Clarissa et al.

Back on September 9th 2007 I blogged about my visit on a Heritage Open Day to the Wilderspin National School in Barton. It was then a ruin.

On Monday my colleagues and I spent the morning in the restored building where we will be teaching the KS2 Junior schoolroom where children will spend a half day at school in 1897. The building is now absolutely fantastic - really authentic where it needs to be, and comfortably modern and convenient where that is more appropriate. Ian and his crew have done a marvellous job, and I can hardly wait to start working there.

The 1897 classroom 16 months ago


Hilary teaching a class there at the opening day last week: very naughty round shoulders - she said that she couldn't find where the backboard had been put until after the session was over.

Here are a couple more images lifted from the media.
Yes, he really is lighting real gaslights. This is the Wilderspin Infant classroom which has simple gas flames appropriate to the original building as it was when Samuel Wilderpin himself taught there using his pioneering methods, and there are gas mantles in the 1897 classroom.

This is the reconstructed Wilderspin playground which will soon be surrounded by flowerbeds. The open door in the background leads to the restored 10 hole privy.

Fortunately for modern visitors this is only for show and there are very nice modern facilities inside together with an exhibition about Wilderspin and the history of the school.

The school is open to the public (free) from 10 till 5 Thursday to Sunday, and school parties can book through the North Lincs Museum Education Service 01724 843533. I am longing for lots of schools to book!

I threw away my Christmas flowers today.

Inge gave me a mixed bunch - carnations, chrysanthemums and roses - several days before Christmas. Just after new year I weeded out the roses and the two sprays of red chrysanths.

Today I salvaged 4 heads of red carnations and one spray of white chrysanths to put in a small vase and threw the rest away a full calendar month after I was given them. This wasn't a bunch of flowers that had cost a fortune: at a guess between £5 and £8 at a supermarket. I think that's pretty good value.

I bought myself a jar of Heinz Sandwich Spread the other day. I do this every couple of years: over the next month or so I will make myself sandwiches with it, by which time I will be sick of the flavour.

I follow much the same procedure with Primula Cheese Spread.

Do I really like either of these? I don't know, but - like Nescafe made with hot milk, Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate, Iced Gems and tinned pears, peaches or mandarin oranges in light syrup - they have for me the taste of childhood.

Of course there are childhood tastes which I do not revisit such as banana toffee, sherbert flying saucers, fruit salads (the little sweets - 4 for 1d - not real fruit sald) and Dairylea cheese - all of which I loved at the time.

There were also things I never liked such as jelly, squash, fizzy pop, soft ice-cream, butter cream icing and, worst of all, Bird's Trifle which, especially when offered as a great treat at children's parties, ruined my enjoyment of events which would have been fine if I had been left with the fish paste sandwiches, sausages on sticks and iced biscuits. I was brought up to be polite, so refusal was difficult and acceptance was worse if later I found myself leaving 'good food'. Such tastes (if I really could not avoid tasting them) were left behind with joy and relief.

Other childhood fads played their part. For a time we actually liked Frosties, Sugar Puffs and Ricicles, but only one packet of Cocopops, ever came into our house after Helen and I saw them advertised and begged for them to be bought: we ate one bowlful each, and I believe my father nobly finished the packet over the next few weeks. We also tried most of the fancy new flavours of crisp; most suffered the same fate as the Cocopops except that my father actually developed a taste for these savoury 'treats' and still buys them for himself!

Your notice that you are getting older:

First the leading sports men and women are younger than you.

Then it's the leading actors in mainstream movies.

Then it's the leading politicians. The new president of the United States is 6 years my junior, and in this country the leader of the opposition is five years younger than that! At least the PM is four years (almost to the day) my senior, and Her Majesty is still a few months older even than my dear papa!

Meanwhile I still haven't quite made up my mind what I'm going to do when I'm grown up, although they have already started using the word 'veteran' (not in the military sense) about people who are 'nobbut weans' in comparison with myself.

I have just finished reading the Swallow Bookworms' January choice.

For once I am able to say that it was a really engrossing read, and a quick scan of websites suggests that this is an opinion shared by many readers. Mind you, I have read what appear to be universally favourable reviews of books that were complete rubbish, so that doesn't prove much. One of the things I admired was the strong grip the author kept on the whole plot and the complex time-scheme - she must have had calendars and charts all over the walls of her study or maybe they were all stored on the computer, but keeping track as she wrote can have been no easy task. Possibly even more remarkable is that she manages to make the whole improbable plot seem really quite possible.

