due to extensive internal organ damage and concluded that 'this [case] fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation'."' 

Make of that what you will.

In conclusion, and as an experiment in more-or-less spontaneous writing, I've created this new poem. It started off as the Infernal Combustion Engine, morphed into the Spontaneous Combustion Engine, then took a musical left-turn into the Spontaneous Combustion Orchestra before settling down into the strange fancy you see before you.

Oscar Conan Cassidy's Spontaneous Combustion Chamber Orchestra Presents...

Stravinsky's Firebird like you've never heard,

played with gusto by an enthusiastic ensemble 

of slightly obese, alcoholic virtuosos gathered 

in the great hall of the people before an invited 

audience of scientists, sceptics and their wives -

for here we still live in strictly patriarchal time.

Oscar Conan Cassidy, Bungo to his friends, he

of an unkempt shock of red hair wields a baton,

taps to extract all the coughs from the audience,

and in ensuing silence winks slyly at his combo

who plunge madly in, staccato brass, plucking

strings, flailing with exothermic verve, sucking

energy out of thin air - the audience gasps - and

hitting a groove of sawing violins, febrile flutes, 

pulsating horns louder, faster, heat the tempo to

thermal runaway, wild-eyed, ecstatic, rising to

fever pitch until in a crescendo of flashing bows

sparking horns, the nub of autoignition reached,

his whole ensemble erupts in flames. Scientists

and sceptics reel back in fear, polite wives grin,

haven't had such fun in years, a ceiling  falls in,

the Firebird can flee, the combo a semi-circular

heap of ashes, molten brass, incendiary hearts,

because in poetry like this all things are possible.

Thanks for reading. Have a good week, S ;-)

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Lancashire Dead Good Poets' November Open Mic Night

Why not join us for our November open mic night on Zoom? You're welcome to read or just listen to two hours of sparkling poetry. To book your place, please email the address on the poster:

There is no set theme for the night, and there are 20 x 5 minute slots on offer, so bring us your latest and best. PS. You don't even have to be from Lancashire.

 

Steve ;-)

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Spontaneity

T and I were walking her dog (Billy) in the park today and I happened to mention that this week’s blog was to be on ‘Spontaneity’. She looked at me with a slight look of incredulity and exclaimed “Spontaneity. You are writing about Spontaneity?!”

I was more than slightly aggrieved and that was before I noticed that even Billy was guffawing.

I told her, after explaining calmly that spontaneity was a part of my routine, that I was thinking about doing something on haiku but wasn’t keen and when she had recovered she reminded me of a story I’d told her a few years ago. This is it.

the Gaiety Coffee Bar, Butlin's, Pwllheli, 1970

In the summer of 1970 I had worked as a Plain Clothes Security Officer at Butlins in Pwllheli. During that time I had met my first proper girlfriend, Millie (Irmeli), a Finnish girl who was spending her summer working as chamber maid to get some money and better her English. It was an emotional parting and we kept writing to each other over the following months and looking forward to seeing each other again. She was going to work at Butlins again but didn’t know when or where and I was going to take the summer off by signing on the dole, as I was then at college, and travel to wherever she was posted.

So, it was in June 1971 and end of exams at Wolverhampton Poly so we had decided to have a party to celebrate. Our house was near the college so plenty turned up and it wasn’t until about 7 am that we kicked the last ones out. At which point the post arrived with a card from Millie. It said:

‘In Ayr. Where are you?'

At this point it should be noted that faded tie-dye jeans were in. Desert boots were in. Long hair and beard was in. It wasn’t a pretty sight. I can’t remember the rest or what bag I took. I do remember the jolt of electricity I got when I read the card and chucked whatever was around in it and headed off for Scotland immediately.

Hitching was so normal then that I must have got up to around Gretna without anything noticeable happening because it was there that to my surprise a Rolls Royce stopped and offered me a lift. 

It turned out the driver was the head of a major international company and it was the first time he had been back to his home territory since he was a boy. It was quite moving as he pointed out hills and lochs where he had played as a boy. He was kind enough to drop me at the Ayr Butlins camp. But by this time the place was closed and I was lucky enough to find its stables and managed to get some intermittent sleep.

Ayr Butlin's stables

In the morning I went to the main gate and asked for Millie. Minutes later we had an emotional reunion. Even more emotional when she told me that she and the other Finnish students were being moved to Pwllheli right then.

She turned back into the camp and the next thing was that I was waving to her as she passed in a coach. She had got a window seat and tears were flowing. I kept on waving until the coach disappeared and then sat down on the side of the road as I realised that I was going to have to follow.

