Paths - One Road

Throughout our adult lives we follow paths based on our choices. We reach cross-roads and face directional dilemmas. There can be consequences for a bad decision. A learning curve. We cross paths with others and share paths with many. My late dad and I shared a saying for these experiences, “Another stitch in life’s rich tapestry”. The saying often related to a conclusion or something that we considered to be “Sod’s Law”. I still say it. We travelled many paths together. I was always Daddy’s Girl and spent my childhood living in his shadow. He showed me the way to find the right path then, with the patience of a saint, helped me to stay on it after I’d veered right off.

One Road, a song by Love Affair

I don't have your nagging doubts
I know what you're going through
So if it helps you to decide One road leads to sadness
One road leads to pain
One road shows you life is a game One road leads to darkness
One road leads to light
One road leads you life to love I don't want you to be confused
Or demoralized or abused
I just want you free to choose
Who you want to have or loose
So if it helps you to decide One road leads to darkness
One road leads to light
And one road leads you life to love You know one road leads to sadness
One road leads to pain
And one road shows you life is a game, yeah Oh, one road leads to darkness
And one road leads to light
And one road leads you life to love.

Written by Philip Goodhand-Tait

This song was a popular choice on our pub juke-box at the time, and a personal favourite.

I’ve tried to be a good guiding light to my children and grandchildren, but I lack my dad’s level of tolerance.

In a more literal sense, my husband and I are currently travelling unfamiliar paths in the Channel Islands. We’re having an adventure while we can just about do it, physically. Using a wheely walker on cobbled, hilly paths has some challenges and driving narrow roads with no clue to the destination brings surprises. Already familiar with Jersey, we’re staying in Guernsey and looking forward to visiting Sark and Herm.

This poem must be included in this week’s theme,

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost 1874 - 1963

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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A Favourite Painting - Matilda's Trees

 

Trying to choose a favourite painting, like a favourite book or piece of music is so hard it is almost impossible. I like the work of lots of artists. Yesterday, travelling home from an adventure, the journey, thanks to the sat nav, took us over the Pennines and through Mottram in Longendale where the artist,  L.S.Lowry used to live. I love all of his work. I remember feeling quite emotional when I saw his paintings for the first time. This was in Salford, long before the gallery bearing his name was built.  His painting ‘Going to the Match’ was in the news last year when it was purchased and saved for the Lowry collection. Going to the match is what I plan to be doing later, so the painting might have been a good choice, but instead,  I’ve picked ‘The Cripples’.

Lowry painted ‘The Cripples’ in 1949. It’s one of my favourites of his work. I have a print and a fridge magnet and it always makes me smile. I’m slightly worried that my admission to being amused by it makes me a bad person. I am amused by Lowry’s humour in the painting. I’m not mocking the subjects.  Apparently, there’s controversy about the content and the title and I’m a bit shocked about that. I’ve got disability issues, so does my husband. The painting isn’t about us or anyone else. Cripple is not a term in use these days when we refer to people with disabilities but I’m not sure if it should be considered offensive.  I feel sure that Lowry didn’t paint anything with the purpose of upsetting anyone. As a Christian should I be upset by paintings of Christ’s crucifixion reminding me of His suffering? I will admire the work of the artist.

Steven Robert Bruce is a local artist who has produced excellent paintings. He has a website showing a collection of his work. One of my favourites is his painting of Ian Holloway celebrating Blackpool FC’s victory at Wembley, going into the Premier League. I don’t know where the actual painting is. I wish it was at the stadium.

My favourite painting of this week – it might be replaced before weekend if we’re looking after her – is the latest work of art by our youngest grandchild, four year old Matilda.  She was painting, freestyle, and created a fabulous tree scene from her own imagination. I’m amazed and enchanted as I often am by my grandchildren.

My poem, from the archives,

Salford

Industrial landscapes
Where nobody escapes
From human desolation.
Salford, grey and worn-out
Drab people hang about
Seeking some consolation,
Painted as matchstick men
Back in the decades when
Lowry found inspiration.

Shelagh’s taste of honey,
Tony Wilson’s money
Invested in the city.
High-rise in Broughton Park
Poems of Cooper-Clarke
So sharp and smart and witty.
A gentle, summer breeze
Wafts around Salford Quays
Modern style simplicity.

Pamela Winning 2015

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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The Most Boring Place - Sunday Afternoon, Age 6

I’ve always got something to do or something to think about.  I like to be alone with my thoughts but equally, I like to enjoy good company. There have been things I’ve had to endure that could be called boring, or made me feel extremely fed up. These would be events out of my control, not going according to plan and causing frustration.

