Missing - Is it The Borrowers?

One of the highlights of my week is the afternoon I spend as a volunteer in the Key Stage 1 library at my local primary school. I take groups of children from their classrooms to change their books, help them to find what they are looking for and help them to choose something that they could read for themselves. The afternoon usually includes me reading a story to a class, where I love to interact with the children and involve them as much as I can. Aged between five and seven, their smiles have gaps from missing baby teeth, some with new adult teeth erupting to fill the space. A wobbly tooth signifies that rite of passage towards growing up. It’s an event to be proud of, and when that perfect, well-looked after tooth comes out, it is treasure for Peggy, the Tooth Fairy, who sometimes leaves a reward. I never miss an opportunity to remind children to care for their teeth. My grandchildren are all at this stage, but it’s not just teeth that are missing in my house.

All kinds of things manage to become lost. Perhaps The Borrowers have taken up residence under our floorboards – it might be worth checking. There are jigsaws with pieces missing, I am reliably informed by the eldest. No one has bothered to try to find them. They have a 3D wooden dinosaur made of ten brightly coloured interlocking pieces which are numbered. Number seven, which I believe to be a piece of tummy and coloured red, has been missing for ages. They used it for a ‘Hunt the Thimble’ kind of treasure hunt. No one can remember where number seven was hidden and I have exhausted myself searching. Duplo and Lego get mixed together and I don’t bother checking them. The missing things don’t start and end with the children.

We’re still in January, just about, and already something is missing from a Christmas present belonging to my husband. A small charger cable, unique to the electric item it came with. This is odd because he looks after his belongings and keeps things together properly. We have searched everywhere, endlessly. A replacement is not obtainable. He bought something almost the same that would do. It required slight adjustment to which a Stanley knife was the appropriate tool. A Stanley knife can give a nasty cut to a thumb and it can bleed like billy-o for those on Warfarin. We don’t think it needed a stitch.

I have a younger sister, occasionally mentioned in blogs. She was a toddler in 1964 when we lived in a pub in the village of Padfield, near Glossop. I had my ninth birthday there. The village was considered safe and I was allowed to play out with friends, either on the street or further along to the swings and slide on a cinders-covered playground. My mum let me take my sister out in her pushchair. I took her to the playground. I don’t know what happened, I guess I became distracted and forgot about her. Later, back home, Mum’s asking where Anne is – I still have that sinking feeling – I’d left her in the playground. We ran all the length of Temple Street and thank goodness, she was still there, sat in her buggy in the twilight. My mum muttered something between clenched teeth about what I’d get if Anne had been missing. I’ve been dealt a few good hidings from my mother who was definitely a smack first, ask later sort of parent, but the smacked bottom I got for this was by far the worst. I mentioned that Padfield was a safe village and all the children had the freedom to play out. Another year and news of the Moors Murders broke. We had been on their doorstep.

My Haiku,

Do The Borrowers
Live underneath our floorboards
Claiming belongings?

Wooden dinosaur,
Its tummy is still missing
After sev’ral years.

We’ve waited for this,
Tooth fairy on full alert!
Wobbly one is out!

Front teeth are missing
And he’s got a gentle lisp,
Lovely impish grin.

It’s just a charger,
Ordinary, not special.
Why can’t we find it?

Where is your sister?
I felt my insides drop down.
Another smacked bum.

PMW 2024

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Blizzard - The Postie Stone, Moffat

The Postie Stone (i)

How exciting it would be to become snowed in when we have our pre-Christmas break at our favourite lodge in Dumfries & Galloway. I think of this every November into December, when we spend a couple of weeks there, wrapped around my birthday, to do some Christmas shopping in the fabulous, privately owned individual shops. In anticipation of having to stay until March, unless a tractor from the farm comes along to rescue us, I take a supply of ‘emergency’ tinned food and packets, and stock up aplenty on arrival.  This time, it nearly happened. It was our last morning, the day we were leaving. Snow was about eight inches deep and still falling thick and fast. A huge mound shaped over and around our car so it looked like an igloo. We never have snow at home, not like this proper ‘build a snowman’ stuff and we stood in awe gazing at the most amazing landscape through the window.