I have to admit that I have been a fan of time travel fiction since I was a little girl: E Nesbit's "The Amulet", "The House of Arden" and "Harding's Luck" were constant rereads from the age of six, and were soon joined by Alison Utteley's "A Traveller in Time", Philippa Pearce's "Tom's Midnight Garden", Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time" (less of a favourite) and numerous lesser tales which straddled the magic/science fiction divide. By my teens I had added numerous short stories by John Wyndham, Jack Finney and Poul Andersson to my list of favourites, and, of course, J. B. Priestley's three time plays as well as his magnificent "Man and Time", which is credited in Audrey Niffenegger's acknowledgements as one of her inspirations. In my late teens I had the pleasure of acting Carol Conway in "Time and the Conways".

Films and television never quite did it for me in the same way: "Dr. Who" and "Time Tunnel" were certainly both on my childhood mustn't miss list, but later exploits in the same vein as well as adaptaions of books and stories have never done it for me in the way that the written word does, as the subtleties of small chrono-imponderables tends to be replaced with action scenes, big-time villains and strange mcguffins.

I would like to imagine that time travel really is a possibility, yet the thought of how proof of that concept would alter our whole perception of personal self-determination is seriously scary.

Anyway, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is very much recommended, and I hope that the forthcoming film manages to retain the delicate touch of a book in which the subtlety of plotting is only marginally lost at the very end.

So far I am not impressed:

- my aunt has had a stroke and is in hospital in Ottawa

- my sister is off work with a broken hand

- my father is in bed with this vomiting bug that's doing the rounds

. . . and the year isn't a fortnight old yet!

Well, I'm sure that we all agree that 'Paki' isn't a very nice word, and that coupled with the words 'go home' (or even worse) is very nasty indeed and seriously offensive.

But why such a fuss because a young man uses it as a nick name for a friend?

From time immemorial men and boys have given their friends not particularly complimentary nicknames: 'Piggy', 'Four-eyes', 'Titch', 'Ginger' etc. even the N word if the friend happened to be dark. A lad may not have been overjoyed by the choice of nickname, but to an extent it indicated that he was now an accepted part of the group. My father (82) is still Titch to a few people.

We have only to look at a whole class of surname - two whole classes of surname - to realise that identifying people by their physical appearance or by where they originate dates back at least to the middle ages. If your name is Redhead or Curley, Toogood or Toplass you can be sure that you know how some mediaeval ancestor looked or behaved, while almost any place name indicates that an ancestor was at one time an outsider who came from another town or village while Jewson or Ingalls, Welch or Scott may indicate a family which travelled further than a few villages.

Come to that, and going even further back in time, what is Flavius but the Latin for 'blondie'?

In other words context is everything. I would not revel in being nicknamed, let us say, 'fatty four-eyes' however justified such an epithet may be, and I would be astonished and deeply offended if, for example, Hilary (at work) or Veronica (in the village) chose to address me thus - and you too would be equally astonished if you knew these two ladies. On the other hand if my brother-in-law decided that was this week's nickname for me I wouldn't be particularly surprised or hurt since his idea of a friendly and humorous greeting is to insult the person he is addressing - silly and irritating, but his way.

If a stranger shouted out to me "Move now, fatty four-eyes" and thus saved me from falling scaffolding or a run-away lorry, I would take that as being the swiftest way he could identify the person who needed to shift and certainly not be offended. 'Paki' or even 'N-----', used in the same context would surely be equally lacking in offence.

When it comes to racially based nicknames at what stage does it become offensive? I am proud to be a 'meggie' (native of Cleethorpes) and a 'yellerbelly' (native of Lincolnshire), and presumably people feel the same way about Scouser, Geordie, Brummie etc. 'Yorkie' presumably means no more than a native of York or of Yorkshire and will thus be used with similar pride; however 'Yorkie' (or more especially 'bloody Yorkie') as used by a meggie is a term of abuse referring to a particular type of uncouth day-tripper from south Yorkshire who spends the day getting drunk and throwing up all over our seafront and cliff gardens. (It's all a matter of context.)

At what point in this list of racially based nicknames do we move from simple identification to insult? Scottie? Jock? Taff? Paddy? Mick? Aussie? Yank? Frog? Fritz? Wop? Chink? Paki? They are none of them words I would personally use, but I wouldn't be offended if called Limey, Pom or Roastbif - they are only words - and if one of my nephews or godsons had such a nickname in regular use it would be none of my business to mind on his behalf or to demand and apology for such language. If he didn't like it, it would be up to him to tell his friend he found it offensive or childish.

