Blackpool Rocks - UTMP

Blackpool Rocks. It certainly does. I’m out on the fringe, away from the excitement of most of what Blackpool offers as a holiday resort, but still close to the main roads for any of the emergency services. I’m always complaining about sirens disturbing the peace. Another reason why we’re looking to move.

Blackpool became my permanent home in the mid ‘60s. Dad achieved his goal of having a pub on Blackpool prom and we stayed long after that. The family was settled. Those earlier times were fun and some of my best memories are captured in my poem, ‘This Was My Blackpool in ‘68’. I’ve previously blogged about that particular summer, so I’ll say no more, but the poem can have another airing.

This Was My Blackpool in ‘68

Taking a tram from North Pier to Starr Gate.
A summer of fun and staying up late.
This was my Blackpool in ’68.

Anne, Auntie Kath and me, all holding hands
Crossing the Prom to get on to the sands
Where the grumpy deck-chair man always stands.
This was my Blackpool in ’68.

We were young ladies with panache and style,
Playing the penny arcades for a while,
Frittering our spends on the Golden Mile.
This was my Blackpool in ’68.

Spinning the Waltzers three times in a row,
Make it go faster, we don’t like it slow.
And then the man said, “That’s it, off you go!”
This was my Blackpool in ’68.

Out to a summer show, straight after tea,
Engelbert tonight at the ABC,
A back-stage delight for my mum and me.
This was my Blackpool in ’68.

Got to get ready, there’s no time to lose!
My trendiest outfit is what I will choose…
A pink ‘Biba’ dress with bright orange shoes.
This was my Blackpool in ’68.

We wanted peace, love and Flower Power,
Charlie Cairoli and Blackpool Tower,
Seaside and sunshine for hour after hour.
This was my Blackpool in ’68.

My first visit to Blackpool FC was with a group of school friends in 1970. If memory serves me well, the match was against Chelsea. I don’t remember the result. It wasn’t a pleasant afternoon. I found the whole experience scary, loud and lairy, full of the sort of men that would frequent our vaults, to be avoided. In future, I would stick to beat nights at the ice rink.

Oh, I’m just hanging out with the lads on this photo. They make me look so small.

Forty years passed before I became keen on following Blackpool FC again. This was a random invite to watch a match but I was lured in this time. The stadium had been transformed into a female friendly, welcoming place to be, greatly improved from 1970. I got the bug, well, we both did. Season tickets soon followed and since then, it has become a way of life. Before that, a promotion to the Premier League prompted a poem.

Sea Sea Seasiders 2010

Everything tangerine and white,
Fans all meet in great assembly.
Blackpool FC in the top flight,
They’ve beaten Cardiff at Wembley.

Open top bus in ’53,
Everything tangerine and white,
The FA cup for all to see,
Bill Perry’s goal, the town’s delight.

It really was an awesome sight
With deafening applause and cheer;
Everything tangerine and white
And flowing champagne and beer.

Open top bus like ’53,
Everything tangerine and white,
The play-off cup for all to see,
Ormerod’s goal, the town’s delight.

Ollie’s team have got the power,
Premier League, a dizzy height.
Blackpool flag atop the tower,
Everything tangerine and white!

The beach and the promenade were my playgrounds as a child. I’m happy for those carefree times and I’m lucky to have had such a diverse upbringing that moving around with a family and extended family in the pub game gave me. I love my memories. The Golden Mile is wonderful for all those who seek it, but there’s no interest for me anymore. I like the sea air and the Blackpool coast line, maybe a walk on the beach, but it needs to be firm sand these days. That’s what Blackpool rocks for me.

Some time ago, I read ‘The Blackpool Rock’ which is an intriguing and interesting book about aspects of Blackpool that are not in my personal experience. A gripping read. Steve Sinclair tells his story with honesty and integrity about the side of Blackpool he knew very well through his work as a doorman. Reading about it is close enough for my comfort and satisfies my fascination. There is also a TV documentary with Danny Dyer. It is definitely not my Blackpool in ’68, or maybe it was and I didn’t notice?

