The Greatest Dancer

On the 7th of March, Filthy Underneath, the fourth album by Nadine Shah from South Tyneside reached number 25 in charts. The third single off the album, The Greatest Dancer was released in January 2024. I heard her interviewed on the radio a few weeks ago and she talked about the inspiration for this particular whimsical, yet anthemic indie hit.

Like many artists over the last few years the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown had a dramatic effect on their careers, moods, and approaches to their chosen art form. It was a time for reflection, introspection and looking at life through a different lens. With outdoor activities limited the television became a source of desperation, salvation, and inspiration.

The Greatest Dancer was inspired by the long running Winter warmer ‘Strictly come Dancing’ which has been on our screens for an incredible twenty years with 366 episodes to date and the appetite for the charm, glamour, and glitz, that this infectious programme provides does not show any sign of diminishing.

Nadine Shah

For such an acclaimed and relevant singer such as Nadine Shah to imply the show features in her work is a glowing testament to its wide appeal. The programme has had to say goodbye to a number of family favourites, none less than Bruce Forsyth and Len Goodman. To add to the poignancy of this song it is also a tribute to the memory of the singer’s mother, whom she had watched the show with over many years, but sadly passed away in August 2020.

Nadine herself went into a spiral of depression during lockdown suffering from PTSD and addiction, eventually she tried to commit suicide in Easter 2022. Recovering for two months in rehab she is once again sharing her life through her music. Living naked through her music.

I hadn’t realised when I started writing this, about a very specific song and singer that so many directions of travel would open up. There is a whole history of lyrics penned by artists after personal tragedy, music about dancing and words exploring the trauma of living through a pandemic.

In the end I decide to stay true to the title, who is the greatest dancer? Now, I’m not going to tell you, each reader will have a different view on this, I am however gong to tease you with a few variations in the extreme. Perhaps you are a purist, ballet, the true and beautiful form of art, the world of Rudolf Nureyev and Anna Pavlova. Or the golden age of cinema starlit by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

If disco fever is more your thang, then the garish delights of Saturdays nights blazing the trails for wannabees John Travolta’s disgracing dancefloors everywhere. The outrageous Madonna pushing the boundaries of decency, unforgettable. The green shades of Irish dreams led us through the river with Michael Flatley, nothing lost in translation.

Or the slick moonwalking excess of Michael Jackson, spawning look-a-likes the world over. Iconic movies Footloose, Fame but most of all Johnny Castle (below) and ‘nobody puts baby in the corner’ copied from then until eternity.

Dirty Dancing

Whichever floats you boat or makes you cringe they all bring memories flooding back. I don’t really know what Nadine Shah was imagining when she wrote this song, but perhaps the looseness and ethereal nature of the music and lines allows anyone of us to interpret it the way we choose, as any good piece of art should, and remember what was special for us about our greatest dancer.

To hold you in my arms is to hide the world away.
All my dreams and desires combined in one special place.
Through starlight and magic realms, we sway effortlessly,
A spectacle to which even the planets take a bow,
Gliding and swooning, hypnotic rhythms beat,
Entwined as one for the briefest moment until,
I too step back in awe, of ‘The Greatest Dancer.’

Thanks for reading, Ian. 

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Eyam - Plague Village

The Great Plague of 1665-1666 was the last wave of bubonic pandemics to sweep England, and the Derbyshire village of Eyam is significant in the history of that time as a notable example of lockdown, or cordon sanitaire.

Not that lockdown was a new concept even in the mid-17th century. The Byzantine emperor Justinian tried to lock down Constantinople in the 6th century to prevent seamen and traders bringing the plague into the city. He imposed quarantine regulations but ultimately they were ineffective and at the height of the infection, the citizens of the greatest city on earth were dying at the rate of 5,000 a day. That outbreak of plague effectively brought an empire to its end. Later, in the 13th century, notably in Italy and France, there were more successful attempts to impose cordons to protect individual towns and cities from the waves of plague like the Black Death that periodically engulfed the continent. 

What marked the example of Eyam out from other lockdowns was this: the measures that the people of that Derbyshire village took in cutting themselves off were not to protect Eyam from infiltration of disease (it was already too late for that) but to contain the pestilence within their bounds and not let it spread to neighbouring villages or to the nearby city of Sheffield. It was a remarkable act of self-sacrifice and one that touches me personally, for members of my own family lost their lives in Eyam during the fourteen month lockdown.

gravestones and tombs in Eyam churchyard

Here's how it happened. The plague arrived in Eyam in August 1665 in a bale of cloth sent from London to the village tailor. His assistant opened it to air it and a host of plague-carrying rat fleas were released. The unfortunate assistant was the first to die, within a week, and many other villagers soon contracted the disease. The village rector met with his parishioners and persuaded them that the moral thing to do was to isolate the whole village. An exclusion zone and warning signs were set up around the parish boundaries and amazingly no one left the village during the whole period. Eyam was self-sufficient to a degree but appealed by notice for foodstuffs from outside and these were duly provided t regular intervals at a boundary stone which was disinfected daily as was the money that was left to pay for the produce. Strict hygiene rules and social distancing were practised within the village with, for instance, the regular church services moving to an outdoor location. And plague victims were interred not in the churchyard, but close to their houses, to speed up the burial process and to minimise the movement of plague-ridden corpses.

