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Memories to Savour, Blog 5 - December 2012

Good old Mr Kipling

 

I'm a loser
And I'm not what I appear to be
(Lennon & McCartney 1964)

 

A message to all sport haters. This is not simply a Blog about sport. It is about life itself and what is written below is just an appropriate introduction. But wow, this is some symmetry!! Three twenty sixes; simply irresistible.

 

Record football defeat in England

                                    F.A. Cup: Preston North End 26 – Hyde 0                   1887

Test Cricket lowest ever score

                                    New Zealand 26 all out v England                                 1955

Michael J Hodkinson Tennis record in Dordogne League for Issigeac 2^nd Team

                                    Singles matches:  Played 26.  Lost 26.                          2010 - 2012

 

Loser is of course the antonym of winner and there is no doubt that as words go, it is most unattractive. Pronounced ‘looooozer’, it is favoured by those who inhabit football terraces and is used by teenagers in particular to indicate something quite derogatory about a member of their peer group. Even mature adults are not averse to hurling the insult. Beggars with dogs sitting in the high street, those who struggle to make and keep friends, under-achievers generally; all of these can become labeled with this particular epithet.

Unless you are betting against yourself to lose (as a number of sports persons actually have – didn’t you Bruce Grobbelaar?*), I find it difficult to envisage anyone entering anything even slightly competitive with the intention to suffer defeat. Alright, maybe parents playing games with their young children might lose on purpose as a form of encouragement to disillusioned off-spring, but I have also read autobiographies of famous people who claim that their ‘old man’ would do anything to win at all costs; even when playing Snap. Very character building; obviously successful on occasions.

Winning and losing is not confined to the sporting arena. You can be involved in an interview process at work and lose out. A position comes up at the level above your current one. You and a colleague apply and catastrophe strikes; you finish second. Even more common is the focus of the 1964 Beatles song. John (he was the composer although it is accredited to Lennon & McCartney) was writing about a love lost. ‘She was a girl in a million, my friend’, but there was to be no happy ending. Lennon’s reaction was to ‘laugh and act like a clown’, but this was just a front he fabricated to hide the tears; to hide the fact that he was ‘a loser’. Incidentally, some music critics have remarked that this was possibly the first time that there was depth to their compositions; a moving out of their ‘you know I love you / I want to hold your hand’ period. This was hello real world, good bye fantasy world, focusing on the hypocrisy of putting on a brave face when your world is crumbling about your shoulders.

Of course to be a loser, you first of all must compete. You cannot finish last in a race that you do not enter. You cannot be rebuffed by someone you fancy or be ditched by the love of your life if you have made no effort to woo him/her in the first place. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s famous line….

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’ ....

may have become one of life’s greatest clichés, but those words from 1850 are still true today. In an age where instant millionaires are created every week, Dale Winton’s ‘you have to be in it to win it’ may lack the poetic genius of Lord Alfred, but the messages have striking similarities.

So it would appear that losing would not be high upon anyone’s wish list for Christmas, but I believe that to compete and lose is preferable to sitting on the side lines, safe and secure from the potential humiliation which defeat can bring. When Hyde FC travelled by train to Preston in 1887, they probably knew that they had no chance. It was the year before the Football League commenced, but North End were already beginning to look like the top club in the country. In the following season they became the first (and only) side to win every game played, winning the league and FA Cup in the process. Those amateur footballers from south-east of Manchester (incidentally a town made infamous recently by Dr Death himself, Harold Shipman) could well have been excused for refusing to board the train at Victoria Station and walking home. They did however manfully turn up to witness their own execution. I am certain that they did not enjoy the experience but history tells us that they tried their hardest and shook their opponents’ hands at the end of ninety minutes.

For a society which denigrates losing, we certainly go to massive lengths to experience it. With possibly fourteen million lottery tickets being sold every week, almost a quarter of the population of the United Kingdom must be well-used to sighing deeply before slowly tearing up the ticket. But a lottery set-back is impersonal, whereas even a game of darts in front of half a dozen beer guzzlers in your local can be extremely embarrassing. There you are, double twenty to win and you completely miss the board. Equally we will all have memories of eyeing up someone we found extremely fanciable, plucking up courage for an age before approaching to effect an introduction. In my day, I was likely to receive a polite brush off, but I suspect words like ‘shove off, I’m drinking my Bacardi Breezer’ may now be the order of the day in certain circles. Either way it is a dent to the ego and can seriously affect your confidence level the next time.

Modern-day motivational speakers will doubtlessly carry ‘there are no prizes for coming second’ in their box of incantations. Very true (apart from Olympic silver medals) and it will no doubt fire up the recipients of such rhetoric. However it has a downside. It increases a fear of losing, induces a state of nervousness, indecision often rules big time. Failure knocks confidence, success doubtlessly enhances it, but you cannot have winners without losers. They are a part of life’s massive supporting cast, but are essential to society.