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Babies - Polly Garter & Jelly Babies

“Me, Polly Garter, under the washing line, giving the breast in the garden to my bonny new baby. Nothing grows in our garden, only washing. And babies. And where’s their fathers live, my love? Over the hills and far away. You’re looking up at me now. I know what you’re thinking, you poor little milky creature. You’re thinking, you’re no better than you should be, Polly, and that’s good enough for me. Oh, isn’t life a terrible thing, thank God?”

From Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas.

If my memory serves me right, we were in the 4th year of secondary school, modern day Year 10, reading Under Milk Wood in English, sort of acting out the play in class, which was really just reading out loud from our desks. I was delighted to be Polly Garter, though I can’t sing and I can’t do a Welsh accent. She’s feisty, flaunty, flighty and a bit naughty, the talk of the wash-house and I love her. It was hard to read aloud, willing myself not to blush at the mention of ‘breast’ while the boys made stifled sniggers and whispered comments. We were that silly age. Well, the boys were. I liked the image of Polly and her babies, though not the absent fathers. I liked the idea of a family full of children.

We get what we’re given and a big family was not on the cards for me. Now, with four grandchildren, the family might be as big as it is going to get until the next generation. I don’t intend to tempt providence here. It’s lovely, and great to have fun times when they are all here together. It can be hard work if they’re squabbling, or if someone needs to be sent out of the room, but that’s kids. They are all wonderful with their own personalities and I love having them around me. Echoes of Polly. Babies arrived close together, which put our travel plans on hold for about four years, then Covid lockdown meant cancelling the booked trip to the Channel Islands. We’ll try again, before we forget what we were doing and old age takes over.

Ah, just to mention Jelly Babies. Nasty things that made one of my children so sick, they can’t look at them even decades later. It’s not an allergy or anything serious, just eaten too many. I don’t know how many packets and they didn’t come from me. I don’t give sweets, only chocolate, and never fizzy drinks. My grandchildren take delight in telling me if they’ve had something on my banned list. Little darlings.

My poem,

The time came to dismantle the cot.
There’s no more babies, I’ve had my lot.
Infant things vanished without a trace,
A three foot single now fills the space.
A house of laughter, a home of joy
For a lovely girl and a cherished boy.
The children took over with their stuff,
Of books and toys, more than enough.
Years come and go as time flies too fast,
A quiet house, empty nest, at last.
Soon, grandchildren filled the vacant spot,
Took turns to sleep in the rebuilt cot.
Gorgeous babies, one, two, three and four,
I think that’s it now, there won’t be more.
The single divan is back in place,
But it is moveable, just in case.

PMW 2024

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Waking Up - Looking Out

It was the mid-1960s and we, that is, my parents, toddler sister and I had arrived. From pubs in Manchester, Lancaster, brief stay in Marton then Padfield, at last we were in Blackpool with a pub on the prom.

Waking up early in the summer mornings with the noisy seagulls and a pleasant breeze blowing on my face through the small opening at the top of the sash window is a lovely memory I will have forever. Net curtains wafted inwards, close to my sister’s cot. We shared that big, front bedroom until she was old enough for a bed and a room of her own. The view fascinated me and even more so when Nanna came and planted herself in her favourite place, the bay window of our front sitting room. We watched the world go by, Nanna, with her knitting, Park Drive cigarettes and cups of tea and me, looking out to sea, happy to be with Nanna and share her enjoyment. I was staying with Nanna when my sister was born. We were living in Lancaster then. Dad had already moved into our next pub, but Mum was close to giving birth so we were sharing a spare room in their pub, waiting for nature to take its course. And it did, in the middle of the night. Waking up alone, I remember fleeing the bedroom in tears, Nanna cuddling me and explaining that the baby was coming so my mummy had gone to hospital. My tears soon turned to joy later that day when I was told I had a baby sister. Not quite what I wanted, to be honest. I really wanted a big sister and I’d been misled into thinking I was getting a playmate and she wasn’t that, either. I got over it.