But that was fine. It was wonderful. Young and in love.

I could have written another article on the journey to North Wales that I seem to remember involving sleeping under the Menai Bridge and a milk lorry getting me the last few miles to the gates of the Butlins camp where I knew all the holes in the fences due to the previous year.

map of Butlin's, Pwllheli

I was looking for a particular poem to end this and as I couldn’t find a suitable one in my main files I looked in my paper based ‘Useless’ one and gave a gasp of surprise at finding the one below written when it says it was but I don’t remember writing it. Lesson: Never chuck stuff.

Dole Q (Summer 1971)

Sitting in the dole queue
I’m waiting for my name
Staring at the dark brown floor
Seeing through the same.
A cigarette sub sails
Under a spit wet sea
Rising to an occasion
Which is more than
Can be said for me,
Feet seem to walk this water
Well, it’s a point of view,
Stepping on stony glances
Or merely another shoe.
Somewhere in the distance
Lies a promised hand
So I’ll be off tomorrow
Towards another land.
A number is called
A number are bald
But many more are younger.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Spontaneity

 

Spontaneity is not my strong point. I’m more Ms Stayput and keep cautious. I leave impulsiveness to those with the confidence to either know what they’re doing, or not care about the outcome because we only live once. That’s fine. I’m a happy soul with my plans noted on my calendar, allowing for plenty of rest time between events. By events, I really mean appointments and regular weekly or monthly meetings. I have a visit to the dentist coming up and as the surgery is in town, it might be tempting to pop to M & S or the Hound’s Hill for a bit of Christmas shopping. That could be classed as spontaneity for me, I suppose.

 The weekend before last, we had a few days away in our caravan, planned, of course. We met up with family for some relaxing time together, which it was. Disappointingly, the pub within walking distance no longer serves food, so we all managed with our own supplies and looked for somewhere further afield for the next day. A lovely hotel in nearby Lockerbie provided the answer, with its fabulous restaurant open to non-residents. This was probably the last time we’ll get out in the caravan this year. The chilly autumn nights and dark tea-times have no appeal to me, regardless of how beautiful the view across a loch might be from the caravan window. Never say never, though, someone might have an impulse to squeeze one more trip in. It won’t be me. We’ll be cosy in our favourite lodge in Dumfries & Galloway soon and I am happy to wait for that.

 During this week, there was a moment when a decision was made that could, from my point of view, be a spontaneous thing. Christmas Day has always been at home and over the years the family has expanded, which is wonderful. The family is my world, but Christmas can be hard work for me, so, giving everyone plenty of notice, we told everyone that we’re not hosting Christmas Day this year, but we will arrange a family buffet between Christmas and New Year. We hadn’t made plans for ourselves until The Corner Flag popped up on Blackpool FC Hotel festivities. Spontaneity stepped in. Sorted.

 I found this poem by Bryan Wallace on Poem Hunter and thought it apt for me, 

Diary with a little pencil stuck in spine-
Each day planned with metronomic precision.
Nothing left to chance at all - can't take the risk.
Plan each day and leave nothing at all to chance.
Run our lives like a well-oiled machine.
Think to the future - pension plans and
Rainy day saving funds - we best be prepared.
Each think carefully planned - no nasty surprises -
It is the best way - we are told.

But what if we leave life to chance, to allow
Room for at least a little bit of spontaneity?
To allow space to have a little fun
When un-expected opportunity should arise?
To enjoy the chance encounters with the people
That we meet as we travel along life's highway.
To take the opportunity to kick the stray football
Back tot he kids playing in the park.
To enjoy the random things which happen -
When we allow ourselves to live in the moment
And not at some point in the future -
Planning for some disaster that most probably
Will never happen!

 Bryan Wallace 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Restaurants

I have a few favourite restaurants. I like them variously for their ambience, their food and their location. I've been lucky enough to travel quite widely both on business and on holiday to some interesting places with appetising cuisine and I'll drop you my top ten favourite restaurants later.

First though, a bit of a potted history. As a child on holidays in the UK it was always seaside eateries - fish and chip cafes, formica topped tables, sausage, egg and chips, bottles of coca cola, jam sponge and custard (I always insisted on putting salt on the latter). And that was fine. It filled us up and I don't think there was much other choice in the 1960s for a family on a budget.

Then in my teens I had a part-time job at Cambridge Arts Theatre and the backstage crew used to eat before shows at  a Greek restaurant called the Eros. It was basic and cheap but very good, my introduction to Greek food and the beginning of  a lifelong love of that country's cuisine. The city also had a more up-market Greek restaurant, the Varsity, extremely popular with students and dons alike, to which I used to take my girlfriend on special occasions (birthdays, end of exams). Sadly it is no longer there.