My paternal ancestor Abel Rowland (son of Thomas and Alice) is buried in Eyam churchyard (see his gravestone pictured below). He had the good fortune to die at the beginning of 1665, just months before the plague hit the village. Of the 800 inhabitants, 260 died of the plague in a 14 month period, statistically way higher per capita than the death rate in any other village, town or city in the land.  That's members of 76 different families, the Rowlands among them. Such collectively bravery.

Abel Rowland's gravestone in Eyam churchyard (photo: Ray Rowland)

There was an understandable upsurge in interest about Eyam, the plague village, during the recent Coronavirus pandemic - and by the way that hasn't entirely left us, as in England there are currently about 1,000 new cases per day and despite the vaccination programme nearly 3,000 people right now are hospitalised with one variant or another - but my interest predates Covid, back to my father's family tree investigations in the 1970s. He grew up in Bakewell, some 4 miles from Eyam as the crow flies, and conducted extensive research into the parish records of the villages in the locale: Ashford, Baslow,  Eyam, Hassop, Over Haddon, Rowland (yes, a family seat of sorts), Stoney Middleton and Tideswell. Our ancestral connection to Eyam led me to research more and I made the remarkable story of what had happened in the plague village into an English and Drama project for the year ten children I taught at a comprehensive school in north London in the late 1970s.

Of course it's impossible for me to write about Eyam and lockdown without referencing obvious parallels with the Covid years and to take our present government to task. The fact is that the UK used to have the best and most well-maintained measures in place to combat a major health emergency (be that epidemic or pandemic), and this according to regular World Health Organisation audits. For decades we were best-in-class. That all started to change when the Tories got back into power in 2010. Cameron's coalition government made the decision to reduce funding for pandemic readiness and this trend only accelerated once the Tories were in complete control after the 2015 general election. The number of hospital beds reduced, stocks of PPE were not renewed, respirators and ICU facilities were not maintained to previous levels and so by the time Covid-19 arrived at the beginning of 2020, the UK was way down the list of well-provisioned countries, our emergency plans were rusty and our ability to react effectively to the pandemic was seriously impaired - as we all know now and as the ongoing enquiry will ultimately document in forensic detail. Tory apologists say it was a calculated risk to slash spending in the decade and that we just got unlucky. 24 million people (a third of the population) contracted the disease and a quarter of a million died as a result. Not good enough. The UK has consistently been in the top ten worst impacted countries in the world and we're still there (number 9 currently). 

To compound matters, our own cavalier idiot of a Prime Minister started off claiming it was all a lot of fuss about nothing and ended up on a ventilator himself, then there was all the flouting of lockdown regulations by government officials and advisors (with Cummings and Co. fleeing the capital much as Charles II had done in 1665). But far more pernicious was the scale of cronyism and profiteering that went on as a rash of contracts for making PPE, for building respirators, manufacturing test kits,  throwing together 'Nightingale' hospitals, outsourcing lab capacity went to firms in which Tory MPs or their immediate families had a strong financial stake. I hope the enquiry will not shirk from disclosing the true magnitude of the hundreds of millions of pounds of tax-payers' money thus  misspent.

Let's hope that when the next pandemic arrives, for there will be one at some point, useful lessons have been internalised from the Covid years.

a plague doctor

To send you off with anger in your hearts for the grasping, greedy, incompetent crew (Cummings, Dorries, Gove, Hancock, Johnson, Kwarteng, Patel, Truss, Zadawi and all), my latest incendiary poem.

A Plague Doctor Writes...

A pox on you rats and fleas of Westminster I say!

A plague on both your houses, such a verminous

self-serving horde.  No sooner had you unfurled 

your contaminated roll of shoddy than suddenly 

poured forth such contagion,  an overwhelming  

devilment  of virulent spores which has infected

not only Commons or Lords but the wider body 

politic and brought our misfortunate land down

to its very knees. A pestilence on the mop-head 

of that festering jester,  clown prince of calumny.

But we need deliverance from the whole bunch

whose stench  has become insufferable, beyond

which plasters, vinegar poultices, smoking sage

or sprigs of lavender could mask. You should all

be torched. My prescription?  A mighty bone fire

of all your vanities! I urge that a conflagration fit 

to purge us of your pestilence should rage soon.

Thanks for reading, S 💀

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Plague - Bubonic, Covid?