As educators as well as coaches of young footballers, we always believed that it was important to teach youngsters to win and lose in a sporting manner. We followed the same mantra at all times. ‘Go out there, relax, enjoy yourselves and try your hardest to win. When it is all over, irrespective of the result, you congratulate your opponent. Only once back in the dressing room do you let your emotions flow. There you can cry your eyes out or shout, sing and dance as much as you want.’ John Lennon would have called that hypocritical but I believe that a certain old poet would have nodded in approval.

In his immortal 1895 poem “If” (recently voted the best poem in the English language), Rudyard Kipling’s advice to all competitors, whether winners and losers was.....

if you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

The great man, using the language of the day, concluded with ‘you will be a man my son’.

The Victorians of course were short on political correctness, but even if the twenty-first century translation may read ‘you will be an adult my child’, the point is still made. Only a few can win, so why get your knickers in a twist if you come second or even last. Someone has to and jolly well done for trying. As a fully paid up member of the ‘Honourable Union of Runners Ups’, I am asked why I continue to play a game where it is evident that my opponents are fitter, stronger, younger and (being French) have been coached in the correct techniques from a young age. I suppose I love to play more than I dislike losing. I try my hardest each time I go on to the court and I genuinely feel quite miserable for a couple of hours after the game.  But I do feel some pride about still going out to compete at my age and the bottom line answer is that I still enjoy it.

So, if you want a new year’s resolution and there is something you really would like to do, something you would like to try and achieve, try this one for size. Take a tiny risk or two in 2013, feel good about being competitive, grab the chance to show what you can do, take the bull by the horns, get off your bum, sod the result and give it a go. Even though ultimately ‘yours may not be the earth and everything in it’, you will feel a bloody lot better about yourself. On a good day you may just be able to join in with The Pogues’ Shane McGowan when, in his lament to Christmases past in the Big Apple, he sings........    

Got on a lucky one
Came in at ten to one.

Have a wonderful Christmas.

Michael J Hodkinson

*Grobbelaar was eventually found not guilty of match fixing after two juries were unable to reach a verdict. Damages of £85,000 were awarded against The Sun newspaper, but on appeal The House of Lords decreed that although no verdict had been returned, there was adequate evidence of dishonesty for the damages to be reduced to £1. The Liverpool goalkeeper had also to pay The Sun’s costs of £500,000, thus bankrupting the Zimbabwean.

Memories to Savour, Blog 4 - November 2012

Memories to Savour, Blog 4 - November 2012

Social systems, Downton Abbey and Joni Mitchell

 

I've looked at life from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

 

Coming from a family with shopkeepers on both my paternal and maternal side, it was inevitable that I would be brought up to vote Liberal. When my mother had told her grandma that a particular young man was showing an interest in her, the old family matriarch immediately responded with a …. “Well don’t bring him round here if you start courting him, because his family is all Tory and I’ve never met a decent one yet.” Local legend also has it that when a prospective Conservative town councilor knocked on her door one evening to canvas her support in the forthcoming election, my great grandmother responded with a ….. “I would sooner vote for a donkey wearing a Liberal rosette than thee, so be off with you”. My mother must have listened because she married a Liberal-voting fruit and vegetable vendor and perhaps it was fortuitous that the grand old lady had died before I was eligible to cast my first vote. When I announced that I intended to put my cross against the name of the Labour candidate, it was not a move calculated to make me popular. Watching Downton Abbey on ITV on Sunday evenings has reminded me of why I became a socialist.

 

I do like the programme; it has become compulsive viewing for me. Its every scene is so professional, it has a credible story line, the characters are so well drawn and the detail is spot on. There are aspects of the society it portrays however which make me cringe. The obvious class divide between upstairs and downstairs, the sheer snobbery and formality, the obvious hierarchy with the head of the family being the master whereas the butler’s word is law amongst the serving classes. Even in a poor industrial town such as Blackburn, wealthy mill owners employed ‘live in’ servants and I can remember as a child, at least two elderly distant relatives regaling me with stories from when they were ‘in service’ during the inter-

war years. When I moved to Leeds in 1964 to study to become a teacher, this was   

the type of society that I longed to see the back of. I yearned for the arrival of the

great day of reckoning when, metaphorically speaking, the rich would rot in hell.

Bob Dylan’s ‘The times they are a changing’ from the album of the same name

became my anthem of choice.

 

But how did this island become so encumbered with such an inequitable system is a question worth asking. The answer in actual fact is quite simple. When Duke William landed in Pevensey Bay in 1066 and defeated King Harold of England at the Battle of Hastings, he had to reward his fellow Normans who accompanied him across the Channel. As a consequence, each of his noble friends was allotted a piece of England and, to make their presence felt, they quickly constructed wooden motte and bailey castles. Later to be strengthened with thick stone walls and a keep, they were located at the highest point in the village. Each time a peasant farmer looked up from tilling the fields and tending the crops, the shadow of the enormous bastion reminded him that he had no status whatsoever. His position was to be subservient to his foreign master ……. forever.

