Yesterday, Tuesday, July 1st not making better use of the warmest day of the year I re experienced the feeling of missing out and remembered all those times past and recent when this was so. It also ended on a mixture of high and low notes.
The process of scanning photographs also reminds of past times, many no longer part of my every day consciousness. This is being a positive and healing experience with moments of sweet sadness of times which cannot be repeated, and yet I am still able to relive them as the past becomes more important than the present. This is the nature of being old and adjusting to the situation
I am also in awe of the basic software which recaptures the original colours of photographs faded from exposure to sunlight and which also enables separating individuals in groups and making enlargements from the smallest of photographs to seeing for the first time individual faces and viewpoints in close up.
I have so very few photographs of my childhood and so I rely on films to remind me of those times. By accident I came across a series covering the second world war which have no recollection of seeing when it was first shown in 2001, called the Cazelets. This is a perspective on the war from the viewpoint of a privileged family living in a country house in Sussex who also have a London town house.. When the war comes the family congregate at the country home to escape the blitz and although everyone is affected the quality of their lives only changes marginally.
This contrasted so greatly with what happened to my birth and care mothers and their sisters who had been a family of some standing through the work of their father for the inter war British navy and then the British Army and their involvement with the Catholic Church and which effectively influenced what had become the indigenous predominantly population. Suddenly they found themselves nobodies, in a dark cold work, having worked in factories by day and huddle in fear in the air raid shelter at night. While food had been basic and simply prepared it always been plentiful and now everything was scare, and there was even difficulty in getting hold of the materials to make the family clothing.
There are four entwined branches of Cazelets, grandparents, the central interest generation and their children, each with contrasting personalities and interests to provide a broad canvass of experience at this time.
The good brother is loving to his wife and to his daughter and their tragedy is not the war but the illness and death of the wife from cancer. Too often these years are seen only in terms of those who fought and died or were injured directly caused by the war. There were many heroes such as this family, the woman who suffered greatly but tried to protect her family and the family to tried to protect their mother and all with great love. However in this instance the family could afford the best local and London medical, nursing care in the kind of the situation where the consultant personally sees the patient to their waiting car.
Then there is the family where the father goes to sea and becomes stranded in in France after helping out at Dunkirk. He had a young family and his boarding school son finds it very difficult to cope. Everyone thinks he is dead except the teenage daughter who writes to General De Gaulle hoping to be told that her father is alive and working as a spy. In order to keep busy and despite having a baby, his wife tries to help by visiting the severely wounded in hospital and befriends one severely disfigured man where an inevitable relationship develops, innocent but emotional. She can have this involvement because she has the help of a nanny and although domestic service ended for the majority of the middle classes in the fifties and sixties it has returned with both parents actively working in the contemporary job market and because of the increasing provision of help in the home during old age.
Then news comes that the husband is alive and being hidden in France and everything changes again, although in terms of the relationship between husband and wife we know it can never return to the position it was before.
The next family is the core family in that the wife appears to be in control of the household but not her husband. A headword where Jimmy McCardle of Brookside is the odd job chauffer gardener with a story of his own. Unhappily married his wife running off and setting up a new home, admitting she married because of pregnancy where her son was not his. He is able to come to an understanding with the housekeeper as the war progresses and his wife' seeks a divorce. This couple observe the rules of behaviour required bur rarely followed by the middle and upper classes of the day and are an example to them. However not so the husband of the lady of the house, a squadron leader responsible for the management of an air base at Hendon who uses the London home for not one but two extra marital relationships. He is close with his daughter who wishes to become an actress rather than go to Oxford. She discovers the infidelity when in London part of the social scene where she has met and caught the eye of a well known portrait painter and minor aristocracy and where in what I believe is the end of the TV series. as I have only found a synopsis of five episodes, the couple marry. There is a fourth family where the son visits and becomes a conscientious objector and has an emotional break down inevitable given the behaviour and outlook of his father and then acquiescence of his mother.
I was struck by the contrast between their experiences and my own. The physical contrast in life style although at the time I had no idea that our experience was not everyone's. This changed as soon I began to cinema two three and four times a week and immerse myself in the adult fiction after moving from preparatory to the senior school.
The one difference which strikes me now is their possession and use of motor vehicles throughout the wartime, when I recollect seeing so few vehicles and where only one relation came to own a car in the late 1940's. The second was the cultural and recreational experience of our respective families. They are created as the quintessential English family with servants, nannies, and an overall sense of decency and doing the right thing (marital behaviour excepted. It was my good fortunate when I left school at sixteen years in the mid 1950's and went to work in a local government office in central London to be attached to a section of six men, one who had fought and lost part of his leg in the first world war and five who had served in second, one at sea, and at least one in the air and something of their lives, their dissatisfactions a decade later and their good wishes that my experience would be better than theirs. They influenced me greatly although I was only there for two years, they influence me still.
This morning I needed some bread and milk but went into the town centre to the bank and to the greengrocers below the station in the search for quality cherries.. There was a mature street musician with a pleasant voice guitar and mouth organ, so I sat on nearby public seating and enjoyed two and half songs, including Let it be, and the war past and present was along way away. I continued to notice the number of mobility vehicles including one lady who whizzed along behaving as if she was still driving a car. There were also two groups of three in pushed wheel chairs with disabilities and a number using disability walking sticks as well as conventional walking supports. I had also noted this mixture when visiting Beverley but there was also the contrast in the dress and physical appearance.