I haven’t been to Eyam, but I believe it to be beautiful and interesting. It is on my bucket list of places to visit. Eyam is a small village in the Derbyshire Peak District which worked hard to be self-contained during an outbreak of a highly infectious disease.

Taken from ‘The Plague in Eyam ’ by George May,

“The plague which was a highly infectious and very unpleasant disease widely known in Britain and Europe, came to Eyam in the summer of 1665, possibly in a bale of cloth brought up from London. The people in the house where it came to, caught the disease and died in a short space of time. Before long, others had caught the disease and also died, after a short and very painful illness. It spread rapidly. The local rector, The Rev. William Mompesson and his predecessor, led a campaign to prevent the disease spreading outside the village to the surrounding area. This involved the people of the village remaining in the village and being supplied with necessary provisions by people outside.

the boundary stone

                                                            
"There is still on the outskirts of the village a location called the Boundary stone, where traditionally money was placed in small holes for the provisions which those from the local area brought for the villagers. As a result of this action, the disease did not spread, but almost a third of the villagers died. Interestingly some of the villagers who were in contact with those who caught the plague, did not catch it. This was because they had a chromosome which gave them protection. This same chromosome has been shown to still exist in those who are direct descendants of those who survived the plague, and who are still living in the village at the present time. The action of the villagers in staying in the village is almost unique and makes the village the place of significance that it is.”

The nursery rhyme Ring-a-ring-of-roses is thought to have come from this event.

We had to apply a similar process during the Covid lockdown, by relying on grocery deliveries and isolating ourselves as much as possible. I will forever, keep to social distancing when possible and be mindful of handwashing and disinfecting.

Here's poet laureate, Simon Armitage,

Lockdown

And I couldn’t escape the waking dream
of infected fleas

in the warp and weft of soggy cloth
by the tailor’s hearth

in ye old Eyam.
Then couldn’t un-see

the Boundary Stone,
that cock-eyed dice with its six dark holes,

thimbles brimming with vinegar wine
purging the plagued coins.

Which brought to mind the sorry story
of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre,

star-crossed lovers on either side
of the quarantine line

whose wordless courtship spanned the river
till she came no longer.

But slept again,
and dreamt this time

of the exiled yaksha sending word
to his lost wife on a passing cloud,

a cloud that followed an earthly map
of camel trails and cattle tracks,

streams like necklaces,
fan-tailed peacocks, painted elephants,

embroidered bedspreads
of meadows and hedges,

bamboo forests and snow-hatted peaks,
waterfalls, creeks,

the hieroglyphs of wide-winged cranes
and the glistening lotus flower after rain,

the air
hypnotically see-through, rare,

the journey a ponderous one at times, long and slow
but necessarily so.

                            Simon Armitage, 2020

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Simple Pleasures

How nice it is to please myself what I do and when I do it. Retirement is wonderful, apart from the lack of freedom we’ve had due to Covid restrictions. To be fair, I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on much. I’m not one for much socialising, but when someone says I can’t, suddenly it’s the very thing I want to do. Revelations about social occasions the government got up to against their own rules make my blood boil. There’s enough being documented without me moaning. Give enough rope, etc. I’ll wait.

My family has been my ‘bubble’ since the end of the first lockdown relaxed movement enough for us to be together.  Sundays used to be family day. We would have all four grandchildren for lunch and tea, fun and games, cousins together, usually with one or more of their parents. Sometimes we need the help and we’d always end up shattered, even if we’d been doing quiet stuff like colouring or Play-Doh. Nowadays, with two of them being at school and two at nursery, we’ve changed to Mondays to make it a bit easier on ourselves – us getting older. We have two after school and enjoy their company for a while before the younger ones arrive a little later after nursery. It’s the lovely, simple pleasures that family time brings that gives me so much joy, even when there are tantrums and moody moments. My treasures, each one.

 When we were allowed, my husband and I travelled to Scotland on a couple of socially distanced breaks. We stay in a self-catering lodge and observe whatever restrictions are in place when we are out and about. Things are constantly changing but what we noticed each visit was that rules were strictly adhered to. We felt safe and looked after. Again, it’s the simple pleasures that matter for us; watching red kites, or the birds outside the lodge that I fill the feeders for twice a day, relaxing with a book, doing a bit of knitting or pottering about outside. It was great to be back after so long.

At home I like to keep in contact with my friends. One, like me, has kept very much to her immediate family throughout Covid, but we chat regularly on the phone or text each other, often after a Blackpool F.C. match. I’ve probably been at the ground, she’s been watching or listening at home. That’s another of my simple pleasures, going to the match, face mask on, being part of it regardless of the outcome and hopefully, walking home singing.