Throughout the middle ages, there was scarcely a change to the social stratum. The barons would occasionally have skirmishes amongst themselves and King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215 on Runnymede, an island on the Thames close to Windsor, thus limiting a number of his rights and privileges. (If you did not know that, you are in exalted company. Neither did David Cameron when recently asked about it on the Letterman Show in America.) The Tudor monarchs of the sixteenth century distanced themselves from the power of the barons by relying more on the new ‘middle classes’; bankers and civil servants who were well paid for their services, but none of these changes remotely affected the working classes. The execution of Charles I and the subsequent setting up of a republic headed by Oliver Cromwell gave far more power to parliament. However, as few men (and no women) had the right to vote, it made little difference to the lives of the masses, particularly as following Cromwell’s death, the Stuart monarchy was restored when Charles II returned from exile.

The Industrial Revolution changed the face of Britain and there was much more social movement as the demand for labour in the North and the Midlands increased rapidly. For the first time we saw economic immigration as Irish navvies flooded into Liverpool, but in terms of freedom for the ‘great unwashed’, they simply exchanged one overlord (the Lord of the Manor) for another (the mill/mine owner). Slowly during the nineteenth century, more and more males were given the vote but it was not until 1929 that all adults over the age of twenty one gained this particular privilege. By this time, the first Labour government had been formed, Trade Unions were accepted and while the rich young things danced the ‘Charleston’, the poor became poorer as the ‘Great Depression’ began to bite.

I was educated at a ‘working class’ grammar school and had mates from the local secondary modern. The offspring of Blackburn’s elite however either went to public school or a fee paying grammar school, established in 1509 and eventually named after the first Queen Elizabeth. Until I was in my twenties, I cannot remember meeting anyone who could be even vaguely referred to as upper class. This of course suited me real fine and I genuinely hated the concept of a generation living privileged lives simply because their family had done so for many generations. I did not want them to prosper and believed that they brought no benefit to the country.

Somehow, without really realising it, I must have watered down these feelings, because that anger in me has dissipated. However, it was only when watching this current series of Downton Abbey that I came to the conclusion that I did not quite have the full picture back in the sixties. The Dowager Countess of Grantham (it means widow of the previous Lord by the way) and magnificently played by Dame Maggie Smith, was pontificating.

“These people have no idea of what the aristocracy has given to this England. Without us there would be no employment in the countryside? No, they never think of that’

She was correct, I never did. I was unaware that many of them actually cared for their staff and the inhabitants of the village. Some would go out of their way to help them if they were in trouble, believing that they had a responsibility for their welfare.

The great capitalists were another group whom I loved to hate in my youth. Again I failed to realise at the time that the public library which I frequented so much as a boy had, like so many throughout the country, been financed by Andrew Carnegie. He emigrated from Scotland in the nineteenth century and rose from sweeping up in a bobbin factory to being the founder of the American steel industry. He literally gave away almost all of his colossal fortune to educational causes such as libraries and colleges. I never thought of him when I was tarring all capitalists with the same brush.

Neither did I spare a thought for the Cadbury family who built a chocolate making factory in the village of Bourneville near Birmingham in 1879. The family pioneered worker pensions, fair wages, treated the staff with respect and built rows and rows of modern housing with gardens and an adjacent park for their recreation. In 1888, the Lever family built a similar project at Port Sunlight across the River Mersey to house those employed in their soap making factory. I also paid scant regard to the likes of John Howard, the wealthy High Sheriff of Bedfordshire who dedicated his life to ensuring that prisoners in our gaols were treated as human beings. I totally forgot to remember Elizabeth Fry, born into the family which founded Barclays Bank. She worked tirelessly to help all sorts of under-privileged people in workhouses, asylums and slum areas. As someone who had studied the history of the nineteenth century, The Earl of Shaftesbury ought to have been fresh in my memory. A member of the landed gentry, he used his influence to improve life in the lunatic asylums, fought to eliminate the evils of ‘little boy chimney sweeps’ and helped to introduce the free Ragged Schools for the hopelessly poor city children whose lack of footwear prevented them from attending the voluntary schools which were springing up in the 1840s. Did I think of him when I wanted to exterminate aristocrats and bring the capitalist system to its knees? Not a chance.

I immediately joined a left wing trade union on qualifying as a teacher, picketed the offices of Lancashire County Council, occasionally went on strike and staunchly worked to rule when the Thatcher government was hell-bent on destroying any group which attempted to uphold the rights of the working class. It lasted a good six months and tested my loyalty to its very core. All out of school hours contact with pupils, including extra-curricular activities which offered the only hope for many of our poor children to shine, was banned and we even lost a whole season of schoolboy football. That was agony for me but like thousands of other teachers, it seemed like a cause worth fighting for. A compromise deal was eventually hammered out, but in truth it was the last hurrah for the militant unions. The miners had been crushed and the will to fight seemed to evaporate.

On looking back, I accept now that I was so entrenched in my left wing views that I never considered an opposite viewpoint. I was right, the rest were wrong; it was as simple as that. But I should have known better. In 1967, a folk singer called Judy Collins recorded a beautiful song entitled ’Both Sides Now’ which in terms of alliteration, rhyme and pure poetry, was arguably the most beautiful song of the decade. Look the words up on the internet but can you beat ‘Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air” as a description of cloud patterns. It was written by the legendary Canadian singer/song writer Joni Mitchell, was a massive hit for Collins and has been covered by stacks of artists as diverse as Bing Crosby, Paul Young, Herbie Hancock and Susan Boyle. I loved the song way back then, snuggling up on a settee with the girl of the moment and simply dreaming.

