Four Legs Good - Thanks, George

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”

Later, “Four legs good, two legs better.”

 

An unwelcoming, imposing secondary school full of strangers in a small, unfamiliar town. I was a reluctant new girl wearing the uniform of my old school, being stared at, but not spoken to. I kept silent and avoided eye-contact.  I was in an English class faced with an impossible task from a flustered and unfriendly teacher.

“Write a review of Animal Farm. Remember what we discussed about Russia,” she barked. She had her back to the class as she chalked something on the board. I approached her, close enough to explain that I was new and I hadn’t read the book.

“Do the best you can.” She didn’t even glance my way.

It wasn’t the first time I’d encountered differences in the curriculum between the education departments of Lancashire and Cheshire County Councils. This time it concerned work I’d done in preparation for my ‘O’ levels and which might now be wasted, leaving me faced with a great deal of catching up to do. It was another good reason to leave school, if only I could persuade my father.

I did as I was asked. I wrote an essay explaining that I hadn’t read Animal Farm, nor did I intend to as a book about talking animals taking over a farm was far-fetched and of no interest to me. The essay got me into trouble with my English teacher. She seemed to take my opinions personally and she accused me of not knowing what I was talking about. That was ridiculous. Surely I was entitled to speak my mind about why a book remained unread and was unappealing to me?

I knew everything when I was fifteen and rebelled against anything and everything. I was a stroppy, cocky madam. I was also a square peg in a round hole, uprooted from everything I knew and cared for and put in a place I had absolutely no interest of embracing or making my home. Luckily for me, the move was a bad one for the whole family and we came back after a few months.

I am so embarrassed now by what I did then, especially because I’ve come to love George Orwell’s work. I share his politics. He was a genius author. His novels explain socialism and why it matters. He died too young with probably more to say but he left an important legacy.

 

It can only be this poem,

 

Comrade Napoleon  (from Animal Farm by George Orwell)

 

Friend of fatherless!

Fountain of happiness!

Lord of the swill-bucket!

Oh, how my soul is on

Fire when I gaze at thy

Calm and commanding eye,

Like the sun in the sky,

Comrade Napoleon!

 

Thou art the giver of

All that thy creatures love,

Full belly twice a day, clean straw to roll upon;

Every beast great or small

Sleeps at peace in his stall,

Thou watchest over all

Comrade Napoleon!

 

Had I a sucking pig,

Ere he had grown as big

Even as a pint bottle or as a rolling pin,

He should have learned to be

Faithful and true to thee,

Yes, his first squeal should be

"Comrade Napoleon!"

 

George Orwell (1903 - 1950)

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Yarn - A Lifetime of Knitting

If you know me well enough, you will know that I spend a lot of my time knitting and crocheting.  I love to spend a relaxing evening with a lap full of wool and I’m constantly making baby clothes and things for my grandchildren.

My hobby goes back to when I was a little girl, fascinated by my grandmother who was always knitting, and my mother who, at that time was knitting for the unborn baby that became my little sister. Between them, they taught me. One of them would start me off by ‘casting on’ about twelve stitches then I would knit rows. At the age of seven and a half I was successful at making a plain scarf for a doll. It was a mystery how I always ended up with more stitches than I’d started with, but it didn’t matter, and the holes that sometimes appeared for no reason didn’t matter either. I loved helping my mum with her little matinee coats. She did the ‘purl’ rows and let me do the ‘knit’ rows and being involved in getting things ready for the baby was the best thing ever.

My skills improved as I grew up. In my early teens I wanted to learn to crochet.  Twiggy looked fabulous in a crocheted mini dress with a chain belt. I could make that. Carnaby Street eat your heart out. My Nanna spent hours teaching me. I studied her hand movements intently as she slowly took me step by tiny step. ‘Yarn round the hook once, then through, yarn round the hook twice then through once then once again and do the same in every loop.’ Yes, I followed and understood, I could take it from there, so off I went. A short time later, I would be handing her back a tangled mess of wool. She would tut and I would be holding back tears of frustration.  I never mastered crochet in the grandmother’s lifetime and Twiggy was soon wearing cotton summer dresses with a zip up the front. I had one of those.

