Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

I just adore fresh, crisp snow - not that we get much of that down here! The first sign of a snowflake and I put boots, gloves, hat and quilted coat on and I am out!

Perhaps it's because of my Scottish roots and the joy I found when playing outside in the winter. I still want to play outside - I want to be the first to walk on a patch of 'virgin' snow, I want to see my footprints, I want to scuff along and make a peculiar trail to follow, I want to look at other prints and muse what kind of creature walked that way?

I moved to the Cairngorm mountain region, to Kingussie, for my first job...my idea of heaven! Walking in the mountains and forests in all weathers, sledging down the slope near my cottage, learning to ski with the school's PE teacher, having an ice rink at nearby Aviemore.....bliss!

Normally I would be out on the Lancashire Fells in weather such as this, more so on clear crisp days when snow and ice is lying, but I am unlikely to encounter really bad conditions. I get my pack 'winter ready', with spare clothing, torch, head torch, emergency food, bivi bag, foil covers...it is heavy before I begin ! This year it remains at the ready, and I checked the dates on the emergency rations that I carry, just two days ago. It looks as if it will remain unused this season.

When I moved back to Scotland from Oxfordshire, where actually we sometimes encountered very hard winters, it was to the Moray Firth coast, which often has a kind climate. However, the winds were terrifically cold and snow did lie on the beach to the tidemark. I would insist on driving to the mountains to 'touch the snow' . We drove to Aviemore once a week to assist the resident skating coach and very often we were lucky to make it there and back in whiteout conditions!

Today's poem was written when I was 15..in 1965...

View from my Window
When I look from my window, I can see
The snow lying on every far away hill and tree;
But the grass peeps through the cold,
And the sky is blue and the sunset gold.

The wispy rain laden clouds fly past
To make room for the night coming fast.
Soon Jack Frost will spread his chilly hand
Over the grass - all over the land!

The men plod wearily homewards,
The birds fly fleetingly downwards
To their nests in the loft.
The chimneys are still smoking.

But here's the rain it's soaking
Everything. And tomorrow when I wake
The snow will all be gone.

Thanks for reading, Kath

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Life Before Spotify!

Hey kids, guess what? In the long ago and faraway of the mid-20th century, when your mums and dads were barely twinkles in your grandparents' eyes, young people used to have to go to cafes (sometimes called coffee bars) and ice-cream parlours (also known as soda hops) or drugstores to listen to recorded music - on jukeboxes. These latter were gleaming chrome, glass and neon-lit record-playing machines loaded with fifty or more 7 inch vinyl discs (singles, waxings, platters, hot biscuits), said discs being the popular songs of the era.


Life Before Spotify!

This was life before digitisation, i-Pods, shuffle, spotify, streaming. It was the late, quaint analogue age, a time when most teenagers (a recently invented breed) didn't yet possess a portable record-player or a transistor radio.

Young persons out for a good time would congregate at establishments that possessed a jukebox, would press a coin or coins (sixpence, shilling, dime, quarter) into the slot and then select the requisite number of paid-for 'plays' from a menu via the key pad - see above - for instance K9, 'Hound Dog'  by Elvis Presley (lol).

Here's the week's interesting etymological snippet. The word juke comes from Gullah, a Creole-variant language spoken by the African Americans of coastal Georgia and South Carolina (and it is closely related to Bahamian). I was pleased to learn that it means disorderly!

A mechanical arm in the 'disorderly' box would pull the requested disc from the stack and place it correct side up (there was a different song on each side) on the revolving turntable, whereupon a second arm (the tone arm, tipped with a stylus) would alight on the disc and start playing the chosen track at 45rpm (revolutions per minute). What jolly, frothy coffee slurping, finger clicking fun it was! Of course, I was too young myself, but I've been regaled with the tales - and eventually encountered jukeboxes in my own late teenage years, by which time both they and I had found our way into ale houses (frequently dubbed pubs or boozers).