But how could I have missed the point of the lyrics; to look at things from both sides, to see the other person’s point of view. As I learned later, those from privileged backgrounds can actually be OK. How could I try to verbally blast a group of people that I did not understand? Did not understand because I had not taken the time to get to know them, to listen to their point of view. Of course, even looking at society patiently and in the most considered manner, I would still have voted Labour. I cannot accept the theory of Social Darwinism; the survival of the fittest, the law of the jungle. I do now understand that to have totally equal pay will not work; there has to be incentive, a kind of meritocracy, but I believe that those who have more than enough should support those who have not through a system of taxation which cannot be avoided simply because they have a clever accountant; are you listening Starbucks? There are lazy oiks in all walks of life but the majority of those who struggle do so because they have been less fortunate than others. Even now I struggle to come to terms with the likes of Cameron and Osborne with their aristocratic upbringings, including expensive public school and Oxford educational backgrounds. However, I would no longer think of them in terms of forces of evil, simply people who look at the country in a totally different and (in my opinion) a totally incorrect way.

But the Joni Mitchell song is not just about political difference, it is also about personal relationships. How often have we fallen out with someone because we only evaluate a situation from our own perspective? At one time in my life, I could regularly have fallen out with everyone; jumping to hurried conclusions, not trying to reason why they may have acted in a certain way. Many a friendship can be lost through a rash word; through an unconsidered opinion. Surely it has to be better to think carefully about a problem we may have, to try to understand the opposing point of view before ‘going off on one’. Then if all else fails, there is always the ‘get out of jail free’ card. I don’t like to contradict a diva like Diana Ross, but sorry often does make it right. Good friendships, strong relationships are the jewels in our crown and we can protect them if we listen to Joni. In other words, look at situations ‘from both sides now’.

M.J Hodkinson

 

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Memories to Savour, Blog 3 - October 2012

 

MacArthur Park and the loss of innocence.

 

MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark,

All the sweet, green icing flowing down.

Someone left the cake out in the rain,

I don't think that I can take it,

'Cause it took so long to bake it

And I'll never have that recipe again, oh no.

 

It was a great summer, a summer of love. Nubile young women in flower patterned mini-skirts and psychedelic music; it had everything for a young man with testosterone rampaging through his veins. The genius known as George Best had swathed through defenses at Old Trafford throughout the winter and was now cutting a different type of swathe through Manchester’s prettiest in the summer. There was a Labour government and Scot McKenzie was imploring anyone who ventured San Francisco way to ‘make sure you wear some flowers in your hair’.

 

I had recently completed my studies in Leeds and was due to begin a lifetime of secondary school teaching at the end of August. I would normally have laboured through the summer to pay for a vacation, but this time I chose to have two holidays and not work. I borrowed the money from my parents and promised to pay them back from my first few wage packets. A mate and I drove all the way to Yugoslavia in an ancient Hillman Husky van, swam and sun bathed in the Adriatic for a few days and then drove all the way back. Everyone said we were stupid to try such a stunt but we did; for the hell of it.

 

A couple of weeks later, I hired a motor cruiser on the Norfolk Broads with two other mates. Is there anything more English than cruising about on a river? On the winding waterways of this part of East Anglia, we took turns at being captain, mate, deck hand and cook throughout the day, mooring outside delightful riverside pubs in the evening. There we quaffed pints of local ale and were wakened each morning by the water lapping against the side of the boat. On the Friday night we moored up at Great Yarmouth, archetypal English sea side resort with Pleasure Beach, pier, pubs and lots of girls. The Yardbirds, second only to the ‘Stones’ as the top rhythm and blues group of the day, were playing at a massive dance hall on the sea front and we stood close to the stage, savouring every moment of the combined guitar talents of rock legends Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.

 

Once their set was finished, the disk jockey had all the girls dancing round their handbags to the current Motown magic; the young men covertly eyeing them up from the edge. With ‘Dancing in the street’ blasting out, we could wait no longer and my mate and I asked these two extremely pretty girls for a dance. On closer inspection, they were even classier than we thought and because I fully expected to be blown out after one song, I concentrated on perfecting my steps. Now I was to dancing what Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards became to ski jumping but to our amazement, the girls did not pick up their handbags at the conclusion of the Martha Reeves ditty. I assumed that she must have been impressed and therefore concentrated even more on my footwork through the opening bars of ‘The Happening’. Suddenly as Diana Ross sang ‘….Hey life, look at me……..’ this lovely girl edged closer and whispered in my ear.

 

“You don’t need to concentrate so hard on dancing you know. Just relax and enjoy yourself.”

 

Suddenly the clouds of caution cleared and we chatted and laughed as we danced. I took her to the bar and ordered a Pepsi and a pint of Red Barrel. We danced some more and suddenly the lights lowered, the music slowed and we just seemed to drift into each other’s arms. Richard Harris’ ‘MacArthur Park’ it was and we smooched away in that cavernous dance hall, scarcely moving a foot from where we started.