I managed to crochet a bedspread when I was about twenty-two. I was living alone and trying to make my flat a home. No television, but there was some great radio drama in the evenings. I had a crochet pattern and lots of determination. It took ages. I still have it, after many years of thinking it was lost, and I’m sure my grandmother would be proud. Both my grandmothers and my mother left me a legacy of life skills.

My husband and I have been staying at our favourite getaway in Dumfries and Galloway recently.  On the way, we usually stop at Castle Douglas for a bite to eat and to stock up with groceries. I take advantage of a gander round one of my favourite shops, Outback Yarns craft shop and always come out with something.  I have a massive collection of various wools and yarns at home, but there’s always room for more. I still have a stash I brought home from the Hebrides last year.

 

I found this poem. I remembered holding out my arms for my mum to wind wool, and it made me smile.

 

She'd bring to me a skein of wool
And beg me to hold out my hands;
so on my pipe I cease to pull
And watch her twine the shining strands
Into a ball so snug and neat,
Perchance a pair of socks to knit
To comfort my unworthy feet,
Or pullover my girth to fit.

As to the winding I would sway,
A poem in my head would sing,
And I would watch in dreamy way
The bright yarn swiftly slendering.
The best I liked were coloured strands
I let my pensive pipe grow cool . . .
Two active and two passive hands,
So busy wining shining wool.

Alas! Two of those hands are cold,
And in these days of wrath and wrong,
I am so wearyful and old,
I wonder if I've lived too long.
So in my loneliness I sit
And dream of sweet domestic rule . . .
When gentle women used to knit,
And men were happy winding wool.

Robert William Service (1874-1958)

 

The bedspread, when I found it again last year.

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

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The Legacy.

Earlier on this year, you’d have found me proud as anything of our Olympic games. I was positively gushing on here about how the feel good factor had swept us all away, made us all want to go out and try new things.

As we begin to wind down what has been a mammoth year, we’re told that PE at schools has made no significant gains and the number of kids getting into new sports has begun to actually decrease and slow down. Of course, we knew this was going to happen but to hear it on the radio at the same time as I was reading about the ‘nutritional poverty’ of the nation (nobody really getting 5 a day, unless Alcopops and Lollies count) made me scoff a little. Whatever happened to the legacy.

The theme this week is 'things that make you proud', so I went for a bit of patriotism. 

We’ve had two years of savage cuts and there are more to come. The kids are eating fruit and nuts and sitting on their bums. The Playstation network crashed last year and for a while we moved, but glitches fixed, it has returned and probably improved. There is new COD, no time for God, no time to teach young morals. No time to run, no time for fun they’re having online quarrels. Yes, even the fighting is done online, the fat are getting fatter. But bankers make their money too, so none of that can matter. We march the fit off, in vehicles, when old enough for war- all in the name of keeping nutty bombers from our shores. So here we are, in self-inflate mode, blowing up our own. We’re walking to the sweet shop and then getting buses home. We’re less fit than we’ve ever been, we’re living to an age obscene, the hospitals are never clean but someone’s getting rich. Yes, I’m so proud to be a Brit.

Thanks for reading, S

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Writing the Olympics, throw the superlatives.

London, a badly surfaced road, sometime in August. Bradley Wiggins, rides a bicycle steadily, taking care not to be crushed by a taxi, blown apart by a rogue backpacker or happy slapped by a local teenager. Overhead, the sound of planes can be heard, accompanied by more planes, beeping car horns and the flash of digital cameras.
This is just any other day, it is any other month, it is any other place, give or take a couple of acoustic details. This is the day we will all live every time we leave our houses in a morning- except just for this month, this somewhat special occasion when we can actually choose not to talk about the weather, gripe about the price of milk or moan about the length of time spent queuing up for things. This month, we can unite over common ground and choose, amidst bleakest of long term prospects, to actually celebrate some achievements.

The London 2012 Games has led a furore of opinion and dominated the news with politicians and dignitaries fighting amongst themselves for photo opportunities and retweets- everyone from Boris Johnson to Morrissey has had a go, and with mixed success. To think that London has been magically transformed in a year is a triumph. This time last August we were streaming live pictures, from many of the same places, but in that short space of time the flames have somehow accumulated- as if gathered in copper petals- and become a symbol of strength, unity and achievement.

The Mayor of London led the way with the soundbites, 'call me jingoistic' he said,

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