Young Persons Out For A Good Time Around The Jukebox

We hip young things at the bar would put the likes of 'Revolution' , 'Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown' and 'Born To Be Wild'  on repeat play, but it never seemed to disturb the old codgers doggedly supping on their brown ales while they read the evening paper or played a game of dominos.

Nowadays, jukeboxes are rare and highly collectible. Some early models nearly qualify as antiques. They are apparently very popular in the mansions of rock stars of a certain vintage, loaded up with classic cuts of their choosing, (including some of their own greatest hits, no doubt), a reminder of those B4 days when they and their buddies grouped around one such beautiful beast in a coffee bar or drugstore, listening to that same track over and over until they'd figured out all the words, the guitar licks, drum patterns and those vocal harmonies.


The Beauty Of The Beast

In tribute to the theme of tracks, the afore-mentioned spirit of disorder, and the light-weight disposition of the popular song, I've attempted a poem this week based on the principle of the lyrical mash-up. It's more complex than the 'one song to the tune of another'  challenge beloved of radio panel games, for here although the structure painstakingly follows the rhythm of Johnny Lennon's ground-breaking Strawberry Fields Forever, I've selected snatches of lyrics from many different pop songs and recast them so that they make some sort of sense (I hope) in their new and far from random setting. (It was harder than I anticipated.) Feel free to sing along, either out loud or in your head... "it doesn't matter much to me".

Jukeboxed
Let me shake you down,
'cause we're going to Scarborough Fair,
flowers in our hair,
and everyone's a winner babe,
born to be wild forever.

Look for a reason to believe,
the darkest hour's before the dawn.
We'll rise up shining with the day,
it's the only way -
no need to feel so all alone.

Let me shake you down,
'cause we're going to Scarborough Fair,
flowers in our hair,
and everyone's a winner babe,
born to be wild forever.

I don't care too much for money,
hoping for seasons in the sun;
it's getting better all the time,
so come and go with me,
we only want to have some fun.

Let me shake you down,
'cause we're going to Scarborough Fair,
flowers in our hair,
and everyone's a winner babe,
born to be wild forever.

You make me dizzy Miss Lizzy,
all logic and proportion cast
like caution to the winds of fate.
The hour is getting late
but I'm happy just to be with you.

Let me shake you down,
'cause we're going to Scarborough Fair,
flowers in our hair,
and everyone's a winner babe,
born to be wild forever.

Thanks for reading. Stay frothy, S ;-)

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Tracks

It has been said that the opening of the Liverpool to Manchester Railway on September 15th 1830 was one of the most important developments in engineering since the invention of the wheel. It had economic and social consequences that changed the world.

And it was laid on tracks. Tracks which crossed difficult terrain but using techniques such as bridges and cuttings which had been used previously for canals and viaducts. However, there was one section that George Stephenson had been told was impossible to cross. And his solution still knocks me for six.

Chat Moss was a huge swamp of mossy peat and he was convinced that the solution to crossing it was to spread the loads over a wide area and distribute the pressure, in effect to form a floating raft on top of the peat upon which to build the railway track bed.

The peat and moss ranges from 4.6m to 11m deep, swelling in wet weather and shrinking in when dry. It was so wet that for every cubic metre of embankment formed, 2.4 cubic metres of raw peat was used (allowing for water to drain when the turf was compressed).

Heather bundles, brushwood mattresses and timber hurdles 2.4-2.7m long and 1.2m wide were placed in layers to form the raft. Ballast, sleepers, chairs and rails were then fixed over the timber base. Old tar barrels were joined end-to-end to make wooden culverts to drain the two parallel side ditches 14.6m apart.

It worked well except at the east end, where progress was negative owing to the quantities of material subsumed by the swamp. Conditions for the labourers were difficult. They had to strap planks to their feet to stop themselves sinking into the mire.

It was suggested to Stephenson that he should abandon his strategy and instead build a viaduct across the bog. Stephenson refused to accept defeat, and no doubt influenced by the large amounts of money already used at Chat Moss, decided to keep trying.

One of the onsite team, East Anglian marshland specialist Robert Stannard, suggested laying down timber in a herring bone pattern to support the tracks. Workers constructed and sank wooden hurdles into the bog using stones and earth until they provided a solid foundation. The work went on for weeks.