One day, we went to Moffat, an enchanting market town north of Dumfries. We’ve been before and enjoy a stroll along the high street, seeing what the shops have and this visit was pretty with festive lights and shop windows trimmed for Christmas. It was a cold but calm, sunny day and for me, a wander into the Old Graveyard was appealing. John Loudon McAdam, of tarmac fame is buried there, also are the graves of James McGeorge and John Goodfellow. They were enroute to Edinburgh from Dumfries with postal deliveries when they were caught in a blizzard and died. 

The Postie Stone (ii) Detail

Taken from Atlas Obscurer –
“A roadside memorial commemorates the lives of John Goodfellow, the coach driver, and James McGeorge, the coach guard of a mail coach.

The pair were on a mail coach traveling from Dumfries to Edinburgh in February 1831. They became caught in a fierce blizzard which forced them to abandon the coach and set off on foot through the snow to try and deliver the mail and make it to safety.

They took the mailbags and horses but eventually, the men were overcome by the elements and died of exposure near the head of Cross Burn. The horses continued on, eventually reaching a nearby farm which raised the alarm.

The stone was erected in their memory in 1931, a century after the event. The men were laid to rest in the churchyard in nearby Moffat.”

(A full account of this can be found online, titled The Coaching Disaster.)

Such a sad story and I thought of them again as I watched the falling snow on our journey home. All was well until we were driving into Cumbria and coming over Shap. Late afternoon and it was going dark, the snow clouds were low and visibility was poor. The blizzard soon reduced the motorway from three to two lanes and traffic slowed accordingly. We were grateful to arrive home unscathed because soon after we heard about abandoned cars in Cumbria and jack-knifed wagons on the M6.

Being snowed in at the lodge would have been cosy, though, in my fantasy world.

 During my childhood, age 8 to 9, we lived in Padfield, near Glossop in what became one of dad’s favourite pubs and B&B to manage. We got snowed in, which still happens up there. The village was cut off for days and I remember my mum helping the neighbours out with food where she could.  School stayed open, which meant the fun of snowball fights on the walk down and up again. All the teachers – there was only four of them – lived near the school so it wasn’t likely to be closed and we were allowed to play out in the snow. Times have changed. If the travel news should mention The Snake Pass or Woodhead Road being closed due to snow I think ‘That’s Padfield cut off, then’. Fond memories.

Leaving the Lodge

Emily Bronte passed away on this day in 1848. This is one of her poems. It reminds me of Wuthering Heights as I imagine a blizzard over the moors.

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow,
The storm is fast descending
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

             Emily Jane Bronte 1818 – 1848

Thanks for reading. A Merry Christmas to all, Pam x                                        

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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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Snow - Fun in Padfield

It snowed yesterday. Just a tiny bit. Enough for my grandson to notice and tell me and sure enough, there was a flurry. We watched through the back room window, taking a break – I should say another break – from my efforts to home school him. Some snowflakes were big, but they didn’t hang around. The sun came out again, the sky was blue, and the last snowflake melted on the window and rolled down like a big tear-drop.  My grandson isn’t bothered. They’re not used to snow. He didn’t want to go out in it the other day when we had a depth of half a centimetre. He’d rather stay in and keep warm, but as he had walked round in his wellies I thought he might be hopeful of us quickly fashioning a tiny snow person in my back garden.

We hardly ever get proper snow here on the coast. I think it was 1981 when I trudged home from a nearby friend’s house in borrowed wellies which just about protected me, so deep was the snowfall that took us all by surprise when we opened the door. Luckily, as we were planning on staying in, I had walked. Usually I would take my car expecting us to be going off somewhere. The snow lasted a few days. Telephones were not working. I couldn’t get a message to work, but it didn’t matter, no one else made it in. There were a couple of times in the ‘90s when school was closed due to snow and my children played out in it. Very rare. It’s different further inland.

