Fifth series, episode 21

All five series are available here on the HebWeb.

In the last episode of Series 5, George Murphy reaches a significant birthday. He visits a small city packed with history, Roman and medieval architecture, pubs and restaurants. There's two contrasting family gatherings, some light verse and a heavyweight poem. George challenges local online objections to flood resilience measures and finishes the year with a cautionary tale set in the holiday season. 

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Ogden in Hebden

Whilst reading the papers, and enjoying a coffee in Mooch, I read the spines of second hand books on the shelf next to me. I was tempted by biographies of Sylvia Plath, but bought Candy is Dandy (1930) the Best of Ogden Nash, featuring pithy rhymes from the Prohibition years, such as:

Candy is dandy
But liquor is quicker

And …

Of course I'm a turtle
But am I real or mock?
I'll leave it to Hilaire Belloc.

Chester in the rain

The Hebden to Chester journey takes just over an hour by train. Chester Station, however, is away in the sticks. So get a bus or taxi if it's pouring down.

Once you're beyond Eastgate Clock, you've entered the old Roman fortress. Now you can dodge the rain by walking along The Rows, medieval walkways overhung by shops and eateries in Tudor genuine, Tudor mock and handsome Georgian.

If you prefer a bit of hygge (pronounced, "hoo-gah"), go down into snug cellars where Norse families might once have lived, or descend further, into Roman times.

The building fabric of Chester is mainly red, Devonian sandstone, that was once on the equator. It was employed to build the city's squat cathedral and walls.

PW had prebooked us 'a swish historic town house', with three double rooms. But due to a nephew's death on her side of the family, wife and son headed up the splashy A1 to County Durham. So I invited my old friends Lin and Dave to join us.

First night, we dined at The Bluebell (1494) on Northgate, which serves delicious tapas dishes, including vegan options. Then we met up with Gill and Brian, who both taught at my old Sec Mod in Ellesmere Port. Brian, a former art teacher, talked about his latest painting, commissioned by the Principal of a leading Catholic college in New York. Then he impressed us with a formal poem contrasting visual art with neo Platonism, which was much chirpier than it sounds and drew spontaneous applause from our little gathering.

Brian prompted me to share some of my own work. So I sonorously recited The Cautionary Tale of Michael, a tragic story of a young man who got recycled into "three parts DoDoo two parts Michael." The piece was inspired by Dave and Lin's spring walk over the old road from Hebden to Mytholmroyd on one of their visits, when they noticed dog poo bags dangling from trees along the way. They've lived in Shropshire for decades, and when they reported back after their walk, I thought of Houseman's famous rhyme:

Loveliest of trees the cherry now,
With dog poo hung from bough to bough.

Gathering of the clan

Next day, two significant events happened. First, the rain stopped. Second, I was three quarters of a century old!

We partied with the Murphy/Mason clan at The Bar Lounge, not far from the Roodee racecourse. It's a pub Kath and I knew in our student days, when it was a more basic boozers' place called The Axe. Nowadays the old pub has a sparkling conservatory restaurant for diners. But we had a private party space in the old pub, as arranged by our youngest niece, Emma. The food was certainly much better, prompter and more varied than the fare offered back in the seventies.

The main waitress Lola, a young lass named after her dad's favourite Kinks song, was perky and funny. As it was my birthday it was secretly arranged that I got a special presentation chocolate brownie and vanilla cake (yum).

Here's my sisters, me, and Dave behind us, propping up the bar.

Death in Durham

Whilst we were busy partying in Chester, Kate and Jude attended the funeral of our 32 year old nephew in Durham. His death may have been caused by a drug overdose.

Teenage use of marijuana significantly increases the risk of schizophrenia. Which is one reason why Jude is against it. Around the world, even where cannabis is legalised, young people have to feed their habit by buying from street corners.

In the UK, use of recreational drugs is largely ignored. Many people cope with getting high from drugs; although, I'm surprised that adult users seem unconcerned about those who are damaged in the chain from drug cartel to street corner and club, especially children who start dabbling in drugs and then get hooked. Which is possibly what happened to our nephew.

A little light verse

Back at the digs, I turned for light relief to Ogden Nash, but the book fell open to reveal a memento mori verse:

OLD MEN

People expect old men to die.
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when …
People watch with unlocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.

True enough. I thought of our nephew's early demise and how the natural order is overturned when children die before their parents.

Christmas cheer

As a child I found out that Father Christmas didn't exist, the magic of Christmas vanished. This had the knock on effect of realising that I had never fallen for the more important myth of Christ's resurrection at Easter. I told myself at an early age that I would never pretend to believe in eternal life, be it in heaven or in hell.

But this year, Christmas bumped me out of the gloom of the weather and the news cycles. My atheism stayed intact, but I enjoyed the ordinary events of a family Christmas. This year, I bought PW the first ring I'd ever bought her. She'd always liked to buy her own rings, and back in 73 she bought her wedding ring in Chester. Before our wedding in Durham, her Aunty Belle told her the ring looked like a knuckle duster.