Music, as mentioned in my last blog is a necessary part of my day, lots of radio, but I’ve just taken delivery of John Lodge’s new album on CD and I’m happily giving it a hammering. I sometimes do the Sudoku in the paper, alternating between that and the word-wheel that drives me crazy. I’m mad, sad, simple or crazy, and I don’t care. I’m glad to be retired and pleasing myself.

My poem,

A welcome mug of Nescafe Gold Blend,

Enjoying a phone chat with a close friend.

“How’s it going? Are you coping okay?

I managed to get out for lunch today.

Doing the driving to help the guys plans,

A treat of salad and steak in St Anne’s.

Face mask and hand gel, all safety measures

Necessary for such simple pleasures.

Sunday was quiet, we just played Scrabble.

Monday was hectic with all our rabble.

At last, M’s wobbly tooth has come out,

The litt’luns were squabbling and falling out,

Just usual stuff, you know what they’re like,

They both want the pedal car, not the bike.

L loves to read, my darling treasure."

Fam’ly Mondays make a simple pleasure.

 

PMW 2022

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Dreams - Nothing More Than Wishes?

A view from Elm Lodge

“Dreams are nothing more than wishes and a wish is just a dream you wish to come true.”  Harry Nilsson, The Puppy Song.

If my recent dreams are anything to go by, I must have some very strange hidden wishes. Perhaps it is the effect of the lockdown and the pandemic or it might be that I’m eating too much chocolate during the evening – we’re still allowed a little pleasure – but I’m having some very vivid, weird dreams that can stay with me all day. Up to now I haven’t had nightmares or bad dreams, though I wake up during the early hours and feel immediately relieved that whatever was happening was only a dream.

Many years have passed since I worked in a primary school yet one night my sleep journey took me back there, where I was expected to take a Year 6 class and I was trying to explain to someone that there must be a mistake as I hadn’t been told and I wasn’t prepared. The person I was talking to was laughing and telling me I’d be fine. I was arguing that I’d come to work with infants in groups of six, not juniors in Year 6. I woke up before I was forced to face a class of enthusiastic eleven year olds. Phew.

I know that the trigger for that dream was a conversation I’d had with a friend and colleague from those happy days. Often there isn’t a reason.

In another dream I was on a swing, suspended from a great height, aware that one wrong move and I could fall. The swing was taking me too far backwards, so that my body was horizontal and my only safety was how tight I could keep hold of the chains attached to my seat. Something went wrong, of course, and I was falling with that horrible sinking feeling. Luckily, I woke up before I hit the ground, the sea, or whatever was below me.

Going to sleep, I think of happy things and my favourite places. I imagine myself travelling in a motorhome – I haven’t got one, but I don’t let that tiny detail spoil my fun – doing the North Coast 500 would be wonderful. Somehow, as I fall asleep, the gremlins get in and take over my dreams.

My poem, 

The View from the Lodge

Between the trees, the distant hills
Fade from green to grey.
I drink it in and take my fill
Of all I survey.

Beyond the gate the horses graze
In the lush pasture,
I’m happy to recline and laze,
At one with nature.

Paradise, where my soul belongs.
My dreams bring me here,
Surrounded by gentle birdsong
Any time of year.

PMW 2021

Thanks for reading, sweet dreams, Pam x

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Silence - I'll Settle for Quiet

“Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence.”  (From Desiderata by Max Ehrmann, 1927)

How refreshing it feels just to be quiet with no distraction. I like to have the radio or a CD on, but sometimes it’s good not to bother and go about my housework duties in silent prayer or lost in my thoughts. My thoughts are bordering on torturous at the moment. A mini crisis which I needn’t bore you with and I’m sure it will blow over with some self-counselling and a quiet word above.

The place that offers the most silence is our favourite lodge in Dumfries & Galloway. Off the beaten track, hidden by trees and foliage, any sounds come from nature – and the fridge thermostat kicking in – owls, foxes, deer and the ripple of the nearby stream. Dare I believe that we’ll be there in just a few short weeks? Recently arranged and neatly in line with my retirement, we will sample summer time at the lodge. Very rare, we’re usually out of season visitors, but very welcome after lockdown.

The back garden offers tranquillity, depending on the day or time. The sheltered side, nice for a quiet read, never on a Sunday, though. Someone in the neighbourhood will fire up their lawn mower, strimmer or electric hedge cutter and kill the moment. No one around here has a massive garden, so what takes hours with some extra loud machine, I do not know. Someone else nearby likes to entertain outside and after winter and lockdown, it is clearly back on the agenda. Raucous laughter, which we hadn’t missed, and, I am told, the smell of a barbecue was apparent at the weekend. The best time to sit out is on a week day during school hours, until the boy across the back comes home and starts kicking his football against their wooden fence. They have to start somewhere, bless him.