Another of my favourite relatives was Auntie Alice, my grandfather’s sister, so my great-aunt, but Auntie Al would do. When she came to stay, she shared my sea-view room. She wasn’t one for silly nonsense, but we had some fun times together. I learnt her boundaries the hard way and had great respect for this plain-speaking, strong-minded woman. One night, there was a terrific thunderstorm. It woke me up and I was very scared. The building felt like it was shaking – it probably was. She reassured me, in her no nonsense, practical way. Together, we watched the lightning coming over the sea, counting seconds to the thunderclap.

I treasure all those memories, living in that pub, my front bedroom and my sister, my auntie and others who stayed in it with me. Life changed. It changed forever. My room was taken from me.

On a happier note, nearly seven years ago I was waking up to my phone ringing at some unearthly hour, just about morning time. I remember day was breaking. It was our son, to tell us that our beautiful granddaughter, Lola-Skye was born, a little early and having special care, but all would be well and her mummy was fine. Our second grandchild, as our daughter gave birth to our grandson the year before. Two more grandchildren since then.

My Haiku poem,

Window nets wafting
Round the open sash, flapping
In the morning breeze.

Screaming seagulls, loud
And urgent, meet on the sands
Following the tide,

I breathe the mixed smells
Of the seaside and the prom,
This is our new home.

Candyfloss, donkeys
Mingled with ice-cream, burgers,
Sweet, fried onions.

Blackpool promenade,
South Pier stretches out to sea,
Central just in sight.

From the front window
The ‘Beachcomber’ amusements
Will soon come to life.

The whole world passed by
And I was fascinated,
Scenes from my window.

PMW 2023
Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Melancholy

He said I was ‘snippy’. I was taken aback, but he was right, of course. He knows me better than I know myself. I thought about it. I was feeling down in the dumps and I knew I was being moody, irritable and impatient. Things were getting me down. I was easily upset and filled with a sadness that I couldn’t shake off. I wanted things that I couldn’t have; my nanna, my mum, my sense of smell so I could remind myself of her Estee Lauder fragrance; and normal eyesight. My vision is very frustrating sometimes – most of the time. The melancholy has eased off for now, but it will be back. I can rely on my husband to tell me I’m ‘snippy’ if I’m not aware.

It is the statins. I blame everything on the statins from my mood to my physical aches and pains and fatigue. Before I was prescribed, I blamed everything on the menopause. I’m a bit senior to carry that off convincingly, so the statins are the culprit.

Recently, when window-shopping round various jewellers in town looking for something special for my sister, I saw a pre-loved ring exactly like the one I was stupid enough to lose in 1971, an inexpensive dress ring of sentimental value, given to me by an aunt. I’d forgotten all about it for most of the last fifty-odd years, but seeing it brought back memories and made me feel sad to have been so careless in my teens. I know exactly where I lost it and at the time I’d retraced my steps over and over again and searched as thoroughly as I could. I concluded that someone must have found it. This can’t possibly be the same ring, but it filled me with nostalgia, so much that I might buy it as a replacement.

I was listening to ‘A Question of Balance’ – The Moody Blues, this morning, and in particular Mike Pinder’s ‘Melancholy Man’. It’s a great song. Help yourself on YouTube.

I looked to my beloved Brontes for a ‘melancholy’ poem and decided that any poem by any one of them would be suitable and I found that quite sad. The lives they had in the parsonage overlooking the church and the graveyard, the loss of their mother and older siblings, then the loss of each other is reflected in their poems. The troubled Branwell the most melancholy, fighting his demons.

I chose a poem I wrote in memory of our nephew, David. Today marks fourteen years since he was murdered.

Rondeau In memory of David

Think happy thoughts and always smile.
This might not be the hardest mile
To walk on our journey of life,
But just another time of strife;
So stop and rest here for a while.

Remember days of carefree style
Before the death, before the trial;
Before the bastard with the knife…
Think happy thoughts,

And not of the murder so vile
And let nothing spoil or defile
The joyful mem’ries of his life,
His little girl, bewildered wife.
Hold still and wait here for a while,
Think happy thoughts.

