Cafes

I’m pleased to discover that one of our familiar cafes in Kirkcudbright has re-opened. I think it closed last year and the business was up for sale. It’s under new ownership with a new name and I look forward to visiting on our next time there. We know all the cafes in Kirkcudbright and Castle Douglas, some better than others. We have lunch out most days when we are there, or coffee and cake. Less often at home, but it’s nice when we do venture out.

On my birthday, a few years ago, we were having lunch in the Ashton Pavilion café in St. Anne’s. Someone began to play the grand piano, very accomplished and lovely to listen to as one tune seamlessly flowed into another. ‘Nights in White Satin’, perfectly played, filled me with emotion and reminded me of the time years earlier, when having lunch at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, a small group of us were entertained by Michel Legrand running through his playlist in preparation for the evening. He didn’t play ‘Nights’, but the feeling was the same. Amazing talent.

There’s a fabulous café at the Lowry in Salford. The gallery and theatre, not the hotel, though it might have one. My husband and I had lunch there after a pilgrimage to the paintings, where I can gaze at Lowry’s work and cry and sigh as I love them so much. It was a special day. We spent the afternoon in Weatherfield on a Coronation Street tour, where I cried and sighed again because I love it so much. I would have liked afternoon tea at Roy’s Rolls, but sadly, the door was locked and even more sad, it wasn’t real, just a street frontage. It would be fabulous to be an extra in Roy’s café. I would sit quietly reading, fully absorbed in the book, newspaper or whatever, ignoring everything and everyone around me. Maybe someone will let me.

Edward Hopper’s painting, ‘Nighthawks’ appeals to me. The subject is an American diner late at night, not quite a café, but something about it intrigues me enough to want to be there. The characters look glum, even stern, like there’s something awkward going on. Ok, I’m nosey.

Park’s Art Deco Café at Stanley Park is open after the winter break and we have just about completed our Rushton & Co. style painting and decorating at home. I think we’ve earned a lunch out.

My Haiku poem,

When in Kirkcudbright
There’s a nice, new café
To add to our list.

Lunch in the Lowry,
Spellbound in the galleries,
We should go again.

I went to New York,
The Waldorf Astoria.
Lucky, little me!

I’ll sit silently
When I’m an extra
On Coronation Street.

Let’s go to the park.
We’ve finished decorating,
The café is open.

PMW 2026

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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A Favourite Poet - Too Many to Mention

Poetry books are in abundance on my book shelves and bedside table. I love poetry. I love words, artistically shaped into meaningful phrases. I wish I had the talent to do it better and I keep trying, but I think I peaked some time ago. My head is packed with stress and nonsense which I hope will eventually spill out and evaporate, giving me back some clarity and concentration, and something to write about.

As for choosing or having a favourite poet, for me, it’s like music and depends how I feel. They all have a place.

I suppose we all start as children, learning nursery rhymes and progress into poetry from there. My first poetry book must have been A Children’s Garden of Verse by Walter de la Mare. It’s a slim, hardback, well-used and dog-eared, still knocking around my house somewhere amongst my saved children’s books. I enjoy sharing books with the children at school. I often choose something that tells the story in rhyme, like Dr Seuss and ask the class if anyone can guess what word is next. I like to make it fun. I’ve borrowed a poetry book for children by Michael Rosen which my elder grandson enjoyed. I recently introduced him to my poem about Blackpool Tower, written a few years ago. He was arguing about when it was built, how long it took and I couldn’t convince him that it was less than a hundred years, so out came the book with the poem in it. I read the poem out aloud, not letting on that I’d written it until the end, when I showed him the name. Now he knows that I’m a published poet, I might have gone up in his estimation. I’m not just Nanna, who makes delicious muffins.

When I was a child, we had to learn poems or verses off by heart. It was part of English and usually set as homework to recite to the class. No escape. Here’s a favourite,

From Home-thoughts From Abroad by Robert Browning.

Oh, to be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England – now!

Later it was Shakespeare’s sonnets and Chaucer’s Wife of Bath from the Canterbury Tales.

My fondness for Dumfries & Galloway began with a visit to the birthplace of Robert Burns when we were on holiday near Ayr. Our first stay in the area was never going to be enough and over the years we may have traced his steps from Alloway to Ecclefechan and back again many times, visiting his various homes and his resting place in Dumfries. I wrote this some time ago,

You captured my heart with your words of romance,
I would have embraced you, if given the chance.
We might have been lovers and perfect soul mates,
What a shame I was born two centuries late.

John Betjeman, Simon Armitage, Maya Angelou and Lemn Sissay are all dear to me. How wonderful to see the work of Lemn Sissay displayed as artwork on the side of a Huddersfield University wall, and another in Manchester. We haven’t met, but I feel like I know him through his life story and his daily quatrains, and I want to hug him and say, “Look, at that! Look how far you’ve come!”