 

The girls were sisters and as they lived barely a half mile from the sea-front, we walked them home. My mate and the sister collared the front door step, we leant against the front gate post, alternately kissing and giggling. Far too soon, sister said that she was working in the morning and that was that. We floated back to the boat and twenty four hours later we were back in Lancashire. We never exchanged telephone numbers or addresses. I cannot remember her name and have never seen her since, but it scarcely seemed to matter because it was that sort of summer. There were no tomorrows, no yesterdays, just living for the day.

 

MacArthur Park was a strange song. It was seven minutes long in an era when singles rarely stretched to three. Jimmy Webb had written it in a neo- classical style as part of a ‘cantata’ and the tune was so melodic. The words were a different matter altogether, although the chorus with the line ‘…..someone left the cake out in the rain….’ will be remembered forever by those who lived through that time. Back in the sixties, no-one really understood the meaning of the lyrics. They were considered to be typical ‘mumbo-jumbo’ drug related words which were prevalent in that period although Webb always said that it was an autobiographical love song about a girl whom he loved and lost in the L.A. park of that name. The strangest decision of all was the choice of singer. Richard Harris was a famous film star of the day, but he could not sing. Even Rolf Harris would have been a better choice. Nonetheless, its haunting melody and metaphor-laden lyrics sent it racing to the top of the charts and Donna Summers’ disco version was a Stateside number one a decade later.

 

I do not believe that it matters if we fail to understand what the composer is trying to say in a song or poem. What is more important is what they mean to us….personally. There are numerous examples of songs which have been interpreted in different ways. Perhaps the best example of all is ‘Jerusalem’. The words were composed by William Blake in 1808 and later set to music by Hubert Parry in 1916. Blake was a believer in sexual equality and free love and there is a school of thought that claims the words to be a celebration of sexual freedom. It has since been interpreted as a criticism of the Industrial Revolution and of the Church of England, has been sung in churches throughout the land to celebrate marriages up to royal level, has been the anthem of the English Rugby Union team and was sung at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. It has links with the gay community, was the battle song of the suffragettes and is considered to be a celebration of all that is English. The Women’s Institute sings it at every meeting; it is sung with gusto at the Labour party conference and the line ‘…bring me my chariot of fire….’ was used in the title of perhaps the most successful sporting film ever.

 

You will not find a more mixed bag than that and I make no apologies for having my own interpretation of MacArthur Park. For me it is about the end of your age of innocence; the point in your life when all that was easy, all that was fresh, all that was young comes to an end. From that moment on, no matter how successful you may be, you will never re-create it. The cake has melted, the recipe has disappeared forever.

 

In many respects, my age of innocence had long passed before the summer of love. I did however still have that freedom to generally do as I wanted. I had few responsibilities, but all that was coming to an end. Soon I was to be responsible for the welfare of classes of kids, for the management of my money, for the way I behaved, for the example I had to set. Before, I could be silly, I could be stupid. That was the real age of innocence, when nothing really mattered, when there was nothing to bother about.

 

All of which leads to several interesting questions. Does everyone have an age where they lose their innocence? Some would claim that there are those in society who are actually born evil but such a debate is far too complex for a simple blog. Fortunately for the greater majority, the final loss of innocence is simply a stage through which we have to pass and it is just a matter of when. Does innocence end when you tell your first lie, first defy or deceive your parents, hit someone without due cause? Or can it be linked to your first fumbling attempt at the sexual act or your first taste of forbidden fruit? Is it connected with the onset of responsibility, with starting work, starting a serious relationship or starting a family? Most interesting of all is when do you think you lost your innocence?

 

It is a fascinating notion for you to ponder on. There will be much to think back over, although the exact time may be impossible to locate. It may take an age to come to a definitive answer, but of one thing I am certain. That final kiss on a Norfolk gate post with all the symbolism of MacArthur Park whirling round my head was, in retrospect, far more important than I thought. It was my last embrace as an innocent man.

 

M J Hodkinson

 

Savour the Memories Blog 1 & 2

Memories to Savour, Blog 1 - July 2012

How I came to write a Biography

 

In 2007, ‘retirement’ seemed the best word in the world and ‘retiring to live in France’ had to be the most beautiful phrase ever spoken. I practiced it in front of the mirror, enunciating each syllable as if I was Laurence Olivier on some Shakespearian stage many years ago. At the time we had no worries about retirement and scarcely a few with France. I had French ‘O’ level, we already owned a house there, so it was good-bye drudgery, hello paradise.

 

Amazingly the ‘France’ bit has been successful. Some joker once told me that the only problem with France was the French. What drivel! We could not have asked for a nicer welcome and, language apart, the locals here are certainly no different from our previous neighbours in East Lancashire. Obviously there are those we find more attractive to be with than others, but is that not just the norm?