PMW 2009

Robert Peston will lift my spirits. I'm reading one of his books, 'Whistleblower'.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Sestina - The Secret

After dealing with the bindweed on the buddleia and nursing the contents of my over-full planters towards flowering, it has been lovely to sit out in the sunshine enjoying what passes for a garden. This sitting out time has been spent wisely, refreshing my memory on the discipline of the Sestina poetic form. Years have passed since my last (forced) encounter and you’d be correct to think that this is not my favourite. Anyway, rising to the challenge, I managed to get the rusty workings of my brain pointing in the right direction for long enough to compose something. I don’t know where the subject came from apart from the dark side of my imagination, iambic pentameter a bit hit and miss, but I hope it meets the criteria.

“A sestina is a poem written using a very specific, complex form. The form is French, and the poem includes six stanzas of six lines each, followed by a three line stanza at the end. Each stanza repeats the end words of the first stanza, not in the same order but in a strict formation.” See illustration.

Here is my sestina.

The Secret

After the passing of so many years
She still thought she would know him anywhere.
Decades ago, she wrote him a letter
But did not send it, instead tore it up
And decided it was best for their child
To remain unknown to him, a secret.

What started as a burdening secret
Became less important over the years.
Happy and healthy, this beautiful child
Was delightful company anywhere,
Cheerful and bright and always on the up,
Sometimes, she wished she had sent the letter.

All the details contained in that letter,
The reasons for having such a secret
And how important it was to keep up
For all the childhood and growing up years,
To guarantee acceptance anywhere,
And offer the best of all to this child.

A talented and inquisitive child,
Doing everything right to the letter.
A child going places, not anywhere.
Adult, needing answers to the secret
Of where a father might hide all these years,
Deserves to know the truth, so bring it up.

Then hours of searching and looking up.
So many questions you’re asking, dear child,
Travelling back over so many years,
This grown-up child composes a letter.
Confronted, she shares the truth, her secret,
Oh child, your father could be anywhere.

She always thought she’d know him, anywhere.
The mem’ry of him made her smile light up.
He would hate her for keeping this secret,
Denying him the chance to share their child.
Long ago, he had sent her a letter:
‘Return to Sender’, not lived here for years.

A secret lover, anywhere, now found.
After all the years, a chance to make up
Now he’s received a letter from his child.

PMW 2021

Thanks for reading. Whether you embrace freedom or not, stay safe. Pam x

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Paper - Examination

I chose a place next to the wall. I could lean my bare arm on the tiles for some cooling respite from the heat of the afternoon. The scuffed, well-worn desk reminded me of school. I put two spare pens, facing the same way, in the groove next to the empty ink-well. The hinged lid lifted easily. Well, I couldn’t resist. Who would, faced with such nostalgia? It was empty, as expected. Inside, it smelt of a classroom freshly cleansed with that disinfected brown sawdust sometimes used on floors. Eric Wright, form 3 alpha had this desk in 1959, according to the neatly scratched detail on the underside of the lid. Initials in a heart shape had been obliterated with red ink, or paint. Identity lost forever.

It was almost time. The room had filled up. A couple of desks at the front remained empty. I read and re-read the exam rules on the blackboard. Papers were given out and we had reading time. I was relieved to see the question I had hoped for. My answer to that question covered everything and amounted to two and a half sides of A4 and earned me top marks in a mock exam. I knew it word for word, including a four line quote. Apprehension began to melt as I allowed myself a tiny hint of confidence.

Time to begin. I held my favourite Parker pen with a new, fine-point refill, poised to start with my well-versed question, only I couldn’t. The answer had gone, almost every part of it, like something had erased it from my memory, paragraph by careful paragraph. I couldn’t remember the quote beyond the first word. Some self-counselling, deep breaths, don’t panic, answer something else and come back to it, this is an exam paper, not the end of the world.