Flying back to the UK from the USA should have been an exciting adventure. It was winter time in the early ‘80s and I was fortunate enough to be waiting in the Club Class departure lounge at New York’s JFK airport.  I was travelling alone and on a registered stand-by ticket, happy to wait, sitting on a comfy armchair by the window, watching the snow. Flights came and went. Hours passed. I had everything I needed and felt looked after, but I was tired, jet lag without the jet. I didn’t want to fall asleep and miss a flight I could have taken, though I’m sure someone would come to get me. O’Hare International, Chicago, had redirected their UK flights to JFK due to heavy snow, so planes became full. By the time I was called, I was dead on my feet, but happy to get a place anywhere, on any plane that could fly me home. I had a seat in the centre block of a 747, next to a pleasant German gent who kept trying to make conversation with me. No common language between us, so we occasionally smiled at each other instead. He was going to Heathrow, then on to Frankfurt. He went to sleep. I’d finished my book, couldn’t get into the in-flight movie and probably slept a little, but I remember sitting there, annoyed with the drone of the engines and willing myself home – there was a long train journey to come next. I think I was more fed up than bored. Boring is what I’d call some winter Sunday afternoons of my childhood.

I was an only child until age seven and a half when my sister arrived, so I was used to being doted on by both sets of grandparents and any number of aunts and uncles. Nothing changed, my family was her family and she just slotted in and got passed around for a cuddle. Being a baby, she didn’t spoil whatever I was playing with. I was a well-behaved little treasure, most of the time. Our family ran pubs and in those days licensing hours meant that they were closed in the afternoons and for longer on Sundays. This was family time when we’d all get together for a meal. This is when it got boring. It started well, lots of fun and me being made a fuss of. We would all get round the table to eat, which was always good. At one set of grandparents, I would eat jelly and fruit with a small, shell-shaped spoon, sitting up straight on a high stool. At my other grandparents, homemade rice pudding which was deliciously creamy. Once, as the roast dinner was being served, I rudely remarked, “Oh no, not peas again!” I was swiftly removed by my mother, taken out of the room for a wallop on my bottom, left to cry for a bit then brought back in to apologise. I must have been having an ‘off’ day from my usual sweet little princess self. After dinner, everyone sat in the lounge and eventually fell asleep. I hated it. This was the most boring place in my world. My nanna would sit down, smoke a Park Drive, pick her knitting up and go at it frantically until she nodded off. My dad might go outside to check something on someone’s car first, but soon I would be in a room full of sleeping relatives. It seemed like ages, but probably wasn’t. I’d have a colouring book to do and one of my grandmothers didn’t mind if I turned the contents of her sideboard upside down. Sing Something Simple would come on the wireless which made it even more boring. If I hear Sing Something Simple nowadays, it fills me with happy memories of my idyllic childhood.

My poem:

Sunday roast with Yorkshire pudding,
And why did we always have peas?
Apple pie or sometimes trifle,
Fond thoughts of childhood, fam’ly teas.

The nearly quiet afternoon
In the fading November light
Those all around me are sleeping
And they are such a boring sight.

Like book-ends, Nanna and Grandad,
Snooze cosily on the settee.
Grandad’s Brylcreem’d hair all messy,
Nan’s knitting slipped down on her knee.

Has my auntie just stopped breathing?
Uncle Bill has started snoring.
I’m looking for something to do.
Flipping Sundays are so boring!

Sing Something Simple has come on,
It’s time for us to go, hooray!
They’ll all wake up for opening time,
Running pubs is our family way.

PMW 2021

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Journey

A friend of mine can make a trip to the newsagent seem like the adventure of a lifetime whilst another friend who had canoed up the Niger River in West Africa described the journey afterwards in terms that made me think she’d just got the number 68 to Lytham.

So a journey can be described in many ways and can be for many reasons. When I was looking in my files for a poem to go with this blog I was a bit surprised that so many of the poems had started as a result of going somewhere. Sometimes in the actual travelling and sometimes from the place I had been.

All of those travel poems involved trains and boats and (up to 10 years ago) planes so I couldn’t make up my mind as to what form of transport this journey would involve. And then I realized something.

When I was in my late teens and twenties I used to hitchhike everywhere. Standing by the slip road to a motorway or by the exit from a busy roundabout was normal. I could be picked up in seconds or in five hours as that time on the side of the A6 near Shrewsbury when it was pouring with rain.