 

Only once have we witnessed antagonism but that is easily explained away. Café de France in Issigeac, the 2007 Rugby Union World Cup semi-final, England v France.  The magnificent left boot of Jonny Wilkinson, England frenziedly withstanding ten minutes of French pressure to win fourteen - nine. Too much ‘vin rouge’ on the part of the Frenchman, an old guy from Denmark celebrating with us……… and crash!! Juergen the Dane was smashed into the bar and the assailant’s mates dragged their man away. Massive sympathy from the packed café, a free Armagnac from the proprietress and we were quickly friends. Seven days later, we were all together again watching the final against South Africa. No problems that time.

 

A far greater problem has been 'retirement' itself. You have a lot more time in which to spend your money, but (unless you want to dig deeply into your savings) you have less money to spend. We were extremely naive, assuming that because the exchange rate was 1.50€ to £1.00 in early 2007, it would always remain at that figure. We were in a complete state of shock when the rate plunged virtually to parity by the end of the first year. It has taken five long years to creep back towards the low one-twenties and our savings have been massively hit. Therefore we have had to look at ways to increase our income as well as rigorously controlling our expenditure.

 

The British who most prosper in the Dordogne are generally those where the man is either extremely 'handy' or has had a trade to fall back upon. With thousands of ex-pats over here who prefer to employ workmen who speak their language, they are on a winner. If you are an ex-teacher (French graduates apart) and have the DIY skills of a hedgehog, you have little chance of forging a new career. I have taught some English, we have had Saturday employment in the summer, changing over gites and cottages which are rented out to holiday makers and I have even laboured for friends. I think they paid me out of the goodness of their hearts because my lack of upper-body strength and pedestrian pace make me far from marketable in that field of work. We have earned ‘beer money’, but nothing like the amount we needed to change our life style.

 

It is only when you retire that you realise the bonus that work brings to your life. Money apart, it places you in challenging places. It offers you an opportunity to show your worth, to earn respect and gives you a raison d'etre to rise early, bringing a focus to the day. If you are not careful, retirement can decelerate your life and instill bad habits. Fifty years ago, the retiring sixty-five year old was probably ready to ‘put up’ the old feet, slow everything down and try to enjoy the last few years of life. Now the retiree may have another thirty years to look forward to, is probably both mentally and physically fit and still extremely capable of holding down employment. Thus in retirement, it is now so important to stay as active as possible, looking on life as a challenge and even being sufficiently proactive to create your own hurdles to leap over. My wife, who is regularly riddled with pain from a sciatic nerve which refuses to behave itself, has metaphorically said 'sod it' and taken up horse riding again. She has somehow taken ownership of an old gelding and even though she spends much of her time grooming and 'pooh picking', she loves it.

 

So with all of this floating round my brain, I pulled myself out of bed one April morning and shuffled into the bathroom. I 'pointed Percy at the porcelain' as they used to say in the sixties and the idea hit me. My mother is ninety-two and when she goes, she will take with her so much information about life over the last century. Not so much the great events; they have been well chronicled, but the everyday things of which the younger generations know nothing. Leaving school at fourteen, her first flirtatious flings with lads, the difficulty of living through a war, raising a family in those days of austerity, holidays on coaches, a first car, so many deaths around her; the story of her life in a nut shell. She is now too frail of course to remember all of the details but would it not be wonderful for those a little younger to have their biography written for them whilst their brains are still active? Not to be sold in shops but given to friends and families; stacked full of stories and photographs to be passed down through the generations.

 

Jumping into the shower, I realised that this was something I could do. I can write, in fact I have almost finished a novel, but it lacks the invention and twists of evil to really engage the modern reader. It will no doubt stay on my lap top forever, but you do not have to be a Robert Ludlum or a JK Rowling to write a biography. The story is already there. You just need the skills to put it into words and maybe tweak it a little bit here and there to make it interesting. I threw some clothes on (didn't want to shock her too much) and rushed back into the bedroom to reveal my new project.

 

An idea is one thing, putting it into practice is another. Good friends generally give good advice. Ian has published poetry and short-story books and he was a great help with the detail. Then there was Tania. An illustrator and book publisher, her confidence is infectious. Like Ian, she loves to listen and try to help. Best of all, she introduced me to her mother. If ever there was a person who had a story waiting to be told, it was Mandy. We spoke on the phone and I journeyed to the Welsh borders to meet her.

 

For six hours on a rainy Saturday afternoon, she talked about her life. I listened, copiously making notes and interjecting occasionally when she threatened to go off track. The Chelsea-Liverpool FA Cup Final was on the television in another room, but I was hooked. I felt like a Michael Parkinson from way back when, drawing out the interesting facets of her life; a little prompt here, a tiny probe there. Fortunately there was no 'Emu' to attack me so I escaped unscathed, her words spinning round in my head as I drove north; story lines changing with every bend of the road.

 

I emailed each chapter to her; she perused it and sent it back with the occasional alteration. Every few days I received another forgotten story and that had to be fitted into the appropriate place. I used relevant words from popular songs to introduce each new chapter. I wondered if it would seem ‘tacky’ but Mandy told me that she could not wait to see which song I had chosen next. She had lived for sixty-something years, half of which were spent in East Africa. This was a period that spanned colonialism and independence, so I was able to link in contemporary historical events which had a bearing on her life. Sometimes she skimmed over seemingly crucial aspects and so I probed some more, trying to give her biography that extra edge; a touch of darkness, a hint of intrigue. At times emails were being exchanged daily and I was working for up to eight hours a day on the book. Talk about a focus returning to my life......