At work, we hear the sound of silence at the end of the day when the fluorescent lights are switched off and the high-speed drills stop buzzing in our ears.  It isn’t my domain but there is something I find peaceful about a spotless, empty surgery, prepared for the next day. I accept that I’m a strange one. Somewhere a phone will ring and an answer-phone will take a message. I won’t miss much of this.

I am happy to fill my house with the noise of four lively grandchildren coming to tea, make sure they have fun and enough to eat and enjoy the peace and quiet when they’ve gone home.

My Haikus:

My washing machine
Is torture to all ear-drums
When it’s in a spin.

Stressed and troubled, then,
When dental drills stop whining
Serenity calms.

When the noise has gone
And there’s a moment to think
About what makes peace.

Hushed in the darkness
The unsettled baby girl
Loved and nursed by me.

PMW 2021

Thanks for reading, keep well. Pam x

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Expectation - Uncertain Times

 

It is not quite Epiphany but the Christmas tree, cards and all the trimmings have been taken down and packed away. There was an element of sadness. I didn’t feel ready to remove everything. I was being practical and fitting in other plans. Also, I was missing my little helpers who had made the task a joyful one last year and the year before. Just the other day my eldest grandson asked if he could help to put the tree away. I told him he could if he was here when the time came, but he was at school yesterday when I was unwinding the strings of beads, trying to prevent them getting tangled. I felt a bit guilty. I’d given him the expectation of being involved. Now, if the subject arises, I’ll be using ‘lockdown’ as an excuse. He’ll already be gutted at his beloved school taken from him again.

I began last year, 2020, with lots of expectations and, same as everyone, not a clue of what was coming to take it all away from me. There would be our regular visits to Dumfries and Galloway with trips to family in Troon. We looked forward to going to the Channel Islands for our 30^th wedding anniversary. I was retiring from work. There would be more travelling and lots of time to spend with our four grandchildren. Covid 19 changed all our lives and continues to do so.

I feel safe at home and it’s where I like to be. One thing I enjoy is watching all Blackpool F.C. matches on the big TV on the back room wall, from the comfort of the squashy sofa. It’s great to settle down with a hot coffee and the anticipation and expectation of a thrilling match ending in a great result. When that happens I hope our neighbours don’t mind the cheering and applause. I miss the atmosphere of the football ground, I miss the company of the fans who sit around us, the chats and catch-ups. They will be like us, watching from home. And, sitting in comfort in the warmth, I wonder how on earth I’d cope in the stadium on a freezing match day. I’ve gone soft. I have no expectation of getting back into the ground this season, but if we can, I’ll be there.

This year I have no New Year resolutions, except to write more of my own poetry but I haven't set off on that yet. Expectation is to receive the Covid vaccine when my turn comes up and retire from work at some point. If I keep my expectations realistic, there will be less disappointment.

Here's a Thomas Hardy poem,

Expectation and Experience

“I had a holiday once,” said the woman –
Her name I did not know –
“And I thought that where I’d like to go,
Of all the places for being jolly,
And getting rid of melancholy,
Would be a good, big fair:
And I went. And it rained in torrents, drenching
Every horse, and sheep, and yeoman,
And my shoulders, face and hair;
And I found that I was the single woman
In the field – and looked quite odd there!
Everything was spirit-quenching:
I crept and stood in the lew of a wall
To think, and could not tell at all
What on earth made me plod there!”

Thomas Hardy  (1840 – 1928)

 Pam

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Growing Pains - Back to School

Fear gripped me. Mid-dream and half asleep, I slipped out of bed in response to the screaming child in the next room. I tried to hurry, but my heart was pounding out of my chest, I could hardly catch my breath and my legs wouldn’t move properly.

He sat upright, wide eyes staring straight ahead at something scary, mouth open, continuous screaming. He was otherwise quite still.  I wrapped my arms around him, stroked his silky hair, made soothing noises and rocked him gently.  Night terrors, bless him, my little son. They continued for a while and terrified me more than him. I never got used to it happening and never found a proper reason.  He wouldn’t know anything about it, but my night was disturbed and my head filled with indescribable horrors that prevented me getting back to sleep long after he was settled.  He was about three years old, maybe only two and a half.  Perhaps his brain was working overtime, the events of his busy day filling his head with all sorts. Maybe it was a form of growing pains. He soon grew out of it. Later this week he will be thirty.  I am proud of him, and myself for getting something right along the way.

My daughter’s growing pains were physical and very real. Again, it was a night time thing, but she was older and could yell out that her legs were hurting. Double Calpol and lots of rubbing did the trick. She could settle back to sleep. I would be wide awake. I thought ‘growing pains’ was something made up, but our doctor was certain that was her ailment and she would grow out of it. She has.

