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Yellow Pages

We are now into the second half term of the school year. That’s 8 more weeks of school at home. Hawklad is sat at home trying to do the class work. Absolutely no sign of his anxieties and fears abating. So our little family is definitely in this for the long run. The prospect of missing the complete school year is not seeming so far fetched now as he’s already missed a sixth ot it. It’s certainly no consolation that he is currently not alone in doing that. Significant numbers of the school are having to isolate. But the message is carry on, nothing to see here. So the country is in lockdown but the schools and universities are most definitely open.

So we carry on making the most of the situation we find ourselves in.

WE learn what we can.

WE includes the slightly bemused single parent.

“Dad can you help me with Citizenship. I’m stuck on one of the questions.”

He must have heard my sigh. I love helping but some subjects are just a bit of a chore. French, Design Technology, Drama (thankfully now dropped) and Citizenship. Citizenship seems to have moved on from learning about politics and how the country works. Now it’s all about drug, smoking and alcohol abuse. Not an easy area to explain to a teenager with Aspergers and anxieties.

“Dad can you look at the three photos and tell me which one is Cocaine, Spice and Marijuana. ”

Not a clue. Spice was apparently not the stuff you cook with (well I hope not).

“Have you ever taken drugs Dad then.”

Well yes to alcohol. Too much alcohol when I was younger. Thankfully completely tea total now. Apart from that it would just be the pain killers you get from the doctor. Nothing else.

Then I told him the only time I had kind of dabbled. When I was at University I went to a party and I was drinking with friends. None of us did any other drugs. Anyway one friend spotted someone smoking a joint. I can’t remember why but I was sent to try and get one for us to try. I thought it was a bad idea but that was the order. Anyway a few minutes we were passing round a fine yellow looking thing. We all agreed that it had no effect, wasn’t very good and it didn’t last very long. So I think that was hopefully the end of all our smoking drug habit.

I never did tell my friends what we were smoking. Not really your typical high. I had ripped up a page out of the telephone book. Rolled it into a cigarette shape. Yes we smoked a telephone book. It was yellow. Those in the UK may remember the Yellow Pages which each house got every year.

There you go. I’ve come clean.

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A bit later

Moody midday.

So we now are in lockdown officially. I should dig out my tinned foil hat. Must admit I’ve not noticed any real difference so far. The dustbin wagon turned up on time. Next doors gardener has been busy. Not much four wheeled traffic on the roads but plenty of cyclists. The mole and badger have continued to dig up the lawn. Hawklad is doing his school at home work. I’m wandering around being a muppet. So same old same old.

Well when I say nothing has changed well that’s not quite true. Shopping wise it’s a different matter. Many of the nonessential shops have closed. And food shopping has returned to being a pain in the buttocks again. As soon as lockdown is mentioned the availability of gluten free foods and Hawklad’s favourite sausages takes a nose dive. I blame it on Boris.

I also blame it on Boris that I’m clearly an old fart…..

“Dad what on earth is that?”

It’s vinyl Son. A record. It’s the first Pink Floyd album…

This produced a bemused look on number one son. A bit later….

“Say that again. You didn’t have computers when you started school.”

No. Home computing was not yet a thing. In fact calculators had just come out but my school didn’t believe in them. We were expected to do stuff in our heads or use the dreaded slide rulers.

“What on earth is a slide ruler?”

Basically an analog mechanical calculation device that looks like a big ruler. It has scales on and you have to slide the middle bit of the ruler out to read the results off the scale.

Another bemused look. A bit later….

“Can I put the hot water bottle in the microwave to warm it a bit Dad.”

Don’t need to ask. In my day I would have had to fill it with boiling hot water from the kettle.

Another one of those looks. And finally this morning….

“Dad it’s a shame that you haven’t got some videos or DVDs which you taped of some TV shows you watched as a kid. I bet there is a load that you can’t buy now on Amazon. That would be fun to watch. ”

Hawklad when I was a kid even video had not been invented. We didn’t get them until the 80s.

“So how did you record stuff?”