I muddled through the exam. I managed other parts of it and returned to ‘my question’ praying for my brain to bring my memory back. It didn’t. I answered it in the best way I could, which proved to be enough as I passed with a good grade.

That was more than forty years ago. I still can’t remember that ‘perfect’ answer or the quote. I still have my mock exam papers showing the marking of 100%, but even now I can’t bring myself to refresh my memory. The blip didn’t hold me back.

 

Here’s something from Simon Armitage,

Paper Aeroplane

The man sitting next to me on the flight

     was reading a blank book, keen eyes
     panning left to right across empty leaves, fingers
     turning from one white space to the next.

Sometimes he’d nod agreeably or shake his head,

     or painstakingly underline some invisible text
     with red ink, or decorate the margin
     with an exclamation mark or asterisk.

It was a hefty-looking tome, hand-stitched

     but wordless front and back and down the spine.
    Coming in to land he laid the silver ribbon-marker
     between two bare pages to save his place.

I was wearing noise-cancelling headphones

     listening to fine-mist, when he leaned across
     and shouted, ‘Forgive the intrusion, but
     would you sign this for me? I think it’s your best.’

Simon Armitage.

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Upheaval - Moving House

My father’s job meant that we moved house a lot in my younger days. Sometimes, to me, it seemed like we had just got settled and we were off again. This transient lifestyle took us from pub to pub, or pub / restaurant or residential hotel and on one rare occasion to our own private house when he worked for Scottish & Newcastle looking after several premises. I can’t remember the layout of our living accommodation everywhere, I only remember the adventures of exploring our new home and whether or not I had to share a bedroom with my younger sister. Some places were vast, others were pokey and hotels usually meant no kitchen to call our own and bedrooms down a faraway corridor with views out on to a scruffy yard or a brick wall. Sometimes we didn’t need our own furniture and kitchen things. It would all be stored away in a spare room, ready packed for the next move. More than always being ‘the new girl’ at school, making new friends and meeting new staff, my ever lasting memory is the upheaval of  relocating.

In later years, I loved the independence of buying my own house, just mine. It was compact, tiny, even, and not perhaps in a favoured area, but it was my home and I loved it. How I managed to collect so many belongings and squeeze them in to my two-up-two-down, I can’t imagine now, but when my husband and I were planning our wedding and starting to move my things into our house, what an upheaval that was. I declared then that I was never going to move again, ever. Up to now, we haven’t, but if someone handed us the keys to a delightful bungalow in Kirkcudbright, I would cope.

Recently, my father-in-law moved into permanent residential care. Our family have been busy emptying his house of a lifetime of stuff which he doesn’t need anymore. In a way it seems wrong to be sorting out his belongings and making decisions on his behalf, but it’s the way it has to be and it’s a job which is certainly better to be done by his family rather than a house-clearance firm.

Again, it’s an upheaval but it will soon be done and in all the sorting out, there was family treasure to be found. An anthology of children’s poetry which includes a poem by his late grandson, David, aged eleven.

 

     Split Worlds

Eyes large with colours of the town.

Looking up, looking down.

Arm trying to grab a drink.

Fist ready to punch, angry. 

Body in purple.

Body in orange.

Split personality.

Red city, yellow lights.

In the blackness of the sky.

Confusion like the litter.

The world is drunk inside. 

I drink some more.

I have a fag and drop to the floor. 

David Winning (1982 – 2009)

 

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x        

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Brain, don’t fail me now! Oh! You just did!

I had always thought I was good at remembering things, but when the time came for me to do my own grocery shopping for the first time, my brain decided to step out for a while.  That’s how it has been ever since.  It will generously allow me to remember stuff like Birthdays, Anniversaries, appointments, telephone numbers and Bank Account details most of the time.  But items needed from the shop?  No!  Not a chance! You know how guys hate going shopping?  Well that’s my brain!  I once bumped into Ash in a certain well known supermarket.  I was in a world of my own desperately trying to recall what I needed when he said hello.  It took me a minute to realise that someone was talking to me, then another moment to realise who it was, my brain struggling to switch between my own little world and the real one!  I seem to recall an amused expression on his face at the time.
 