I don’t often venture onto motorways or roads much these days due to getting rid of the car but when I do as a passenger I never see anybody hitching. I can’t believe that the price of going by train or running a car is so cheap that people don’t hitch anymore so I suppose it must be due to fear. Which is a shame as the people I met and the experiences I had were marvellous.

Such as the time I was by the A55 outside Bangor and this chap stopped and asked where I was going and I said Wolverhampton. He said hop in and explained that first of all he had to go to Manchester for his band practice and was that ok. I had plenty of time so no problem. We got to some studio there and I got fed and watered as the band played all evening. Afterwards we got into his car and he drove me all the way to my front door and turned around to go back to Manchester without even popping in for a cup of tea.

Then there was the time in south west Scotland and I was trying to get to Ayr and to my surprise a Rolls Royce stopped and offered 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 and again I was dropped off at the Butlin’s camp where my girlfriend from Finland was working. It was too late to get in so I had sleep the night in the stables which is another story.

Just going back to Shrewsbury and the rain. The bloke who eventually did stop for me said he had only stopped because I was smiling. I said it was rigor mortis. And there are loads of such memories but that’s enough for now. Although some day I’d like to tell you about the time in Rouen when I had all my money stolen and two Canadians gave me and my mate a lift back to London.

As to the poem, I chose to go with this one as it began on one of those trips around Europe where after a few days every place seems the same and if it’s Thursday it must be Italy. It reminded me of those must do tours back in the 17th to 19th century where wealthy young men and sometimes women would go around Europe looking for arts and culture.

The Grand Tour

I’ll never forget
my first sight of the Sagrada Familia,
turning out of a back street,
the baskets of fruit in searchlights,
wishing I had a spoon
to dip into the melting, sticky mass.
I stood smiling for a while
then turned back with the crowds
onto the Rue de la St Marie,
dodging the tables and chairs,
dying for a coffee,
meandering towards the Louvre,
nodding to familiar faces.
Outside I heard a girl say
she thought it was a little small
in, maybe, a Spanish accent,
but it was hard to judge
in the noise of the S-Bahn.
Later I met up with the Aussies
having a late break and mocha
in one of those cafes
where the cakes do odd things.
They said they’d brought some lire
to throw into the fountain
but I lost them in Wenceslas Square
where we drank ouzo
but that was okay because Anna,
it was Anna,
said she knew Kolonaki
and the last thing I remember
is staggering into some Japanese
and trying to convince them
they’d bought me a latte
in Covent Garden or Temple Bar.

(First published in Borderlines, January 2010)

Thanks for reading, Terry Quinn

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Teddy

   Of course we all think of Teddy Bears.- From the  original " Theodore ", to vintage teddies, Steiff Teddies. An age less toy, a lifelong companion..providing memories, giving comfort and boundless love.
    So I remembered my own companions...Maxie and Teddy. Maxie was a blue lamb with a sticking out tongue ( that at one time I'd cut off thinking it very rude ) and with a missing tail, as I recall. Teddy was threadbare , probably from being over -hugged, over-loved and over -played with. Now these two had wonderful adventures together. Maxie being a 'horse' that Teddy could ride into battle on, cross the boundless desert with, attack Indians and generally provide transport. When I was unwell the two would gallop over the mountains that my bent knees made, hide in the folds of the eiderdown, slink into the cave beneath the sheets and hug close as I fell asleep. It was imperative that the two accompanied me on visits, holidays and doctor appointments. Taking the place of siblings I guess. When I left home my mother cleared everything out...dolls, teddies, toys, postcard collection, books etc...so I don't know what happened to the intrepid pair. I hope they are somewhere together, as they are in my memory.
   Other 'teddies' were worn as undergarments. I made some at college. Slinky and silky, trimmed with lace, fastened with poppers .Not terribly comfortable if one was a very active person as the poppers came undone !
   Then Teddy Boys. My late husband had been one. He'd regale me with stories of having tailor made suits on a regular basis from a small tailor in Oxford. The trousers had to be a certain width at the hem ( some with turn ups ) . The back of the jacket cut in one piece ( no seam or vent ) . The collar, cuff and number of buttons just what was fashionable on that day. There would be a pocket for a cosh, one for a knife...another for a knuckle duster. The crepe shoes etc.  Oh , yes it seems he was a 'bad boy', but as I pointed out to my sister in law, whose husband had been his 'accomplice', they turned out to be good men. At a later stage in his life he enjoyed reliving those days and we attended ' Rock and Roll ' events featuring some of the original groups. When we moved house we  "lost " his remaining 1950's suit and he was really upset.So I made him a waistcoat and jacket to make up for the loss. When he died I had him dressed in those garments and we had a ' Rock and Roll ' wake. It was what he wished.
   So back to teddy bears and I have another story to tell. Two days before my husband died I won a teddy in a raffle, then two weeks later I won a simple knitted teddy in a tombola. They both sit on my bed to this day....