L&M Railway crossing Chat Moss

The track across Chat Moss still floats on these hurdles today, supporting engines twenty-five times the weight of the steam-driven Rocket, the first train over the Moss in January 1830 as it tested the track. (Information from the Institute of Civil Engineering and engineering-timelines website.)

I wasn't going to go off track, so to speak, but I can't resist the following from actress, author and anti-slavery campaigner Fanny Kemble, who accompanied George Stephenson on a test of the L&M prior to its opening:

"We were introduced to the little engine which was to drag us along the rails. She (for they make these curious little fire horses all mares ) consisted of a boiler, a stove, a platform, and bench, and behind the bench a barrel containing water enough to prevent her from being thirsty for fifteen miles, the whole machine not bigger than a common fire engine. She goes upon two wheels, which are her feet, and are moved by bright steel legs called pistons; these are propelled by stream, and in proportion as more steam is applied to the upper extremities (the hip-joints, I suppose ) of these pistons, the faster they move the wheels; and when it is desirable to diminish the speed, the steam, which unless suffered to escape would burst the boiler, evaporates through a safety valve into the air. The reins, bit, and bridle of this wonderful beast, is a small steel handle, which applies or withdraws the steam from its legs or pistons, so that a child might manage it. The coals, which are its oats, were under the bench, and there was a small glass tube affixed to the boiler, with water in it, which indicates by its fullness or emptiness when the creature wants water, which is immediately conveyed to it from its reservoir...

"You cannot conceive what that sensation of cutting the air was; the motion is as smooth as possible, too. I could either have read or have written; and as it was, I stood up, and with by bonnet off 'drank' the air before me. When I closed my eyes this sensation of flying was quite delightful, and strange beyond description; yet strange as it was, I had a perfect sense of security, and not the slightest fear...

"Now for a word or two about the master of all these marvels, with whom I am most horribly in love. He is a man from fifty to fifty-five years of age; his face is fine, though careworn, and bears an expression of deep thoughtfulness; his mode of explaining his ideas is peculiar and very original, striking, and forcible; and though his accents indicate strongly his north country birth, his language has not the slightest touch of vulgarity or coarseness. He has certainly turned my head."

And here's a poem from the Liverpool end:

Café, Lime Street Station
At the table by the door
two people are drinking latte.
One of them's going away,
I think it's her,
they're leaning forward,
not touching, but close.
She says something
and he smiles,
relaxed in each other's company.
They remind me of swans
gliding round their coffee,
elegant and serene,
on a square, brown lake.

Below the surface is another story,
the one I want to know,
his legs are pumping, twitching.
Is each smile a lie, each word deceit?
Or is it her?
Too many bags for the weekend,
has he guessed that she's not coming back?
Does he know her lover's waiting?
Has she covered her tracks?
Of course I'll never find out.
To be honest I don't really want to,
for my friends were swans and mated for life
until I found out
that one was an ugly duckling.

(First published in Equinox, March 2007).

Terry Quinn

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Tracks - We'd Better Make Tracks

It is the moment I dislike the most. Our peaceful time in Scotland, staying in the quiet of a hidden-away lodge has reached an end. The car is packed for home. The rooms of our accommodation  are clean and tidy, we’ve checked and double-checked for anything forgotten and one of us says, ‘We’d better make tracks’.

The fact that we’ll be returning soon is of no consolation when the sadness of leaving has already taken hold.

I’ve been trying to find out where the term ‘making tracks’ originated and it is so frustrating not to discover a definitive answer. All I have found is a reference to early 1800s slang for running away in a hurry and leaving footprints. 

Quote -  “This nineteenth century American colloquialism was recorded by Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796-1865) in his ‘Sam Slick’ papers, which originally appeared in a Nova Scotia weekly in 1836, as well as several earlier journals…”

I wanted to know why the saying is ‘making tracks’ when ‘following tracks’ seems to make more sense. I hoped to learn something more and I haven’t, so if any reader knows, please share with me.