And if my nephew's or godson's friend happened to be the younger son of the heir to the throne, which is really more offensive to all our sensibilities: the person who privately uses a nickname which might be held to be racist, or the person who records private conversation and releases it to public scrutiny knowing full well the result of such an action?

Boys will be boys, and using mildly derogatory nicknames for each other is and always has been a part of their culture when they get together.

Maybe we should go further and suggest that all such names are grabbed by their communities, dusted off, and worn with pride so that words - only words - which were once seen as an insult become both a badge and an aspiration to reflect all that is best in their culture.

I drove Joe down to Horncastle today so that he could get some chairs at his favourite junk/antique shop. It was horribly foggy on the way down and there was this moron trying to climb into my boot all the way down the High Street (main road from Caistor to Horncastle - not the shopping street in either) from the Thoresway turn off to beyond the Ludford crossroads, and when I indicated left and pulled into a lay-by to let him past he hooted at me as if I had done something wrong before shooting off at way over 60mph! Travelling at a more sedate 50ish we eventually caught up with him pulling the same trick on another driver also sensibly cautious enough to drive at a speed dictated by the visible distance rather than above the maximum for the road even in clear weather!

Anyway, we arrived at Horncastle in one piece, and I dropped Joe off at his favourite emporium before going to Tesco for the necessities of life like tea and toothpaste.

Back at the emporium he had picked out a pair of chairs by the time I got back there, but I persuaded him that it wasn't a simple matter of reupholstering the seats as the springs were absolutely shot and way beyond our skill to repair. Eventually he picked out another pair of late Victorian/Edwardian hall chairs with upholstered seats which may merely require a good shampoo, but will not be difficult to re-cover when the time comes. I pointed out a couple of bits of minor damge and talked the price down 20% below that on the sticker which sn't bad, though I'm still a long way from my father's league when it comes to haggling. Joe also found a footstool of similar date, and bought a coal scuttle which we saw on our last visit, decided was too large for his little sitting room and which has been eating away at both our memories ever since. He also bought himself a sherry decanter (fairly modern cut glass with original stopper £6.50) which means that we get back the one I lent him before Christmas, but which also scuppers my planned present for his birthday!

If we are to believe the autographed pictures on the wall Gary Linneker, Frank Bruno, Chris Tarrant, Ant and Dec, Linda Robson and Pauline Quirke have also all been customers at this amazingly over-crowded shop!

We then went to the garden centre's coffee shop for a very nice but somewhat over-priced light lunch - the ham was excellent, but the coffee refills were full price.

Looking at my last blog, I was thinking wouldn't it be useful if churches (even those with vast and ancient pipe organs) also had a simple one manual organ which doesn't do anything fancy except make a reasonably churchy noise - no pasadoble, no rumba, no tango, no fancy percussion, nothing to do with the feet except a loud/soft pedal, and just maybe one little button which will turn notes played in the bass into simple 3 note major chords: in other words something that even a klutz like me can play. In our church we now have a Heath-Robinson electronic organ built by the organist which only he understands and can play, and there must be many churches which have pipe organs too precious and too complex for even your average pianist let alone your way below average pianist. Even that late nineteenth century harmonium or 1980s electronic organ can tax those of us familiar only with the slightly out of tune upright piano which has been stuck in the corner of the sitting room for donkey's years and gets 'played' half-a-dozen or so times a year, yet even we - given sufficicient notice and bringing our own easy-play hymn book could fill in when there really is nobody better available if we could just have an instument built for normal people and not NASA scientists. I used to play the piano for Sunday School when Cynthia couldn't come: my repertoire was limited to about four hymns, but I was better than nothing . . . just.

Yesterday while we had guests I did something I very rarely do: I played the piano in public. This is not false modesty on my part - when it's something I can do I'm just like Bottom (MSND) 'Let me play the Lion's part too' - but with my piano playing there is nothing to be modest about: I genuinely am a crap pianist.

No, actually that is an exaggeration. To say that I am a crap pianist would be to imply that I am a pianist of some sort however bad. I am actually as near to being a non pianist as somebody who can read music and more-or-less manage to play with both hands at the same time can be. If I practised really hard for the six or so weeks from the last date of entry to sitting the exam I should just about be able to manage a reasonably honourable fail at grade 3.