We couldn’t. If you missed the show on the TV that was it. You had to just hope that it was repeated in a few months time.

And a really really really big one of those looks. Definitely feeling like an old fart…

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Scary…

Some things are scary. An old castle on a dark brooding day is definitely scary. Imagine this place at midnight on Halloween. Yep definitely scary. But some sights go beyond that.

A few years back we were living in the city. I was manning the door on a super busy Halloween. A constant stream of trick or treaters. All in fantastic costumes. I felt bad for just wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I had shaved so couldn’t even claim to be a werewolf. The doorbell rang and I opened the door again with a friendly smile. Two little devils looked up at me. Before I had chance to complement the monsters on being super scary, one of the devils screamed and ran off crying. The other devil calmly asked if he could have his brothers treats. With the brave devil chomping on his chocolates I went to apologise to the parent who was stood on the street. The mum just laughed and said her son wasn’t very brave and had screamed at a few masks on the night.

The worry was that I wasn’t wearing a mask.

WOW. And that’s why you don’t get any photos of me. Definitely a face perfect for radio….

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Halloween or not

It’s the end of October and thoughts turn to Halloween. Well most probably if you are a parent. How to satisfy your young ones urge to join in the fun. From the age of about 5 Hawklad has looked forward to the 31st October. He liked to get dressed up. Maybe go to the school party. Definitely watch a bit of spooky TV. But never Trick or Treating. The thought of meeting strangers ruled that option out. So he’s never been. Actually I have never been. As a child the concept didn’t exist in our area. It was all about carving – not a pumpkin, we used turnips or swedes. A bonfire with jacket potatoes roasting in the embers. The dreaded turnip soup. Seeing what TV had on offer (just 3 channels in those days). Then it was to bed to read a spooky comic under the blankets by the light of a torch.

Trick or Treating really started to get going in our area only in the late 80s. In the last city we lived in, it was very popular. But then we moved into the sticks. The village we now live in has few children. Some years go by without a single Trick or Treater.

So what will 2020 bring. Well a full moon, so let’s hope for some breaks in the cloud.

Well for our little self contained world – it will mostly be the usual. Spicy red soup. Too many mini chocolates and sweets. Outside talks about our top ten monsters. Making up horror stories. We have a tradition that each year we invent a new horror computer game. No technical limitations when the game only ever exists in your mind. Watching cartoon halloween specials. Getting dressed up. Finally watching a couple of horror movies. When he was young that would be ScoobyDoo movies. The last couple of years it’s been old Hammer Horror flicks. This year he’s desperate to step up the horror option. Maybe the first Halloween movie.

Not forgetting Pumpkin Carving. Unfortunately our store has not had them in stock and Hawklad won’t let me go out to buy one. So it’s plan b. Well plan c as the store also failed to have a turnip or swede in. Don’t laugh plan c currently is trying to do mini carvings with jacket potatoes and apples…..

So yes 2020 may have some unique features for us. For many. Trick or Treating would appear to be banned in many areas. Luckily some places are trying to set up stuff for the kids (and parents!). Our village is doing a Halloween Trail. Households are being encouraged to put a pumpkin in the window or by the front gate. Families can then go pumpkin spotting without knocking on doors. So we need Plan D. An apple or potato carving just isn’t going to cut the mustard. At present it’s not a great plan. We have some orange balloons. The plan is to draw faces on the balloon with a think black marker pen. Then we will try to put an LED light or small torch inside the balloon. Then inflate it. What could possibly go wrong…..

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Do you understand

It’s a dark old day here. This is midday…..

Sometimes it’s hard to tell from a photo but just past those buildings the land drops down quite steeply. Dropping about 150ft to sea level. Then it’s flat for miles. Sometimes it’s not easy to see these big details.

A few weeks back I was talking to my sister on the phone. I remember she said that I sounded ‘Happy’ and ‘was clearly doing well’. That’s odd as that day I was struggling. Feeling really low, down and so unhappy. Definitely not how my sister had seen me. That’s the thing about relationships. Often the people who should know you the best are the ones who actually get you the least. You can care and still not understand. You can care and still not really listen. You can care and still not see the reality.