I have met Manchester poet, Mike Garry. His poetry still takes my breath away and I’ve seen him many times. The first time was 2012 at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal when he was on with John Cooper Clarke. Mike Garry, totally different to JCC, with an equal talent that blew me away. Read him, go and see him, listen to him on YouTube.

Dr John Cooper Clarke, he’s gone from strength to strength. Punk poet in the 1970s to GCSE and A-Level Curriculum inclusion now. Clever, witty and great in concert, with all his handwritten poetry on loose sheets of paper. That’s how it was in Kendal. I wonder if he ever got my Terza Rima?

When Manchester became Mad-chester.

Those of the time embraced every word,
Listening in wonder to John Cooper Clarke,
The Bard of Salford who had to be heard.

Rapid from the mouth and skinny and dark,
‘Evidently Chickentown’, effing good,
He’s magic with words, bright as any spark.

His wholesome description meant that we could
Smell the inhabitants of ‘Beezley Street’,
Rich mixture of urban decay and blood.

Life, humour and truth, a picture complete
And painted with colourful language that
Reaches all listeners not just the elite.

So thanks, JCC, I know where I’m at,
Laughing out loud at the poem called ‘Twat’.

PMW 2012

I haven’t got a definite favourite. I’ve missed lots out and there are people I know through open-mic and similar formats who write some terrific poetry and make me want to snap all my pencils.

This is a long blog, but thanks for reading, Pam x

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Playing in the Band - Let's Rock

I wish I had a talent for music. A proper talent, not just the piano grades that my father’s expense and my reluctance to learn got me. That piano teacher was a horrid man. I spent years trying to wriggle out of going to his gloomy, unwelcoming house. I feigned illness on Saturday mornings, or stayed quiet and hoped my twelve o’clock lesson would be forgotten about but my ploys never worked and I would have to endure a miserable hour with the creep. And for all that, I still can’t play Fur Elise at the correct speed or Chopin’s lovely waltzes without constantly checking my finger positions. No confidence and certainly no natural talent, unlike some others in the family.

My son plays by ear. I was trying to get to grips with a Mozart piece on the piano in my usual slow, clumpy way. He just comes along and plays it, as easily as you like, because he knows the tune. I used to love hearing his electric guitar or bass coming down from his attic room. One day, he was belting out the intro to the Moody Blues ‘Story in Your Eyes’ and I nearly burst into tears at how perfect it was. His college was doing an entertainments evening and we, his parents, were invited to attend. We knew he was taking part, but didn’t know what he would be doing. I was unwell, full of a cold and full of appropriate medication to get me through the evening. I was not going to miss this event. He took to the stage. He was on bass, playing with a band. I recognised something he’d been practising at home.  They were excellent, well-rehearsed and ‘gelled’ together. I was relaxed into ‘Proud Mum’ mode when the scene changed and the spotlight was now on my son. The voice, I realised, was his, rocking 'Johnny B Goode' like a professional and making the stage his own. He was amazing. I don’t think I’d heard him sing since he was about seven. Here was a twenty-ish year old rock star making me tear-up like his first nativity. The things you miss when they grow up leave home and have kids. I think he’s still musical.

Our daughter is or was blessed with a wonderful, powerful singing voice. She reduced me to tears with a soulful rendition of Katie Melua’s ‘Closest Thing to Crazy’ in the car one day, just out of the blue. She had the same effect on her music teacher. She sang at home, so I heard her all the time and helped her to choose songs suited to the strength of her voice. Seeing and hearing her on stage held no surprises for me. I was ‘Proud Mum’ always, with lots of support. I’m sure I glowed with pride when others told me how her performance had blown them away. My response was always to say thank you and that everyone taking part was brilliant. She went on to do performing arts at college. These days, that fabulous voice is used for calling her children in from the garden or shouting for them to wait when they run ahead of her. I must ask her if she does much singing these days. What I’d give for her voice and a band to accompany me!

My wish came true, except it was my voice and I wouldn’t describe myself as a singer. I had a posh party for my sixtieth birthday a few years ago. As it was the ‘party to end all parties’ it was held at one of Blackpool’s finest hotels, I had live music from a local band and a nephew who is a professional musician. I wasn’t expecting to join the band on stage, but with some gentle persuasion (dragged up, no choice) and a compulsory funny hat, I found myself making a guest appearance. I think I was trying to sing ‘Rock the Casbah’ with the help of The Rattlers. I hope they were playing the same song. Someone somewhere has a video that I’ve never seen. Destroy it, please.

My own poem,

The Ballad of a Lady Jazz Singer

Jazz tempo piano and a bluesy guitar

It’s two a.m. in the Ritzy Bar.