At last, children have been able to return to school. It’s been too long a break, six months for most infants. I’m confident that schools are as safe as they can possibly be and I’m delighted to see my eldest grandson happy in his reception class where he is in the process of moving to Year 1. He loves school so much, it was awful to have it taken away from him. He understood about the ‘germs’ and needing to protect each other, but he missed everything. I enjoyed playing games, reading to him and doing little lessons to keep him on track with what he had learned so far, but as time went on, he needed the dynamics of his teacher, the surroundings of his inspirational classroom and to socialise with his friends.  He proudly tells me he is in the Giraffe ‘bubble’ and they do everything together. He’s happy. I hope all the children are, especially anyone who has been feeling unhappy in these difficult times.  Lockdown has brought plenty of invisible growing pains.

One of my favourite wordsmiths and fellow Mancunian, Mike Garry,

Signify

I called her Mam once

Sat on the carpet

With arms folded and legs crossed

Fingers on my lips

In that special place

She would eclipse

Where she'd read me poems

Tell me tales

Sing me songs

And like a fish to it's source

I'd be drawn in

I loved the way she'd hold the book

So that I could see the pictures

And the way she'd slowly move it from side to side

So that the naughty kids at the back could see

She told us we were allowed to dream

She got us to act out plays

I remember doing Finnegan's Wake

Told us about Shaw, Shakespeare and Joyce and Yeats

I was eight

But in that classroom her voice was sweet music

Echoing prayer and hymn

Story and songs

She was a living angel

But you'd know if you'd done wrong

She took us on school trips

To castles with moats across oceans with boats

And we would float

Without ever leaving the room

Loved the way she made the simple act of reading of the class register

Sound like the most beautiful song tune

Simply by the way she'd validate childrens names by saying

Katherine

Theresa

Patricia and James

Sometimes she'd get me to close my eyes

Imagine worlds beyond the sky

She told me one

"Michael, It's alright to cry"

And her eyes were seaside blue sunshine

But in that rainy, 1970's black and white Moss Side

Where my messed up life would disappear

The very second she walked into the room

She made my insignificant life

Signify

And she taught me that the more I read the more I see

The more I see the more I know

The more I know that more I grow

The more I grow the more I am

And I would give the world and all its riches

To simply hold that woman's hand one more time

And say thanks

"Thanks"

Mike Garry

Thank for reading, Pam x

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Petrichor - The Lost Fragrance of Rain

Yesterday I walked home from my hospital appointment. It felt so good to be out in the fresh air of tree-lined East Park Drive. I had reached the zoo before I dared to remove my face mask and take deep breaths. This was only my second outside venture on foot since I began to emerge from lockdown and my self-isolating. I was enjoying the freedom.

Being inside the hospital made me feel anxious and uncomfortable, and present circumstances of pandemic meant I had to go it alone. It began on Thursday night when a recurring eye problem, which had troubled me for a few days, took a turn for the worst, completely out of my control and I had no choice but to seek proper help. The 111 helpline referred me to A&E. I was scared, it was the last place I wanted to be. I was in pain from my eye. I felt sick, unsure if it was the pain or anxiety of where I was and not being able to see properly. Blood tests showed my blood sugar was all over the place, my potassium level too low and I was a bit dehydrated. Well, it was after midnight, I was scared, tired, should have been in bed, so I’m not surprised.  I wasn’t offered a drink of water or a banana, but I was looked after very well and as always, I have lots of praise for our NHS. They gave me medication and wanted me back the next morning, Friday, in the eye clinic. On Friday they nodded approval, changed the meds and wanted me back in clinic on Monday afternoon, yesterday. Now they’ve got me, they won’t let me go. I’m on follow-up now for August.

I think it had rained during the morning. I couldn’t really remember. I was concerned about returning to clinic, being there on my own, but I had things to do before two of my grandchildren arrived. Busy Monday, but everything fell into place. My husband dropped me at Outpatients, kids in tow, and returned home to await my call.

I was so glad to be out, reasonably unscathed, and the outside air was very welcoming. I phoned to say I would walk. I only live about twenty minutes brisk walk, or half an hour stroll away. Apart from the noisy traffic, it is an enjoyable path, even more so when you can see where you’re going properly. I’d been administered eye drops and was still under the influence of them. My only problem was overhanging plants along the side of the golf course which I mainly managed to dodge, but didn’t see some of the thin stalks until it was too late. No harm done.

 Everywhere was green and lush. I tried to remember or imagine what it all smelt like. I decided it was fresh and clean, earthy with a hint of pine. I don’t know if my sense of smell will ever return. We’ll see. That’s chemo for you. If it does come back, I hope I will experience petrichor and recognise it.

My poem is a memory of the rain-soaked garden at a relative's home.

I remember when life had fragrance,

Everything from a distinctive scent

To a subtle hint of a substance,

Breathing through, delicate, transient.

The warm sweetness after summer rain

Drenched the rose garden and swamped the lawn.