Please don’t think I’m picking on my sister. We really care for each other but we don’t understand each other. I can think of so many in my life that applies to. Maybe it’s just me. Not prepared to share. Too quick to hide behind my smiling mask. But maybe we don’t often find people who truly understand us. Tuned into our thinking. Can see our pain and anxieties. Maybe that’s a rare gift. One we need to continue to search for.

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Patchy

Sometimes nothing is better than spending a few minutes kicking fallen leaves randomly around the garden. It’s good to go back to childhood feelings again. Autumn is often a great time for that.

Today’s visit by our son’s health worker has been cancelled. She will try again in a few weeks. It is what it is. At least we are due to get some help, many are not so fortunate. We just have to accept that what support we do get is likely to be very patchy over the coming months. Yep, we will be travelling these roads for a long while to come.

If anything we have just started the journey. Son is still wracked with anxiety and fears. He is most definitely house and garden bound. No sign of progress as yet. Actually no sign if progress in ages. We are not talking a few days here. We are already 7 months into his isolation. We will be adding many more months to that. Realistically his anxieties have become intertwined with the wider pandemic situation. How can he improve, his anxieties ease when the country is still in pandemic mode. If he ventured out he would just end up seeing people wearing masks and frequently looking nervous. It feels like manning the battlements until things start to pick up again.

That’s where kicking fallen leaves comes in. It’s so important that Hawklad still enjoys life. Enjoys his childhood. We find ways to fill our small world with fun. Yes kicking leaves ticks all those boxes. AND it’s fun for his old Pop as well.

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Polar express

A beautiful train line in the distance. Even beautiful at night…

Last night we had a chat about Christmas. This year will be a slightly different one. No family visits and wider family meals. No friend visits. No 50000 spectator football match. No concert. No special trips out. No nice country walks. No carol singers. No Father Christmas riding through the village on a tractor collecting for charity and then handing out sweets to the kids. Basically just us, the pets, the house, the garden and one visit from the jolly big fella dressed in red.

It’s still Christmas. Still a time to make memories. Still a time to live. So we make the best of it. Never forgetting those we love the most.

Last year we thought that we had started a new tradition. A trip out on a Christmas Train. A wonderful night trip on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. A beautiful illuminated stream train with even some magical creatures in the passing fields.

So we had planned to do the same this year……

Well it’s not happening. So it’s time for plan b. We have decided that on the same day as last year we will head out on our own polar express. I have some really cheap solar powered Christmas lights. The car will adorned with these. A Christmas music cd will be loaded up on the car stereo. Christmas snacks will find their way into the car. Silly hats and reindeer jumpers will be donned. And off we go on our own polar express. A slow drive around a little used country lane route.

That’s a start. What else can we come up with. What new memories can be born. Always remembering to carry those we love in our hearts as memories are made.

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Half term

Well we made it through another 7 weeks of school at home. Thankfully a week free from school now beckons. Oh what bliss. No more trying to explain how to factorise a quadratic equation with a lead coefficient greater than one…… I couldn’t do that when I was a teenager and now, 752 years later I still can’t do it. At least I’m consistent.

I’ve just been reading an old school report from all those years back. Here’s an edited summary.

