Fifth series, episode 7

All five series are available here on the HebWeb.

In this episode, George considers whether childbirth is tougher for men, enjoys a musical about the Boxing Day flood, doesn’t want to go to Chelsea but does enjoy a May blossom tour, sees a silver swan, discusses prosopagnosia, shares a new green deal and recalls a Tepee City.

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The day after

Is childbirth tougher for men? This photo shows the exhausted father falling asleep standing up, not noticing that his fly is undone. Soon he will be challenged to open a bottle of champagne in the loo to prevent him firing the cork at his one day old son. This complicated task will cause him to pull the emergency cord  for the light, which will set off the alarm and cause nurses to run noisily along the corridor before discovering the dad and make condescending comments about fathers. Meanwhile the mother sits around all day and gets congratulated and cosseted and given flowers!

The Flood comes home

I went to see The Flood by the aptly named Lucie Raine, a drama described as ‘a love letter to the town that refused to give in to the volatility of nature’, at The Little Theatre. That’s us! It turns out to be a well-researched musical, performed by a cast of five multi-skilled actor-musicians, which celebrates the resilience of the people of Hebden and Mytholmroyd after suffering the most devastating flood in the history of the towns. The experiences of the Boxing day flood are soaked into our memories and it was stirring to sit with other locals watching a drama about events most of us had directly experienced.

At the end, I wished they’d brought the playwright on stage to share the applause with her cast. But she was waiting for us to drop our guards. The lights were dimmed again, the flood siren wailed, the actors looked up to the pelting rain that drummed insistently  - apparently - on the Little Theatre roof.  It was an apt reminder not to drop our defences, despite the balmy spring evening we enjoyed when we spilled out onto the terrace, into the light, blinking and chinking our glasses.

Casting a clout

In spring, when blossom blooms on thorn trees along the valley, we pack light clothes and set off on a May blossom tour. I asked PW if she knew any folklore about hawthorn.

She said, “Don’t bring it into the house.”

Apparently, a scent called trimethylamine is found in hawthorn blossom, and in rotting flesh. Strange. I’ve always enjoyed the nutty aroma of hawthorn blossom; whereas, like most people, I hate the stink of decaying creatures. Online sites state that thorn trees are loved by the faery folk. But the compilers forget to mention the beauty of its blossom. Samuel Palmer, of course, was captivated by them and often painted them in moonlight. Thorn branches were traditionally used as the pole employed in May Day celebrations of the fertility of nature, including the developing fecundity of the young lasses who danced around the beribboned phallic symbol.

And as a vapour or a drop of raine,

Once lost, can ne’er be found againe:
     So when or you or I are made
     A fable, song, or fleeting shade;
     All love, all liking, all delight
     Lies drown’d with us in endlesse night.
Then while time serves, and we are but decaying;
Come, my Corinna, come, let’s goe a Maying.
[Robert Herrick, “Corinna’s Going a – Maying,” 1648]

We drove past glorious Bolton Abbey to Burnsall, where we stopped at the little cafe across from the river, sitting outside amongst ramblers and locals who knew that the jolly café owners made scrumptious butties.

Thirst slated, bellies filled and quick crosswords completed, we drove on past West Burton. In the 80s we used to camp in a garden owned by Mr Wooller, surgeon to Tito during the second world war. We were amongst ex pat Yugoslavians attired in the national costumes of each country. They provided us with musical entertainment for a few years until another Balkan war brought an end to such multi-cultural gatherings.

We headed for Reeth, which was once a centre for top brass during the Second World War. It was hard to imagine such a conflict in brilliant sunshine, whilst driving on peaceful, almost traffic free roads.

After Reeth, curt voiced Charlotte Sat Nav directed us over the moors.  The occasional drivers, cyclists and horse riders politely pulled over or gently passed, waving their thanks, apart from one red leathered, road hogging biker who pelted towards us in the centre of the  lane. When I didn’t lurch to one side, he leaned over our bonnet and waved his fist as he roared past.

Down from the moors, into lush countryside, the showy - snowy hedges had an understorey of cow parsley with occasional clusters of wild garlic near rivers and bluebells where the trees didn’t overhang the lanea. Broom peppered the slopes on the red flagged army shooting ranges beyond Richmond. Driving over handsome York stone bridges, PW reported how shallow and skinny the silvery rivers and streams had become during the drought. With white hedgerows welcoming us, on the border of two counties, we finally reached the foodie Rose and Crown Inn at ancient Romaldkirk.