Leaves and petals floated to the drain,

Sweet peas, bedraggled, soggy, forlorn.

Drips from the sycamore and the beech

Splashing puddles on the patio.

Drooping honeysuckle, out of reach.

Sodden wisteria hanging low.

I remember the heady perfume

Of old-fashioned roses in full bloom.

The smell of rain I knew before,

But not the proper name, petrichor.

Pamela Winning 2020

Thanks for reading, keep safe, Pam x

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Family - Ties That Bind Us

I am fortunate to have been born into a medium-sized, close-knit family. My early childhood was filled with love and joy. For seven years I was the only grandchild to two sets of doting grandparents and my great-grandmother. I wasn’t spoilt in a materialistic way but I knew I was wanted, always welcome everywhere and people had time for me. By seven or eight, I had been taught how to knit, how to sew on buttons and sew a line of neat, tiny stitches. I wasn’t allowed near the dangers of a hot, steamy kitchen but I could prick my fingers to death with a sharp needle – not too many times before I got the hang of it. I gave everyone’s coal fire a wide berth, too. It is basic, the security of a loving family. I hope I’ve provided the same for my children and grandchildren.

I would like to nurture the same close relationship with my grandchildren as I had with my grandparents and I hope I’m doing it right. I have been home-schooling my eldest grandson a couple of afternoons a week since lockdown rules eased enough for me to see him. Home-schooling sounds very grand, but he only started school last September, just getting into the swing of it, which he loves, then along came ‘the germs’ and shut down. We play games, do lots of painting, drawing, colouring – this includes chalk, wax crayon, pencils, felt tips and anything else I can lay my hands on. I’ve recently introduced him to ‘The Cat in the Hat’ and ‘Green Eggs and Ham’, excellent for practising phonics. He’s quite happy doing number work, he doesn’t like writing much but we do a little bit. He enjoys being here, having me and Grandad all to himself with no distractions from his siblings. It helps my daughter out, as well. Families help each other, as it always was with our lot.

Now and again I dip into my family history. I’ve been doing my ‘tree’ for years. It can be hard work sometimes, going round in circles or literally barking up the wrong tree. So many generations with the same first name passed down. Children named after a dead older sibling. I’d never do that, but it was quite common in the mid-eighteen hundreds. People had lots of children, but so many of them died in infancy. Such losses in my ancestry have saddened me. My grandparents were made of strong stuff. They lost a child at three years old, before my mother was born. I was full of my own heartache when they lost another daughter, my mother. Our family clung to each other and tried to weather the storm.

It was hard when my mother died so young. It got harder still when my father remarried to the point of being impossible, but I had a close relationship with my maternal grandmother until she passed away, and my god-mother, who is my rock to this day.

I lost a lot of people over a period of about ten years. It is said that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’ve made it, so far. I suppose I'm the matriarch of my family now, with hidden strength and non-judgemental advice when required.

                                                                           My babes

My poem,  Family

There's cooking and cleaning and

The sound of children at play.

Infants having a squabble,

It's an ordinary day.

The strength of our family

Continues here, in our home,

A warm hub of love and care

Where everyone is welcome.

Everyone is important,

All are equal in our throng.

We look after each other,

Fam'ly is where we belong.

Somewhere to share a problem,

Always a listening ear

And a few words of wisdom

Help the worries disappear.

Family ties that bind us

Are stronger than any twine.

United in trust we stand,

I'm proud this fam'ly is mine.

PMW 2020

Thanks for reading, stay safe, Pam x

                                              

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Nonsense - Self-Isolation

I listened, properly. I was perched on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward, hanging on to his every word. It was important that I didn’t miss anything and that I fully understood.  It wasn’t long before I felt frustrated, “Spit it out, man, stop bumbling.” Then annoyed, “For goodness* sake, Boris.” Soon I was angry, mainly with myself for waiting most of the day ‘for enlightenment’ only to find myself wading through a sea of verbal nonsense from someone struggling to string a proper sentence together. Anyway, nothing has changed for me and I will continue to self-isolate.

Lockdown is no problem to me in so far as I love being at home. I am safe here, not stuck here. As well as doing the things I enjoy, I have taken the opportunity to spring-clean and sort out. I kept putting off doing the little room. This is the upstairs box room, which was the nursery for our children. It became the computer room, going back a bit, when monitors and processors were massive. Add a desk, chair and a printer, and one person could comfortably work in there. Later, it became the study. New desk, lap-top, wireless printer and walls lined with book cases which soon got filled. Our eldest grandson calls it our library. He likes to have a bedtime story from my children’s collection when he sleeps over. This little room has also become a dumping ground for things that are in the way but still wanted and not to be confined to the attic or the shed, well, not yet.