Recently she'd hinted that she'd like me to buy her a silver ring. So we went to the Heart gallery on Market Street and I bought her a special ring, not to be worn until Christmas Day.

Resilience debate

In One Stop I met local poet, Clare Shaw, who'd just returned from Australia. She said the Perth locals all thought she'd love it down under, but she told them she missed the rain. She likes our seasons.

I can't say I like our drab skies and rainy days, but I like how verdant we are. Like Clare, I vividly remember the devastation caused by the 2015 flood. Clare wrote an acclaimed collection about the Boxing Day deluge (Flood, 2018).

Perhaps it's recent offcumdens who are complaining online about the government giving us £81 million to increase the resilience of the town. Some think flooding could be prevented, if only the council would clear leaves from roadside grids and take fallen branches out of the rivers. Never mind Slow the Flow, these newbies think the rivers should be dredged.

Some newcomers don't appreciate the power and speed and destruction caused by heavy flooding. So I posted a photo of me outside our house on Boxing Day, 2015 looking wet and forlorn as the river level rose.

Naming names

How come I can remember the whole of the Ellesmere Port Town FC team from the late 50s, but forget the names of the current England cricket X1? There are few benefits to forgetting names, but I was rewarded with an extra day when I had a relaxing lunchtime booze with my friend Andy as I waited for Jude in The White Lion, one my son's regular haunts.

Whilst wondering why Jude was late, I glanced at my phone and belatedly discovered that it was Monday. I meet Jude on Tuesdays. Not for the first time, I didn't know what day it was.

Watching the Christmas version of University Challenge, featuring former alumni, we know some of the answers, but can't bring to mind the actual words. Mind, PW is ace on food and kings and queens and often beats the contestants to the buzzer.

Looking back on the year

In The I Paper, Ian Dunt blamed Musk, Trump and Farage for making the British more vicious. The main cause was the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk in 2022. The X algorithm downgrades progressive content and promotes Pro-Nazi accounts.

The election of Trump led to broadcasting media highlighting a far right agenda. With Farage and right wing newspapers expressing similar views, socially liberal ideas failed to be heard.

New Year's Eves

When I was a kid, and had the necessary dark hair, at a few minutes to midnight, I was sent outdoors into the cold, with a lump of coal in one hand and a shilling in the other. At a few minutes to midnight, I missed hearing Ben Ben's bongs. When I was allowed in I received my one big hug of the year. This hug had to last for the next 12 months as my parents didn't want me to turn soft.

In 1999, up in Durham at Kath's cousin Carole's converted chapel, it was prearranged to spook Carole's sister Val by turning off the telly and lights when Big Ben chimed. Val duly screamed, thinking the millennium bug had struck.

When the lights were turned on again, we gathered into several large circles and bashed out the familiar Robbie Burns hit, Auld Lang Syn (or at least its first verse). But, a few bars in, I disgraced myself by silently farting, causing me to break hands in order to waft away the odour. This event was captured on the family's camcorder.

I doubt if I'll be around to make up for my faux pas when the next millennium comes around.

A Goosey Gander

In the lovely slack days between the compulsory celebrations of Christmas and New Year, I was strolling outside when I heard the familiar complaining cackle of Canada Geese. Looking up, I saw a group of them flying in formation overhead. Despite their proximity to Burnley Road, their call still makes me think of the wild, and of their flight across the vast unspoilt provinces of their homeland.

Serendipitously, Winston Plowes, poet and land artist, posted an online report of two geese who regularly visit his canal boat for their breakfasts. The brilliant poet and short story writer, his newly wed Gaia Holmes, was also on board and they'd given a human name to each goose.

Gaia is on talking terms with lots of birds, especially starlings, who are great mimics of human speech, and even car alarms and ambulance sirens.

I sent the newlyweds a note. "You can take the geese out of Canada, but you can't take Canada out of the geese."

Whisky challenge

In early December I bumped into Whisky George in Crown Street. He gave me a small bottle of blended malts and asked me to give him feedback in this issue. I'd recently heard a Food and Drink programme on Radio 4, about Dave Broom, who was said to have revolutionised writing and reviewing of whisky in recent years. Broom reckons that variations in Scots whisky reflect the region it comes from. My jovial Scottish friend had attached some labels to the little bottle he gave me:

I'm guessing that the 2025 brew might have been distilled on smoky moorland. But I definitely need to sample more, WG, if you don't mind, before I can be confident in my judgments.

The Darkling Thrush
Thomas Hardy, 31 December, 1899

I leant upon a coppice gate
      When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
      The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
      Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
      Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
      The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
      The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
      Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
      The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
      Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
      In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
      Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
      Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
      His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
      And I was unaware.

Here comes summer

In this bleak midwinter, I thought you might be uplifted by a summery tale of young love and fowl deeds during a minibreak: The Cautionary Tale of Fred.

 

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