 

Twenty three chapters and close to eighty thousand words on, ‘Mandy, Mambas and Marathons’ was complete (or so I thought). I could not believe how difficult it was to proof read. I believed my spelling and grammar to be bullet proof, but found the occasional random full stop instead of a comma, the speech marks which opened a quote but which had not been closed. I edited it, Mandy edited it and the publisher edited it, but we still continued to find the odd mistake. Someone said that even the greatest literature will have a flaw somewhere, it is almost impossible to spot every one.

 

Mandy and her family produced almost two hundred photographs, some black and white, some coloured, each one with a caption which helped to bring the story even more to life. Tania (my publisher) is so accomplished in all things ‘book production’ and she went for landscape as opposed to portrait design. When I first saw the finished article, my mouth fell open. It looked so appealing, the photos drawing you into the text. Mandy was so delighted and friends have since commented on its professional appearance.

 

From my point of view, it is one thing to make a product look good, but did it read ‘good’? I took it to an American university lecturer and author with eleven published books to her name. She took it away and then sent me a literary critique; the full works. She picked up on all the things I had tried to do. The pace, the sensitivity, the focus on the story of a lady whose life had been totally fascinating, yet so difficult for much of its entirety. She noted that as a personal historian, I had recorded whatever was asked of me and written it in a totally non-judgemental way. I was pleased to receive the compliments, but it was even nicer to discover that I could achieve again.

 

And so where do I go from here? Friends have told me to find further subjects and write their life stories, because it is something that I can do. That is the reason for the web site and my plunge into twenty-first century technology such as Twitter, Blogs and Facebook. I do believe that I can complete in less than three months, with the customer certainly receiving value for money. It can be hard or soft backed, portrait or landscape and can include pictures.... or not. It can be produced electronically to appear on Kindle and the cost is obviously dependent on the chosen option.

 

But whether it is a son or daughter buying it as a special present for a beloved parent or a parent wishing to give the book out as a present to children, grandchildren or friends, one thing is certain. It will be an enduring testament to their life up to the present day; the life of someone who is much loved, probably thinks they are quite ordinary but who holds so much fascinating information of a time which is quickly being forgotten. Now what was the name of the village in Holland where my father was wounded by that piece of German shrapnel in 1944? If only he was still alive........ then I would really be able to savour the memories.

 

Michael J Hodkinson

Memories to Savour, Blog 2 – August 2012

The London Olympics – reflections from across the channel

 

Sports’ statistics are usually the forte of the anorak. Find someone who can tell you the England starting line up in the 1990 (Gazza crying) World cup semi final in Turin, someone who can tell you Freddie Flintoff’s highest test score or Seb Coe’s 800 metres world record time which stood for years and they will all probably have something in common. Some would describe them as ‘sad’, others would say they are probably somewhere on the autistic spectrum, whilst ‘boring’ would be the descriptive word of choice for many. Surprisingly, this hard-core group of statisticians was joined by millions and millions as July moved into August this year.

 

Predictably, as a ‘boring saddo anorak’ (my wife’s description, not mine), I looked forward with relish to the first day of competition. As with all international competitions, the table(s) is so important and I was absorbed with the battle of the two goliaths for the top slot and by the even more intriguing competition for third place on the final medals chart. Would Team GB be able to withstand the onslaught from Russia, the French, the Aussies and the Germans? Standing in the local boulangerie on that first Saturday morning, a man whom I doubted would have known his drop handlebars from his bicycle pump casually told me that ‘Cav’ would bring home our first gold. Several days later he was waiting for yet another baguette. “I told you that Brad would set the ball rolling, didn’t I?” he said. I smiled, but refrained from making the obvious comment.

 

I was however quite shocked by the amount of sporting information that so many of the ex-pat community digested in the first few days of the games. One day I said that I thought that ‘we’ had won ten golds. “It’s actually eleven now because we have just picked one up at Eton Dorney this morning,” responded a lady who I was certain knew ‘jack shit’ about any sport. Another lady who would seem more at home at the Conservative Party Conference than the Olympic Stadium approached me on the morning of the golden Saturday. “I know you know these things,” she said anxiously, “so do you agree with me that ‘Jess’ will have to throw over fifty in the javelin to be certain of a gold, even though she has a lead of one hundred and thirty two points at the moment?” I could not believe what was happening, here was the anorak being out anoraked.

 

There is nothing like national success to put a spring in your step. A normally quiet man whom I only knew as an amateur violinist stopped me in the supermarché. Normally it would be a quick ‘bonjour’ but we rabbited away for fifteen minutes, stood in front of the cold meat counter dressed in shorts and T shirt. I was freezing by the time we had exhausted every highlight, grateful for once to re-emerge into the blazing sun. We had an Olympic barbecue one night, any excuse for a piss up, and Usain Bolt did not disappoint. Running on the last leg of the sprint relay, he blasted away from the change-over leaving Tyson Gay in his wake. The highlight for me of course was Mo Farrah. It brought back so many memories of Kelly Holmes’ double in Athens eight years ago when I knew without a shadow of doubt at the start of the race that the second gold was coming to the United Kingdom. Before the games, my wife thought Farah was a trouser manufacturer, producing something like chinos, but now she knows he is an athlete, has a wife and a daughter and another one on the way. She knows he came from Somalia as a child and is a wonderful advert for Britain’s multi-cultural society. So much information courtesy of the tremendous coverage by BBC television.

