In The Spotlight - Let Me Hide

I prefer to watch the drama unfold, rather than have a part in it. Some things are impossible to avoid but as far as possible I keep out of the spotlight. I’m not comfortable being the centre of attention, even at my own birthday parties.

I remember having a gathering of school friends for my eighth birthday. It was games and a tea party upstairs in whatever pub we lived in at the time. Everything was fine until the cake arrived and my friends sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me. I burst into tears and clung on to my mother’s skirt. What a softie. Birthday parties were best avoided, that is, until the more senior adult years.

My fiftieth birthday was a milestone worth celebrating as I had pulled through serious illness the year before. It was good to gather the clan and all the friends who had been helping, supporting the family and generally gunning for me. It seems mean to confess that I couldn’t wait to go home to my knitting and clock watched all evening, yet at the same time it was lovely to be amongst the people I care for the most, all together in one place. I’m a strange one.

Even stranger when, ten years later, I’m the one who wanted the party to end all parties, bells, whistles, balloons, a live band and a posh buffet in a posh venue. I got my wish and it was great. I threw myself into it and enjoyed every expensive minute, even the bit where I’ve got the microphone and I’m singing with the band. I cringe at the thought of it now. One of my friends filmed it. Up to now, and its been years, I haven’t seen it, which is just as well as I think I’d die of embarrassment and never go anywhere ever again. No, I hadn’t been drinking, I was simply having fun.

When I was at primary school, I used to feel physically sick with nerves at the thought of maths lessons with Mr Jackson. He would call us individually to the blackboard. I shudder to hear him now, ‘Miss --- to the board!’ I was a skinny, geeky looking girl, and would stand red-faced and trembling at the blackboard feeling everyone’s eyes burning into me and hearing muffled unkind comments. With shaky, clammy hands I would hold the chalk tight and write the sum that Mr Jackson bellowed from the back of the classroom.  I would then have to work it out and explain what I was doing, loud enough for everyone to hear. It gave me nightmares. Everyone got a turn, no one was spared, but the whole thing turned me inside out. I was fine with maths and got my sums right, unlike some who were ridiculed for messing up. I got laughed at for needing glasses and my general appearance.  Mr Jackson was a great teacher of his generation and in every subject, he liked the class to be interactive and learn through ‘doing’. He always told us there would be plenty of written work to do when we got to senior school, so we didn’t need to do it now. Primary teaching is different these days and children are not thrust into the spotlight quite the same, thank goodness.

We recently lost a great comedian who adored being in the spotlight, Sir Ken Dodd. He was a national treasure and part of my childhood. He was always there when I was a girl, either on television or playing one of Blackpool’s theatres.

I first saw him on stage when I was nine. We hadn’t been living in Blackpool very long. It was our first summer season and my parents received complimentary tickets to various shows and the Tower Circus. My mother took me to see the show Ken Dodd was in and I remember just constantly laughing and being in awe of seeing the Diddy Men in real life. In later years, I was a guest at a summer Midnight Matinee concert where Doddy was topping the bill. I’m not exaggerating when I say daylight was breaking when we left the theatre. He loved to be in the spotlight and the spotlight loved him. Thank you for the memories, Sir Ken Dodd. You left me suitably tickled.

One of my poems today, 

 

Don’t put me in the spotlight,

I’m really quiet and shy

Away from all attention,

Any fuss might make me cry.

Don’t put me in the spotlight,

I never know what to say

And to be a nervous wreck

Would simply ruin my day.

Don’t put me in the spotlight

I’m not going near the stage

Nobody needs to see me

Read my poems from the page.

Don’t put me in the spotlight,

Just leave me alone to hide

My feelings, thought and talents

Wrapped safely, tightly, inside.

 

PMW 2018

 

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

Read More

Candlelight - Power Cuts

That’s Wimbledon over and a hope for two British champions in the same tournament is on hold.

There’s something romantic about candlelight. A warm glow that softens complexion and reflects a gentle flicker on the wine glasses in the relaxed atmosphere of a gathering of friends. If only I could travel back in time, my chosen gathering would include my dear Lord Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, Burns and the Brownings; and if only I could hear their poetry from their own voices instead of mine.

It was my voice reciting their poetry in the candle-lit evenings of early 1974 from ‘The Penguin Book of Love Poetry’ which I had just added to my bookshelf.  Power cuts meant we sat together in our dining-room, the one room that still had an open fire-place suitable for a coal fire (go easy on the coal, shortages). The room was large enough to have a three piece suite round the fire and a dining table and chairs set out further back. Our family lived in here and our bedrooms for the duration of the crisis.  For safety reasons we used torches everywhere except the dining room and kitchen. My father, still a licensee, had an off-licence as well as his brewery work and we lived in a house instead of a pub. The silence of a private detached house was eerie after noisy pubs all of my life and now it was even creepier in the dark, but our candle-lit dining room had a cosy feel. We listened to the battery powered radio, played board games and had enough light to read to ourselves or to each other. No one seemed to miss the television. I hated being unable to play my records. Luckily, we had a gas cooker. I can’t remember how long the power cuts lasted. I know we were given the times that we would have electricity and how long it would be on. I wonder how we would manage these days.

Thinking of candlelight reminds me of the wonderful ‘Carols by Candlelight’ services we had at Raikes Parade Methodist Church when I was a Sunday School teacher. I looked after the infant age group which included one of my children. She wasn’t the most trustworthy to carefully carry a tea-light in a jar to the front of the church but filled with a sense of occasion and doing something important, she did it perfectly as did the others, and all singing ‘Shine Jesus Shine’ at the top of their voices.

My husband and I are having a weekend away soon for our wedding anniversary. It might include a romantic candle-lit dinner and a Scottish sunset.

One of my favourite poems, first encountered in 1974. I’d spent years amongst the Brontes and it was time to extend my interests.
 

Sonnet XLIII, from the Portuguese.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

                   Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Thanks for reading, Pam x 

Read More

A country road. A tree.

 

The scent of pig is faint tonight

as the lime trees hang their heads against gradations of blue,

looking at the lone suitcase in the middle of the farmyard

with a sense of solidarity. Also forgotten. 

 

From Gradations of Blue by Matthea Harvey (2000)

There are many vivid images in this poem on memory and ageing.  Memories are described as weights that are carried with us as we age, a journey suggested by birds, a barge, a plane, trucks, a suitcase, a colony of ants etc.  The poet has described herself as "a general gatherer" and her poetry often contains collections of objects, glimpses of items retrieved from a shoe box. 

The first two couplets in Gradations of Blue remind me of the stage directions for a Beckett play.  An incredibly efficient use of image and word which perfectly sets a scene.  In fact, in the style of Hemingway's 'baby shoe' story, there is an entire narrative contained in those four lines, should you choose to imagine it. 

It strikes me that we could write similar scenes by creating a list. So, let's have a pop at it.  Here's what we need:

• a scent (pigs - faint)
• a time of day (night)
• a character/s (lime trees/suitcase)
• a colour (gradations of blue)
• an object (suitcase)
• a location (farmyard)
• a feeling (solidarity)
• a statement (Also forgotten)

You might like to start with the location and work the other details out from there.  Here's my list:

• a location - bathroom
• a scent  - bleach
• a time of day - mid-afternoon
• a character/s - skirting board
• a colour - metallic silver
• an object - lock
• a feeling - shame
• a statement - impersonal personal space

And two couplets:

The skirting board is no longer white, though bleach foam
eats at its feet. A crack where the door fits, slip of light;

cold afternoon.  Steel bolt points down in shame, to the sickened
board.  Off-white: no colour at all.



Give it a go.  See what you come up with then please do share.

Read More