My first exposure to native Greek tavernas came in Crete in the early 1970s when tourism was still a primitive affair. There were no menus, nothing in English, and if your Greek wasn't up to speed (which mine wasn't then) you'd get ushered into the taverna's kitchen to look at whatever country fare was cooking and you'd make your selection, go sit at a table and wait for whatever to arrive, to be washed down with retsina (another abiding love). It was there that I first tasted artichokes and  aubergines, gigantes (like baked beans only bigger and better...I had them for my tea tonight), avgolemono (egg/lemon soup), weed pies, goat stew, sardines grilled in vine-leaves, fresh figs, sheep's cheese, galaktoboureko (custard tart in filo pastry) and so much more.

By the time I went off to university in the Midlands, a bit of a desert as far as Greek restaurants were concerned, Coventry's curry houses became the main port of call for a good meal out, and Indian food joined Greek in my flavour hierarchy. I love a good curry. And curiously enough, the best curry I've ever eaten was at an Indian restaurant in Skiathos town in Greece, providing authentic Bangla dishes cooked by chefs from the sub-continent, with dining outdoors in a beautifully lighted garden.  

As I mentioned at the outset, I've worked quite a bit abroad and that has provided an opportunity to go to some really quite good restaurants in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA on expenses. (The workers must be fed!) French, Italian and Georgian cuisines have joined Greek and Indian in my list of culinary favourites.

Vincent Van Gogh's rendition of a French restaurant, 1887

What I hope to find in a restaurant is good food cooked simply, some decent wines, a relaxed atmosphere and a welcoming experience. It's important not to feel hurried. It's meant to be restorative. I don't like pretentious or faddy establishments, nor places that are so noisy it's impossible to have a civilised conversation or so quiet that everyone can eavesdrop on what you're saying.

When my children were young we used to holiday in France, Greece or Italy where there was always plenty of choice and the food was invariably good. When they were a bit older we had some fun holidays in the USA but eating out could be a bit of a let down, mostly fast food joints, pizza parlours and burger bars, okay occasionally but not all the time.

That top ten then (in purely alphabetical order), are mostly rather special but all are well worth a visit  (if they are still in business, post-Covid):

Åtta Glas - Gothenburg for traditional Swedish cooking
Bombay Garden - Skiathos, Greece served the best curry I ever had

La Coupole - Paris for excellent French cuisine and art deco surroundings

Iberia - London for excellent Georgian food without having to get on a plane

Les Armures - Geneva if you like a really good fondue

Masa - London does the best Afghani food I've ever tasted

Pizza Express - London, the one in Coptic Street to be precise, the best pizzas outside Naples 

Tamam - Xania, Greece for perfect Cretan dishes and local wines

Trippa - Milan for great Tuscan cooking

U. Pirosmani - Moscow for absolutely wonderful Georgian recipes and wines

And what about the jewel of the north? you may enquire if you don't live in these parts. Well Blackpool has a couple of quite passable Greek restaurants, a few good curry houses and an award-winning pizza restaurant (though not a Pizza Express anymore, sadly it didn't survive lockdown), plus some really rather good fish and chip restaurants with not a formica topped table in sight.

And there's always Greece every summer. I've just renewed my passport for another ten years!

Alex's Restaurant, Aghios Georgios, Corfu, 2024

I don't have a poem on theme, sad to report. However, I did write something while in Corfu recently, and that was about mosquitos, who decided to make a meal of me, despite all attempts to deter the little bastards. I've never had a problem with mosquitos in Greece before. Maybe Corfu, being so far north (relatively speaking) is cooler and wetter than the islands I've been to in the past. It was my first visit to Corfu and though it was pleasant enough and a much needed break, I won't be returning there.

Anyway, here's my poem. The title is a nod towards the famous RAF wartime 633 Squadron, made up of De Havilland Mosquitos, whose heroics are subject of a feature film called '633 Squadron ' unsurprisingly. 

666 Squadron - Corfu Holiday Offensive 2024

Dear God, sometimes I wish I was less attractive

to mosquitos.  They've been the absolute bane of

my bedroom hours.  As soon as lights are out, so

are they, scrambling in persistent hordes winging

with insidious whine and bloody intent guided by 

some scent, or maybe carbon dioxide plumes but 

I can't not breathe! 

When all the usual patent oils and sprays failed to

prevent wave upon sodding wave of little bastards 

set on gorging themselves on my finest A positive 

until bloated like tiny currants what could I do but

suffer in silence? I'm told with an occasional snore.