I’d never been one for writing lists, but as I’ve got older, I find it has become a necessity, mostly To Do Lists and Shopping Lists.  I also write my appointments on my calendar, although that didn’t stop me forgetting one last week.  Thank God for my Mum, who reminded me in the nick of time!  I’ve come to the conclusion that it all boils down to age, and tying in with last weeks’ theme, information overload!  As an advanced society, we’ve managed to complicate our lives to the point of ridiculousness.

One of my favourite poems’ is “Leisure” by W.H.Davies.  So taking his words on board, I’m making time to “Stand and Stare” and have a little chill out time to clear my thoughts and remind myself of the simpler things in life.  I think we all need to do this once in a while. De-clutter, de-stress and the mind flows much more smoothly.  Perhaps then I’ll be able to remember what I went shopping for ….. 

I must, I MUST remember …….

Why is it I can remember Birthdays?

Bank account and telephone numbers,

Anniversaries and appointments?

But when I’m shopping my memory slumbers?

 

It abandons me quite suddenly,

While I’m standing in the supermarket,

I stare blankly at the Brussels Sprouts,

As my neurons spark and then short circuit.

 

What did I come in for?

I’m sure there were at least a dozen things!

I wander the aisles aimlessly,

In the hope inspiration springs.

 

Was it: eggs, potatoes, milk and sugar,

Ham, Apples, juice and spread?

Or was it none of the above at all,

Just toilet rolls and bread?

 

As a result I end spending money

On items I didn’t need to buy.

At home I’m well enough stocked in ketchup,

To keep me going ‘til the Apocalypse is nigh!

 

I must, I MUST remember

To write a shopping list

And when completed, pop it in my purse

So, when I go out, it can’t be missed!!

 

 
Lists, I’d be lost without them!

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A notebook of 'forgotten' ideas.

Like many writers I own a notebook (in fact several notebooks), and it’s between these pages that my ideas our placed, kept and subsequently forgotten about. Blank pages are filled in with thoughts, jottings and initial drafts; causing the ideas I had months ago to creep further into middle page mediocrity. Generally I don’t look back; I don’t revisit ideas unless my mind chooses to remember – which perhaps seems odd as the notebook offers the luxury of an extended memory, preserving what might otherwise slip from mind. However, my ideas are ideas for a reason: they have gaps, missing elements, question marks instead of full stops. They are titles without an ensuing first line. They are a combination of lexemes that seemed (at the time) important enough to write down, but which have since been cast with insignificance. They gather dust; their cursive form is draped with cobwebs and I’m never sure when (or even if) they’ll be picked from the lined page, dusted off and transformed into something more substantial.

Despite the notebook, I still believe memory to be an invaluable tool. It offers a type of filtration system: allowing ideas with potential to pass through the lattice structure – to be recalled, while unpromising ideas fail to be recollected. Personally, I like the ideas that bother me, that won’t leave me alone, that haunt my thoughts, that develop as much off the paper as on it. Therefore, I don’t like looking back. I don’t like looking back at ideas that haven’t been poking, prodding, pestering – refusing to be forgotten. I don’t like looking back at ideas that have allowed themselves to move from an active state to one of dormancy. However, having said this, I’ve decided to look through my recent notebook and list all the ideas that never made it into poetic form; the ideas that have been sitting on the back-burner with the gas turned off.

Provisional Titles (and their missing poems)

Bird nest (?)
Stickmen (?)
Lamb’s wool (?)
Tomato soup (?)
Most wanted (?)
The left behind (?)
Seafood garden (?)
Walking over me (?)
Pensioner’s boots (?)
Seventy one steps (?)
Allotment Etiquette (?)
Curiosity finds water (?)
Sarracenia ‘Johnny Marr’ (?)

Maybe one of these ideas will find the importance that first marked its existence. Maybe one of these ideas will start to harass my thoughts. Maybe one of these dormant ideas will become a poem – or maybe they’ll all be forgotten (again)?

Thank you for reading,
Lar

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