Of course being absolute rubbish doesn't stop me playing the piano, but I usually do it when the only possible audience is the cat, and one of my rituals is to play through the two easy carol books each Christmas. So far this year I hadn't got round to this.

The children had done the usual messing around at the piano: Josh (who plays by ear, but has never had a lesson) had played the theme from - I think - 'Top Gun' (so Christmassy!), Joel (who has, or used to have, lessons and is supposed to be quite musical) had gone bashful, and baby Tilly had thumped at some individual bass notes. Conversation had got loud and oriented towards clay pigeon shooting (a subject where my lack of knowledge is only exceded by my lack of interest), and nobody seemed to be listening, so I played. Apart from the odd moments when I was distracted by Tilly's impromptu extra bass, I got through quite reasonably well with an average of less than two wrong notes per carol over the twenty carols in Book 1, and Inge said that she enjoyed it.

There must be quite a lot of people like me who as children had a shortish flirtation with piano lessons and grades, but gave up when real practice and a certain level of dedication started to be necessary. I am probably unusual in having reached the level for grade 8 theory while still unable to play any instrument at better than a grade 2 or 3 level (the highest actual exam pass is grade 1), but this anomaly probably has more to do with being reasonably competent at maths and very uncoordinated physically than it has with my innate musical ability or lack of it.

I offer two quotes: one from the great Eric Morecombe "I am playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order" and the other by Oscar Wilde in 'The Importance of Being Ernest' "I don’t play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression".

This last is actually pretty true of me - and that's official: many years ago I competed in a singing class at a local festival; after all ten young women had sung the adjudicator announced that three stood out: one who could sing, one who could put the song across, and one who could do both. The one who could sing came second with, I think, 89 marks, I came third with 87 and the winner got something phenomenal in the mid to high nineties. Once long ago coming third to a teenage Lesley Garratt (we are the same age) is my only claim to any sort of musical distinction . . . unless you count my three kings (I only acted one, but had to sing all three because the other two couldn't) and my series of show-stopping solos (I told you, I volunteer like 'Bottom', and I know an awful lot of carols) two years running at the 4th Cleethorpes St. Peters Brownies' Christmas shows in 1964 and 1965.

I have always enjoyed singing and throughout most of my teens and twenties I sang in various choirs, always keeping myself on the musical straight and narrow by sitting next to a second soprano or alto (depending on whether it was a girls/ladies or mixed choir) who had a good loud voice and knew what she was doing. Since then years of asthma and bronchitis have reduced my already limited vocal range and left me with a huskiness which, in the bathroom at least, I fondly imagine to be a good voice for singing the blues.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

I don't do New Year. I neither give nor go to New Year parties. I don't do cards. I dom't do resolutions. This is our family tradition. My father takes it a step further and makes a point of going to bed before midnight on December 31st - something he generally does about 50% of the time on other nights. Many years ago - long before I was old enough to accompany them - my parents used to go with friends Reg and Rene Horne to the Grimsby Caledonian Society Ball which spoiled them for any lesser new year celebrations. I stayed at home with my grandmother and my sister and watched 'The White Heather Club' followed as a general rule by a Marx Brothers film.

However, this year my sister is at work today so Jess (and possibly her big brothers) would be having lunch with us anyway, so Jess decreed that we should have a family party, and I agreed as it seemed a good way of using up all the bits and bobs of Christmas food now on sell-by. Jess invited her best friend Joel who naturally brought along his brother Callum (my no.3 godson), baby sister Tilly and the chauffer (otherwise known as their mother Inge), which added to Jake, Josh, Jess, Pa and me made a quite reasonable little party, and we spent a pleasant couple of hours eating and chatting while the children became increasingly noisy.

Of course other people don't have my attitude to New Year parties. Inge and family had been to one which meant that Nigel, Inge's partner, was asleep in bed at lunch time having spent a sleepless night on a friend's sofa. Not, I gather, that it was any easier for those who had a bed:-

 

There were four in a bed
And the little one said
'Roll over!"
So they all rolled over
And Inge fell out.

 

So there's three in a bed
And the little one said
'Roll over!"
So they all rolled over
And Joel fell out

 

So there's two in a bed
And the little one said
'Roll over!"
So they all rolled over
And Cal fell out.

 

There was one in a bed
And Tilly said
"Now there's enough room for me to stretch out and get some sleep!"