         

    My poem this week.....

                        Absolute Perfection

            I have a young man who sleeps with me every night
            He keeps me safe from evil and I hug him very tight.
            He's very liberated and thinks naked is the best-
            I must say I agree as I snuggle in his chest !
            He's terribly respectful and makes no demands.
            Not one of those men with creeping, groping hands.
            I trace his lips and nose, and nuzzle in his ears,
            Whispering words of endearment - the only ones he hears !
            He's absolute perfection - he doesn't even snore,
            And if I fancy 'lying in ', he's always up for more !
            He's lovely, adorable and always at the ready.
            Of course, I'm talking of a well beloved teddy !


   PS...After his death I found his original Teddy boy suit in a box in the attic. I wear the jacket to 1950's events.

       Thanks for reading....Kath...

   

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An Adventure in Blackpool, 1991

I didn’t grow up in Blackpool...

I spent the first 9 years of my life in Coventry before moving to a small village in Bedfordshire. Therefore, I know what it’s like to come from a place that is stigmatised by non-habitants. I was used to hearing the South’s negative opinions about my Midland home, ‘It’s an ugly concrete breezeblock,’ people would say. And shy me would stand as tall as I could and defend my City. I’d explain how Coventry was bombed during WWII, that concrete was the cheapest and quickest way of rebuilding – of rising from the ashes.

I was proud of my hometown, of my roots, and I could see things that most outsiders missed. I could see the Coventry Cross (made from the timbres of the destroyed cathedral), which stands in the ruins as a symbol of peace. I could see the old silent monastery, which coined the expression ‘Sent to Coventry’. I could see the grade II listed Tudor buildings down Spon Street. I could see the Godiva clock, which we’d stare up at on the strike of the hour and watch Lady Godiva riding her horse as Peeping Tom emerged from the window above. I could see our three spires, defiant and proud.

You’re probably wondering what any of this has to do with Blackpool, well, when I was seven I saw a Blackpool that most outsiders miss. I went on an adventure that allowed my independent spirit to stretch its wings...

We (my parents, my younger sister and I) were staying in a four-berth caravan at Newton Hall, Staining. It was July and the British weather – for a change – was behaving itself. My sister and I ate breakfast; we fought over the free toy in the cereal. We fought over who used the yellow pencil crayon first, we fought over whose socks they were, and then we fought some more.

Today has been cancelled, said Mum. She sent us both off to bed, my sister went into one bedroom and I into another. We were to stay there until we learnt how to be civilised.

However, I had a different plan. I decided that it was too nice to remain inside. Therefore, I decided to go out...

Now, I wasn’t a particularly rebellious child, nor was I very confident, but I was bright with a rather prominent independent streak. And I knew that holidays were for doing things, for exploring new places, and for being outside. So at the time – as I sat on the single bed feeling sad – my decision seemed to make sense.

I grabbed my ladybird rucksack, and quickly packed it with a few essential items: a cardigan (in case it got cold), Sunshine Bunny, a book, a pack of Opal Fruits, a hat embroidered with butterflies and two five pound notes. I opened the caravan window as wide as it would go, before jumping out and beginning my adventure.

When I could, I followed the brown signs for the promenade, and when I couldn’t, I just let instinct lead me. I stumbled upon the zoo. I saw penguins and lions and antelope and ostriches and camels through gaps in the fence. I brought an ice cream (one of those white Mini Milks) and a carton of orange juice from Stanley Park. I read a chapter of Barrie’s Peter Pan by the boating lake. I played on the swings.

The walk to the promenade seemed like a very long way. I made up games in my head to distract myself, and eventually I was standing on the bustling sea front. I was a little scared, initially, so I counted to twenty. By the time I reached fifteen, I felt much better.

I skipped on the sand without shoes. I paddled in the Irish Sea. I tried to make a sand-snake, using only my hands. I wrote ‘Lara’ in big letters on the damp sand under Central Pier. I treated myself to a pound of 2ps, and spent them on the arcade slot machines. I walked back to the caravan site...

Poetry is about seeing what other people miss. It’s about being brave, taking a risk, pushing the boundaries. It’s a lifelong adventure that allows you to feel free.

Thank you for reading,
Lar

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