They are truly one of your most devilish creations.

What is the point?

And it was scant redress by dawn light, raids over,

to be able to strike back, squash them like berries,

a splatted mess dotted across white bedroom walls

as warning. Of course it won't teach them. At night

they're back for more. Dear God, sometimes I wish 

I was thicker-skinned or at least had a tail to swish. 

So how about it?

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Restaurant

My idea of hell is eating out at a restaurant so I am probably amongst the least qualified people to talk about this subject in the UK. Give me a jam sandwich and a cup of tea at about 6 o’clock and I’m happy.

I wasn’t thinking about this when I was listening to my latest Freeman Wills Croft audio book set in the 1920s (I’m addicted to the Golden Age of crime fiction). Two of the characters were arranging to meet and they settled on a Gentleman’s Club. It was then that I thought why don’t they meet in a restaurant. Why not indeed? So that is where I started to have a look as to why not.

Actually, in one way or another, people have always been able to eat out (i.e. away from their normal residence or the home of another person), and the ancient wayside inns and market town taverns bear testimony to the needs of travellers and traders over the centuries. Even in the early 1900s office workers, often commuting from the suburbs, had been recognised by ABC restaurants and, more famously, by J. Lyons & Co. with their teashops and, from 1909, their Corner House restaurants. People all over the country knew of Lyons Corner Houses even when there were none locally.

a typical Lyons Corner House

However, World War 1 had been a social and political watershed. The peace of the 1920s remained contested with rich and poor experiencing changed social and economic circumstances. Not only had so many families been devastated by loss of life and injuries, in post-war Britain the established values were more frequently questioned.

Voices of authority were less convincing to those who had survived military service, or escaped domestic service for the munitions factories. Those who had hoped for a more equitable social landscape in the aftermath of war were being disappointed. The war had drawn men from the labour market for military service and provided opportunities for young women, in large numbers, to engage with employment in offices and factories rather than domestic service.

domestic servants, a disappearing breed

There was a desire among middle and upper class households to re-establish patterns of domestic service. Although this servant problem had existed at the turn of the century (and still does in my experience) this was a turning point. The servants had learned that there was life outside of Downton Abbey.

It seems that there were a few more reasons for the changes in social attitudes. Through these years, and into the 1930s, the UK was beset by the paradox of economic decline and change, old industries faltered dramatically but new ones emerged offering hope. In general terms, there was increased leisure time from shorter working weeks and the establishment of paid holiday entitlement; increased real wages and, in response, increased public and private sector leisure provision. The rapid expansion of cinema and radio opened peoples’ ears and eyes to such different expectations.

In the early 1920s, wealthy young people who ostentatiously dined and danced had been seen as outrageous. But as their exploits became seen or heard folk began to think why not me. The convergence of music, dancing and dining was evident in programming for radio stations.

dining and dancing in a Piccadilly restaurant 

In evidence to the Royal Commission on Licensing on behalf of the Hotels and Restaurants Association in 1930, George Reeves-Smith was to say that … ‘owing to social changes, to the entirely different views now held in regard to taking meals in public restaurants and to the domestic servant difficulty, a large proportion of the public of every class in London and on the road now took their meals in hotels and restaurants’.

Most of the above was taken from an article in the Journal of Culinary Science & Technology, Dining Out: Restaurants and British Society in the 1930s by Phil Lyon.

There was zero chance of me not having this poem below by Billy Collins as the themed poem.

Old Man Eating Alone in a Chinese Restaurant

I am glad I resisted the temptation,
if it was a temptation when I was young,
to write a poem about an old man
eating alone at a corner table in a Chinese restaurant.

I would have gotten it all wrong
thinking: the poor bastard, not a friend in the world
and with only a book for a companion.
He'll probably pay the bill out of a change purse.

So glad I waited all these decades
to record how hot and sour the hot and sour
soup is here at Chang's this afternoon
and how cold the Chinese beer in a frosted glass.

And my book—José Saramago's Blindness
as it turns out—is so absorbing that I look up
from its escalating horrors only
when I am stunned by one of his gleaming sentences.

And I should mention the light
that falls through the big windows this time of day
italicizing everything it touches—
the plates and teapots, the immaculate tablecloths,

as well as the soft brown hair of the waitress
in the white blouse and short black skirt,
the one who is smiling now as she bears a cup of rice
and shredded beef with garlic to my favorite table in the corner.

                    

Thanks for reading. Feel free to post a comment. 

Terry Q.

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