Bowes Museum

We met up with Kath’s cousin Carole and husband Alan, enjoyed the excellent ‘scran’ at the museum restaurant and queued in good time to watch the 250 year old silver swan, the oldest working automaton  in the world. It contains over 2000 working parts, all operated by clockwork mechanisms. It was first displayed in London in 1774 during the years of the American revolution, at the Mechanical Museum of James Cox.

On the return leg to our journey we follow the line of castles south from Brough on one of our favourite roads with very little traffic and unstressed driving with plenty of time who point out the rhapsody in white along the roadside hedges and verges and blue above and on the sleek slopes of the fields. George Monbiot would curse the denuded hills and Auden would miss the wild moorland but we were happy to have the road to ourselves all the way to Kirkby Lonsdale, where there’s a Brooks supermarket, banks, Ruskin’s View, the Devil’s bridge and a hidden away Italian café.

After the café, I rediscovered the bookshop, where I bought A Little History of the USA. Then PW drove us home on slightly busier roads than we’d been used to, past Giggleswick, where Harty once taught and Clapham, where we once saw Alan Bennett emerge in his dressing down at his late female friend’s café, bowling along with blossom in profusion all the way apart from Keighley town centre, and arrived back at Mayroyd, royd being old Norse for a clearing where May trees once blossomed. May is said to derive from the goddess Maius which is the fifth month.

Public consultation continues till June 10th, but Jenny Shepherd thinks the CGND statement is ‘brilliant news.’

Prosopagnosia

PW apologises to people if they greet her and she doesn’t recognise them. Except she doesn’t apologise to me if I walk into a room and she responds by screaming. I don’t take this personally. Even if she accuses me of creeping around the house in a stealthy manner.

When we lived in Midgehole, I walked around the car because it had parked in front of our house and she looked up and saw me, screamed and almost jumped out of her skin. Clasping her heart, she said, “I didn’t expect to see you there.” Channelling Spike Milligan, I said, “I have to be somewhere.”

The Latin name for facial blindness is prosopagnosia. Which is a hard word to remember. I easily forget words, more so as I get older, and most especially and embarrassingly, names of people I know. I usually remember friend’s names, unless they are wearing hats. I once stood outside Old Trafford, after a match, waiting for Chris Bragg. As the crowds dispersed we stood for ten minutes without recognising each other. Till Chris, tentatively asked, “George?” It was a freezing night and we were both wearing beanies (I think that’s what they’re called).

Kate tells me she finds it hard to visualise faces from memory, except for our son’s face. I asked her whether she visualises whilst reading novels. She admits that she finds it difficult, and likes it when the main characters in Jane Austen films and TV series have been made flesh by actors on TV. I’m the opposite and found it hard to let go of my visual image of the main character after reading, for instance, One Day and then seeing made flesh on different size screens.

I put a shorter version of the prosopagnosia piece on social media. Here’s some responses from readers.

Readers wrote

Radio and television playwright,  Chris Reason: "I often fail to recognise people touches down to my glaucoma it has happened so many times that I have given up apologising."

Poet and former Hebden resident, Glenda George connected her response to a health issue affecting a loved one: "We all learn our own ways to cope with our brains don't we George? Mine is very easily diverted by stress … and so recently I've been having auditory hallucinations particularly around alarm sounds -the morning alarm on my phone the microwave beep, washing machine, etc. Occasionally telephone or mobile calls!"

Renowned local poet Clare Shaw responded to my enquiry, ‘Do you have face blindness?’

"I do George! And I also have no memory for names - people always think this means I'm a bit forgetful but genuinely sometimes I forget my partner's or my best friend's name it can be really difficult because even if you explain it I think people still feel a bit hurt or they don't quite trust me that it isn't personal. If I'm going to a work event or some sort of social occasion where there's going to be people I'm expected to recognise, I wear a badge saying, “I am face blind, please introduce yourself."

Me: Brilliant! I squirm because I do usually remember faces but I'm afraid I might introduce old acquaintance whose names have been forgot!

Readers, feel free to share your responses (you don’t need to be a writer!)

And finally

Here’s a tale set in the 1970s from The Secret History of Hebden Bridge

Tepee City Video

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