Padfield School 

During my childhood, for a short time we lived in Padfield, a village near Glossop in the Peak District. My parents were managing the local pub / small hotel, The Peels Arms, still there and it’s a great place, by the way. I made lots of friends at the village school and had a party for my ninth birthday in the hotel dining room. It was a very quiet neighbourhood and not many cars in those days. We had previously lived in pubs on busy streets or in town centres so being allowed out to play was a first for me and I loved it. Once, and it was only ever the once for reasons you’ll understand, I was allowed to take my toddler sister out in her pushchair. I took her to the nearby playground where she watched me play on the swings and roundabout with my friends. I must have got distracted. I don’t know the length of time involved, but at some point back at home, someone asked, ‘Where’s Anne?’ and the realisation hit me. I’d left her at the park.  She was still there, safe and well and I expect she was happy that someone came to rescue her. I was in the biggest trouble.

It snowed that winter, as it does every winter up there, and we were cut off. It must have been after Christmas because I remember sitting  by the fire in the ‘snug’ bar making the baskets from the gift of a basket weaving set I had received. No one could get in or out of Padfield.  Everything carried on as normal. The school had four classes with three teachers. Standard One and Standard Two shared a classroom with one teacher and all the staff lived locally. Snowy schooldays were fun, messing about all the way there and all the way back. The problem was that deliveries couldn’t get in, so provisions at the shop ran low or eventually ran out. I remember my mother helping out with food from the hotel to whoever needed it.

If the travel news on the radio gives information about the Snake Pass or Woodhead Road being closed due to snow, I know that Padfield and possibly Hadfield are cut off. I think back on my time there with fondness – apart from the incident with my sister – some great memories.

Padfield in the Snow
A snowman stood by every gate
Watching us marching down to school.
“Hurry up, we’re gonna be late,
Last one in is Mrs Swift’s fool!”

It’s hard to rush in such deep snow
With a blizzard freezing your face,
Making snowballs ready to throw
At some mates, nearly keeping pace.

Mrs Swift is standing, waiting,
About to close the classroom door,
Watching us dripping, creating
The puddles on the wooden floor.

Her eyes are narrow, looking cross.
Above her glasses, angry frown,
No doubt to nine-year olds who’s boss,
“Come in quickly and settle down!”

Prayers, assembly and work to do.
Writing and reading and hard sums,
Then we’re painting in shades of blue.
At home time, some letters for mums.

More snowball fighting up the street,
Climb the hill, laughing and falling,
Icy fingers and frozen feet,
“Pamela, your mum is calling!”


PMW 2021

Thanks for reading, stay safe and keep well, Pam x

The photo is Padfield School, not mine.

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Bridge - From Shropshire to Dublin

On a short visit to Dublin a few years ago, I was fascinated by the Ha’penny Bridge over the River Liffey. It is cute and pretty and looks like something from Fairyland. It was built in 1816, a cast iron pedestrian bridge to replace the boats which ferried people across the river. The proper name is the Liffey Bridge. When it opened, the toll was a halfpenny. I believe it is free these days, but the name Ha’penny has stuck. Unfortunately, I didn’t set foot upon it, as much as I hoped to. Dashing from one thing to another, we crossed the river on O’Connell Bridge nearby. I loved what I saw of Dublin and another, longer visit would be very welcome – on my retirement bucket list.

 

Another bridge I haven’t set foot upon, not yet, is the Iron Bridge at the village of the same name near Telford. Apart from Shrewsbury, where we’ve had mini breaks to go to events at Theatre Severn, I don’t know Shropshire very well. With family members recently taking up residence there, I’m looking at places to stay and places of interest. The Iron Bridge, over the River Severn opened in 1781 and was the first major bridge in the world to be constructed of cast iron. It is most definitely a place of interest to me.

 

These bridges are linked and not just by 18^th-19^th century technology. They were both built at iron works in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire. The eighteen sections of cast iron ribs which make the Ha’penny Bridge were shipped from Shropshire to Dublin. The five ribs that make the Iron Bridge were carried down the road.

 

My poem,

 

River Liffey, dancing and singing,

     Let me join in your songs.
    Tuneful melody, joy it’s bringing,
    Through Dublin it belongs.
    Watch from the bridge, the water flows fast,
    Cheerfully rippling through,
    So clap with the chorus running past
    In shades of green and blue.
 

River Severn is quiet today,

     Raging torrents now calm
    As the mighty storm has blown away
    And nothing came to harm.
    Now, gentle river hear my wishes
    And carry them upstream
    Wrapped up with love and hugs and kisses
    For my Gemini Dream.

PMW 2020

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

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