 

On yet another evening, we left the local night market extremely late and popped into the Café de France for a last quickie; ‘un autre pour la route’ as we say. The television was on; France 2 was broadcasting highlights of the J.O. (Jeux Olympiques/Olympic Games) as they are referred to over here. Jason Kenny, sprint cyclist from Bolton, a young man epitomising northern grit was in the centre of the Podium receiving his gold medal. Within seconds, ‘God Save the Queen’ was being played and having more beer in our bodies than brain cells, we sang away lustily. Not a great idea considering that the bar is the unofficial headquarters of the local rugby club. They could have eaten us as an aperitif to their suppers, but they entered into the spirit of the occasion, bizarrely responding with a few choruses of ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot’ before embracing us warmly.

 

One of their number then engaged us in conversation for an hour or more as glasses of beer arrived regularly from different parts of the bar. Like most of his compatriots, Olivier could accept that France was lagging behind us in the medal race, but they have still to come to terms with the result of the Tour de France. “Ziss Wiggins has come from notting, he must be a ……” and at this point he imitated a drug-user injecting himself in the forearm. We tried to explain about Bradley’s formidable track record, but much is lost in the translation and we left with the feeling that Britain will have to win ‘le Tour’ on several more occasions before we can be recognised as a genuine cycling nation.

 

Other French people have been much more phlegmatic about the event. “La France dans le J.O?” I asked my local wine man, Jean-Marie by name. A quiet and dignified man who can talk with some authority on many sports, he simply shrugged his shoulders as only French people can. “Les Anglaises, too good for us.” I tried to explain that it was not Angleterre but Grande Bretagne that were competing in the games but the French struggle with the concept of four nations within one nation……just like Alex Salmond does, come to think of it.

 

France was probably content with its seventh place on the final list and I was caught out by the performance of South Korea who finished fifth. This was a schoolboy error because they had finished fourth in 88 when they hosted the games and finished ninth at Athens and seventh in Beijing. You may remember that Paris was red hot favourite to win the right to stage the 2012 Olympic Games. Back in 2005, many people said that it was the strong intervention of Tony Blair and David Beckham on the day before the vote that swung the IOC members in favour of London. Without these two, we may have been following events from Paris and no doubt witnessing a much stronger performance from the locals.

 

The golden moments which resulted in the singing of the La Marseillaise came in the swimming pool early on and then at the end of the fortnight. Renaud Lavillenie won a gold medal, thus putting Les Bleus back on the top of the pole vaulting perch. Then on the final Sunday afternoon, we were quietly watching the Community Shield between Chelsea and Manchester City in an ‘English pub’ in Toulouse. The game was just beginning to be interesting because Ashley was once more impersonating a spoilt little brat. Dummies were hurtling out of prams and with Ivanovic already leaving for an early bath, the statistician in me was wondering if any side had lost both its full backs in one final before. Suddenly a horde of locals came in and the large screen was switched over to the Sweden-France handball final. I had never watched a handball game before, but this was so exciting and when France edged it 22-21, the bar erupted. ‘Les immortals’ was the heading in L’Equipe the following morning and no doubt many bottles of Ricard (Pernod in England) were consumed in their honour.

 

So the games came to an end and we were left to reflect on so many successes. There appears to be no doubt that the British population was electrified by the event and the good will factor was everywhere. No doubt socio-economic graduates will argue over whether the ends (the joy, happiness and sheer delight, the legacy, the boost to our economy) will justify the means (possibly over £15billion of public money spent). I will leave it to the brain boxes to debate, but was it not the brain boxes in education in the 70s and 80s who argued that competitive sport had no place in the schools’ curriculum? Not fair on the losers was the basis of the argument. No wonder we won one gold medal at the Atlanta Games in 1996 and thank god the brain boxes were subsequently ignored, otherwise Mo Farrah would have stopped just short of the line to save his fellow competitors from humiliation. From deep in the heart of south west France we had a ball watching everyone in the United Kingdom having a ball and, if just for a short time, there was a myriad of sports statisticians around to keep me in my place, then that is a memory for my wife to savour.

 

For anyone who is interested………………

 The England side in 1990 (in a highly unusual 5-2-3 formation) was Peter Shilton; Paul Parker, Des Walker, Terry Butcher, Mark Wright, Stuart Pearce; Paul Gascoigne, Chris Waddle; Peter Beardsley, David Platt, Gary Lineker.

 Flintoff’s highest test score was 167 v West Indies in 2004.

 Coe’s time was 1.41.73 in Florence in 1981, a record which stood for 16 years.

 

Michael J Hodkinson