  • Attendance 100% – which is odd as I can remember at least one day when I attended the morning register and then went back home at break time as my parents were both at work…….
  • Behaviour ‘exemplary’ – pretty easy to get that when you bear in mind that in our class we would eventually compromise one murderer, one attempted murderer, 2 convicted armed robbers, a burglar, someone who blew up the teachers desk (and got expelled) and a kid who set fire to the church hall.
  • School Honours – ‘Elected school prefect’ – which was news to me, I never knew that. Maybe it happened on one of the afternoons I was nicking off.
  • Maths – ‘very capable but seems to lose interest very quickly’. But it’s maths what do you expect (so speaks the accountant).
  • English – ‘can’t spell’ – I did struggle with that. Still do.
  • PE – ‘Really good at team sports. Captain of the Rugby Team’. We didn’t play a Rugby match that year as Tommy R burnt down the rugby posts before the season started and school couldn’t afford a new set. For some reason we never got invited to play at other schools – were we that bad a school….
  • French – ‘Not very good’ – which is worrying as I was the best in the class at French.
  • Drama – ‘struggles to deliver lines’ – what do you expect I had a stammer…..
  • Biology – ‘Needs to work harder’ – I suspected that referred to my refusal to dissect any living creature.
  • Chemistry – ‘Needs to concentrate during practicals’ – that might have been when I forgot to switch on the fume cupboard and the school had to be evacuated when the alarms went off.
  • Art – ‘He does try hard but’ – the words after ‘but’ are difficult to decipher but I guess they could be ‘but he’s crap….’
  • Geography – ‘he has had a decent year’ – that probably referred to me being able to locate the classroom in the school most weeks. A task clearly beyond some of my class colleagues.
  • History – ‘OK’ – that was it, just a one word report for that subject. Wow must have created a real impression on that teacher.
  • Woodwork – ‘Has some issues’ – another kinder way of saying that I had as much practical skills as a drunk pigeon. Much to the consternation of my dad who was a joiner by trade.

So that was me as a kid. The report was actually a pretty fair representation of the adult I would end up being. In the words of one teacher HAS SOME ISSUES…..

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Jarrow March

This photo was taken 4 years ago to the day. A day in October. A day early in my grief journey. A moment in our family history.

Time to turn back the hands of the clock back to before the Second World War. To another moment in our family history.

October 19th, 1936. Chesterfield to Mansfield.

From the 5th to 31st, the Jarrow March took place. 200 men walked 300 miles from the north eastern town of Jarrow to London. Jarrow was like many northern towns in that period. Bleak, stagnant and forgotten. The impact of a world wide depression was hitting this area hard. There was no employment. Unemployment was endemic. In Jarrow the unemployment rate was near 70%. The Government seemingly did not care, blind to the suffering. The Government even blocked loans that would have saved the town’s industries. Rising anger at gross inequality and injustice. The growth of racism and extreme right wing politics.

That was the context as 200 men set off on their crusade. A peaceful and dignified protest, carrying a 12000 signature petition asking for their industry to be reopened. A simple message. We want to work. We want hope.

The marchers were treated as heroes on the route. Galvanised a growing mood in the country. The petition was handed into the government with so much dignity and respect. In the short term the March failed. The Baldwin Conservative Government brushed the march and the petition aside. Clearly in their eyes some people were more equal than others. But in the long run the Jarrow March delivered. It set a new agenda. After the war the new Labour Government set about writing the wrongs. A comprehensive welfare state was introduced. Government with a conscious was established. One that cared for the less fortunate. Sadly a conscious which has started to be unpicked and now unravelled.

We live in a time of rising unemployment. Inequality and injustice are ripe. The growth of extreme politics. Sound familiar. We could learn so much from the Jarrow March. A Crusade marked down in English history. A family history as well. My family was on that march.

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Ghosts

I was listening to the new David Gilmour song and one line really hit me.

Yes, I have ghosts, not all of them dead.

For me that is so true….. Often the ones which are not dead are the hardest ones to deal with. They can appear at any time. They fill my head with negative thoughts. Once there they can haunt me for days. Missed opportunities. Past mistakes. Errors. Broken promises. Heartaches. Dead ends. Let downs. Sad memories. Inhibitions. Self inflicted hurt. Bleak times. They can hold me back, stop progress, bring on self doubt and herald the return of depression.

Those thoughts still live within me. They aren’t dead. Ready to reappear when I drop my guard. When I am low. When I am tired. When I’m facing a leap of faith. They all relate to past events but the memory still lives on within me. They try to shape my present day mood and choices.

Maybe it’s time to deal with them. Exorcise them. End the hold they have over me. Life is too short to waste. Its time to fill my soul with positive thoughts and memories. Ghosts should be dead.