Lorna sips gin through a long, curly straw

As she sits and waits, one eye on the door.

He said he’d be along to see her set

But he’d promised before – never made it yet.

Perched on a bar stool, cigarette in hand,

Minutes away from her spot with the band,

She leans a bit further back in her seat

And her red stiletto taps out the beat.

She’s laughing and swaying, about to begin,

Adrenaline rush, or too much pink gin.

She’s out of her mind, but not really crazy.

Her vision is soft-focus, smoky and hazy.

Tight black dress, short, strapless and low,

Only put on for this kind of show.

She clutches the mic stand, there’s a hint of a smile

Then she bangs out a song in her Joplin-esque style.

Heat and smoke hit hard on her throat

But she stays on key and keeps the right note.

Much clapping and cheering, the Ritzy’s alive

Lorna kept singing ‘til quarter to five

Then staggered out happy in the dawning new day

With her new bass playing lover leading the way.

 Pamela Winning  2014

Thanks for reading, keep safe and well, Pam x

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Music - Saved by the Music

“If music be the food of love, play on…” Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare.

 

Lots of us have an ‘Our Song’ or a piece of music which is meaningful and special, above and beyond all others. I find it uplifting when something significant comes on the radio and transports me back in time. If that particular time was happy, it’s nice to re-live that fond memory. If it belongs to a dark time, it’s good to reflect on how we coped and what changed. Challenges and experiences make us who we are.

I love music. I grew up with Sing Something Simple on Sundays long before the contents of the pub juke-box became important to me. My mother listened to the wireless Light Programme or played records, so I was effectively drip-fed her favourites. Tommy Steele’s Little White Bull, Acker Bilk’s Stranger on the Shore, Anthony Newley, Billy Fury, Neil Sedaka, Dusty Springfield, Joe Loss and his Orchestra, Elvis, and of course Russ Conway, amongst others. This was before The Beatles. She was young and trendy, my mum. I still have her record collection and just looking at them brings back childhood memories. There are lots of Russ Conway, singles and a couple of LPs. I don’t know if they were called albums in the 1950s. I think I’ve mentioned before that Russ Conway was responsible for me longing to learn to play the piano. I wanted to lift the lid on the old upright in the concert room and make music come out of it, not the out of tune honky tonk sound that someone knocked out of it on a Saturday night. What a blessing a juke-box was in later years.

I had years of classical training but I do not have musical talent. Occasionally I play on our electric piano, a cast off from a very talented nephew with a music degree. Our son can play piano, keyboard, guitar and bass, all perfectly well by ear. He’s amazing at that. Our daughter has a beautiful singing voice.

The first album I bought was The Rolling Stones, Through the Past, Darkly. The second was The Moody Blues, A Question of Balance followed quickly by In Search of the Lost Chord as I discovered there was MBs stuff I needed to catch up with.

The pub juke-box and The Moody Blues was and is the soundtrack to my life, as it constantly grows. No juke-box now, but the radio is always on, or a CD, YouTube or MP3. Music will always surround me, in any form.

When I was fortunate to meet Moody Blues bassist, singer, song-writer, John Lodge, I took the opportunity to tell him how glad I was that he had included ‘Saved by the Music’ in his solo tour. It is a song that means so much.

Hymns have their place amongst my favourites. As a child I was more than happy to sing in church. As an adult, I enjoyed teaching my Sunday School class new songs or hymns. It was a small group but they were enthusiastic and we had lots of fun.

 

When I started to write this poem, it seemed to grow legs and run off taking with it all the thoughts that were buzzing round my head. As a result, it is more personal than I intended, but what it is, is me.

 

 

My Music

 Music, my music, my loud surround sound,

I smiled and sang as my nemesis frowned.

Her eyes swept my room, not an inch unexplored,

But for now, my feelings were carefully stored.

I’m with The Moodies In Search of the Lost Chord.

 

I made that room spotlessly clean and sparkly

While the Stones carried on, Through the Past, Darkly;

Then busied myself with the next task to hand

And wasted no effort to understand

Her jealous resentment or what might be planned.

 

I’d given up wond’ring what she even means

As I sewed fabric flowers on my old jeans.

And Stevie belted out For Once in my Life

And I join in fully, like he knows my strife.

We could have slashed the atmosphere with a knife.

 

All I was saying was Give Peace a Chance.

I’m off at the weekend to spend time in France,

Away from that border-line aggression

When she hits the drinks in rapid succession

Attempting to cover her sick obsession.

 

Music, my music, my means of survival

And sanity, with her hasty arrival.

Bad mem’ries and nightmares, too much have amassed,

But those times are now long since gone, in the past,

And I’m Saved by the Music, myself, at last.

 

PMW 2019

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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