I made a space for myself by chucking a few things out that shouldn’t have been in there then got started on sorting out my writing. Exercise books, notepads, scribblings. Unfinished poems, opening paragraphs, some completed stuff. A couple of rejection letters, kept to keep me grounded. Plenty, and I mean a lot, of written nonsense, some made it to the bin, but a few items showing a glimmer of promise, might be worth picking up again. Published work, a thin folder, but one of which I’m proud and has a self-awarded gold star. My work-in-progress novel which hasn’t seen much progress lately. I didn’t dare to start reading that otherwise nothing else would get sorted out. It isn’t nonsense, though, it needs work. I spent two afternoons just on my writting stuff and I discovered that there’s a flicker of hope on some of those hand-written pages. I have rejection letters but I also have lots of positive feed-back and encouragement, enough to tell me to push myself out there while I still can. And with nothing to lose, I must.

So self-isolation continues. The news is scary, the outside world is too scary for me. I don’t support Boris or his party but I have to pay attention, however cross he makes me feel. I won’t return to work to mix with the public before I can see my family, that’s nonsense. I think it is too soon to lift restrictions but I was disappointed at his lack of clarification. I didn’t expect him to be specific, because he isn’t, but I hoped to hear something that I could safely interpret to mean it would be fine to have my grandchildren round and see family members, even briefly. They are worth the wait.

Here’s Spike Milligan,

Scorflufus

By a well-known National Health Victim No. 3908631

There are many diseases,

That strike people’s kneeses,

Scorflufus! Is one by name.

It comes from the East

Packed in bladders of yeast

So the Chinese must take half the blame.

There’s a case in the files

Of Sir Barrington-Pyles,

While hunting a fox one day

Shot up in the air

And remained hanging there!

While the hairs on his socks turned grey!

Aye! Scorflufus had struck!

At man, beast and duck.

And the knees of the world went Bong!

Some knees went Ping!

Other knees turned to string

From Balham to old Hong Kong.

Should you hold your life dear,

Then the remedy’s clear,

If you’re offered some yeast – don’t eat it!

Turn the offer down flat –

Don your travelling hat –

Put an egg in your boot – and beat it!

Spike Milligan  (1918 – 2002)

*Choose your own word here – mine wasn’t ‘goodness’.

Thanks for reading, take care and keep safe, Pam x

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Magnetism - Hold Tight

 I love the way the little trains and carriages of the Brio hold on to each other, like magic. Setting it up, I’ve explained to my grandchildren that opposites attract and pull to stick together. Do it the other way round and they push away. Fascinating to me, but not to those who know how it works and just want to get on with playing. Magnetism.

“We know, Nanna.”

And of course, they do. Or at least, they did before lockdown separated us for what feels like eternity. I hope they can come back soon.
 

We’ve done the bit about magnets having north and south and it only works on metal. We’ve checked different things in my house as we’ve wandered around with Brio trains. The fridge is good, and the freezer. We already know that because my collection of picture magnets are holding the children’s art-work in place. Central heating radiators are good, but not the metal legs on the small table.

“Why?”

 “They are made of a different metal that is not magnetic. You’ll learn all about it when you’re older and have science lessons at school.”

One started school in September and is bursting to get back.  He loves it and misses it. One will start this year, if life gets back to normal and two of them will return to nursery. Luckily for them, I’m fine with science up to Key Stage One.

When I was a child, I had one of those magnet-based toys which consisted of a face and bald head beneath a thin, clear screen. At the bottom were lots of iron filings which could be carried clump by clump on a magnetic pen up to the screen, and placed to make hair, eyebrows, moustache and beard. I played with it for hours.

Science was not a core subject when I was at school. I chose the option of History in preference.  These days I would choose both.  I’ve found some interesting stuff on BBC Bitesize, electromagnetism and magnetism on KS3 Physics. We’re never too old to learn.

I found this children’s song on a primary education website. Author not credited.

It’s a magnetic world.
The Earth’s a magnetic place.
Everywhere, all around, you’ll find magnets.
In computers and t.v sets
and microphones,
They even hold doors closed around your home.

Every magnet has a north pole,
A south pole too.
Each pole has its own molecules.
They create a force,
A magnetic field,
That attracts metals like iron and steel.

Magnets, many sizes and shapes
Horseshoes, bars and cylinders
Magnetic discs large and small
Magnets working for us all.

It’s a magnetic world.
The Earth’s a magnetic place.
Put two magnets together, what can you tell?
North and south poles will attract
And like poles together will repel.

Every magnetic field if it’s strong enough
Can pass through paper, wood or plastic.

You can make a magnet with electricity
And it’s very strong, you will see.

Magnets, many sizes and shapes
Horseshoes, bars and cylinders
Magnetic discs large and small
Magnets working for us all.

It’s a magnetic world.
The Earth’s a magnetic place.
Everywhere, all around, you’ll find magnets.

Thanks for reading. Stay home and stay safe. Pam x

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