‘We’d better make tracks’ was my father’s way of bringing a summer picnic to an end on a Sunday tea-time. Pubs were closed between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. in those days. My family would get together and drive in convoy to a suitable destination to spend the afternoon, everyone bringing food to share. We were all based in Lancaster and Morecambe for a while and our outings were Crook O’ Lune, Littledale, Glasson Dock, Heysham and Ingleton Falls. I was aged four or five, the only child and got made a fuss of. Everyone was relaxed, life was simpler, or that’s how it looked to me. No one rushed. There would be glancing at wrist-watches and mutterings about getting back for opening time as thermos flasks and rugs were put away into car boots in a leisurely fashion.

Our first pub was in Manchester, close to Piccadilly railway station. I was too young to remember much about it, but I knew it was the Star and Garter on Fairfield Street and my walk to nursery with my father took us under a railway bridge. On a recent day at Manchester Christmas Markets with my friend, I suggested that we look at the pub, from the outside. Our train was taking us to Piccadilly so we weren’t going out of our way. I’m easily lost in a city without a coastline to guide me, so it was no surprise to find us following Fairfield Street in the wrong direction. We hadn’t gone too far, luckily. We strolled back and eventually reached the pub, took a few photos then went shopping. Later, waiting on Platform 14 for the train home, I was absent-mindedly gazing around when I realised that right in front of me, across the lower level train tracks, stood the Star and Garter. My friend and I laughed. We’d walked for ages looking for that.

Before long, it will be time for rest and recuperation in Dumfries & Galloway. The car will be packed, the house in good hands and I’ll be happy to say, ‘We’d better make tracks.’

 

I found this poem,

 

Flowered Tracks

 

The breeziness of gentle winds, leafs rustle as trees sway
Sunlight rays a partial light, that shine across the bay
Summers warmth an evening sky, are setting on the day
Dusk approaches through the trees, as the daylight goes away

Flowered tracks along the gorge, a gentle mountain breeze
Dusty valleys lead the way, past the old oak trees
Down to flowing waterfalls, the beauty that one sees
Flowered tracks floating beside, are following with ease

Deep inside the canyon walls, the water hits the stream
Shimmers from the waters edge, upon a golden gleam
The beauty of a secret place, waters merged with a sun beam
Is this a true reality, or flowered tracks last dream

Between the hills on golden ponds, lies colours of tracks flowers
Where the rocky crescent forms, and where the sunlight cowers
Moon light shadows visible, only after sunlight hours
The beauty of a litten dusk, the light the moon devours

A wolf howls above the rocks, high upon the glade
One heart beat I can hear, I am feeling so afraid
Full moons light upon my soul, the wolfs cursed life is paid
Wolf's blood bite on flowered tracks, a glistened moonlight trade

Wolfs eyes glare standing alone, no hunters and no packs
Were wolfs fangs on shadows moon, blood seeping through the cracks
A man once stood is now transformed, his humanity life lacks
The werewolf curse is fulfilled, complete on flowered tracks

 

Written by Kirk, from Hello Poetry.

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

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Not in my backyard

Not in my backyard

Rip up the landscape,

Lay down the tracks,

Let them who claim to lead us,

Get quickly there and back.

Through this green and pleasant land,

From the smoke around the Shard,

All in the name of progress,

Just not in my backyard.

Dig holes in the hillside,

Force water to fetch the gas,

Pay the village folk a percentage,

For the disruption of shaking mass.

Give jobs to those around the holes,

Get them to punch the card,

All in the name of prosperity,

Just not in my backyard.

Stare in the face of hunger,

Watch children die for clothes,

See farmers forced to sell their souls,

As the world economy slows.

See the families suffer,

Behind the multinational façade,

All in the name of value,

Just not in my backyard.

Stand up against the tyranny,

Say no to politics of hate,

Refuse to allow the status quo,

Deny the sniper at the gate.

Kick out the would be hustlers,

Show them how life is hard,

Because this world which they are fucking up,

Just happens to be my backyard.

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