Last night I watched another film on World Vision. The lack of audience appears to have already reduced the amount of time when films are shown from midday to early evening and with the same films being recycled including Travelling Light which is being shown every day. There are several films I wish to see but either they are too late or there are greater interests. I am not sure of my reactions to Our Song a film about Afro Hispanic teenage Americans because the culture is so different from my experience although I did work within a west London West Indian Community for over three years and had subsequent experience of the problems of those of one race or mixed face brought up in a different race or culture.
The interesting aspect of Our Song directed and written by Jim McKay (his first film on a similar subject was Girl's Town) is that being black or mixed race is not the governing issue and the story has a documentary feel which I believed to be authentic. It is the story of three girls who suddenly find their world turned upside down when their school closes because of asbestos and they are individually required to find new schools. Such as situation would not occur in the UK or be tolerated by any of the major political parties and by the community in general. The state through the local education authority involved would be expected to make alternative arrangements and where each young person and their families would be consulted and advised to ensure there was the minimum disruption.
The second interesting aspect is the girls were not controlled or governed by either a religious/moral framework or their parents in the way which young people used to be until the 1970's here in the UK and to a major extent still. They were surprising "mature" about some aspects of life. The one big influence in their lives which required dedication and commitment was their membership of a 60 a strong marching band, the like of which we do not have in the UK although there is the more sedate bands of drums and kazoos with baton wavers in the northern counties of England. Most children almost without exception attempt to steal something from a store such as Woolworths as a dare, to be part of a group, or to test themselves. In the same way that going to parties, discussing boys and their sexual experience was also part of their lives at one time the film did not suggest that these were other than events and therefore my impression sit hat three were intended to represent normal teenagers albeit from different family background experiences, one when the father is in prison, one separated and one together and understanding. So the culture was different but I felt there were truths and realities about growing up. I also felt sad and angry because it seemed to me that the odds were already stacked against all three and that they would have to have exceptional drive and be exceptionally lucky if they were not quickly to find themselves prisoner of their social cultural conditions. My impression is that girls and women are even more unequal in black communities in the USA and Muslim communities here in the UK as their white counterparts.
I am drinking a wine from Argentina this week and the teletex today announced that Newcastle has signed an Argentinean player Gutierrez. I will mention that And Murray was outclassed and humiliated by Nadal in the Quarter final at Wimbledon so his reign over the British need for the hero (covers heroines) was one of the shortest in living memory. He had to put up and do down fighting. He did neither and for that rather like Gordon Brown the British public are unlikely to forgive unless he can do the impossible next year and win. Brown and his present Cabinet never appeared to grasp that Tony Blair won a third term as did Margaret Thatcher despite their personal popularity Interestingly it was those of significant lesser ability who brought the two leaders down, not the British public.
The process of scanning photographs also reminds of past times, many no longer part of my every day consciousness. This is being a positive and healing experience with moments of sweet sadness of times which cannot be repeated, and yet I am still able to relive them as the past becomes more important than the present. This is the nature of being old and adjusting to the situation
I am also in awe of the basic software which recaptures the original colours of photographs faded from exposure to sunlight and which also enables separating individuals in groups and making enlargements from the smallest of photographs to seeing for the first time individual faces and viewpoints in close up.
I have so very few photographs of my childhood and so I rely on films to remind me of those times. By accident I came across a series covering the second world war which have no recollection of seeing when it was first shown in 2001, called the Cazelets. This is a perspective on the war from the viewpoint of a privileged family living in a country house in Sussex who also have a London town house.. When the war comes the family congregate at the country home to escape the blitz and although everyone is affected the quality of their lives only changes marginally.
This contrasted so greatly with what happened to my birth and care mothers and their sisters who had been a family of some standing through the work of their father for the inter war British navy and then the British Army and their involvement with the Catholic Church and which effectively influenced what had become the indigenous predominantly population. Suddenly they found themselves nobodies, in a dark cold work, having worked in factories by day and huddle in fear in the air raid shelter at night. While food had been basic and simply prepared it always been plentiful and now everything was scare, and there was even difficulty in getting hold of the materials to make the family clothing.
There are four entwined branches of Cazelets, grandparents, the central interest generation and their children, each with contrasting personalities and interests to provide a broad canvass of experience at this time.
The good brother is loving to his wife and to his daughter and their tragedy is not the war but the illness and death of the wife from cancer. Too often these years are seen only in terms of those who fought and died or were injured directly caused by the war. There were many heroes such as this family, the woman who suffered greatly but tried to protect her family and the family to tried to protect their mother and all with great love. However in this instance the family could afford the best local and London medical, nursing care in the kind of the situation where the consultant personally sees the patient to their waiting car.
Then there is the family where the father goes to sea and becomes stranded in in France after helping out at Dunkirk. He had a young family and his boarding school son finds it very difficult to cope. Everyone thinks he is dead except the teenage daughter who writes to General De Gaulle hoping to be told that her father is alive and working as a spy. In order to keep busy and despite having a baby, his wife tries to help by visiting the severely wounded in hospital and befriends one severely disfigured man where an inevitable relationship develops, innocent but emotional. She can have this involvement because she has the help of a nanny and although domestic service ended for the majority of the middle classes in the fifties and sixties it has returned with both parents actively working in the contemporary job market and because of the increasing provision of help in the home during old age.
Then news comes that the husband is alive and being hidden in France and everything changes again, although in terms of the relationship between husband and wife we know it can never return to the position it was before.
The next family is the core family in that the wife appears to be in control of the household but not her husband. A headword where Jimmy McCardle of Brookside is the odd job chauffer gardener with a story of his own. Unhappily married his wife running off and setting up a new home, admitting she married because of pregnancy where her son was not his. He is able to come to an understanding with the housekeeper as the war progresses and his wife' seeks a divorce. This couple observe the rules of behaviour required bur rarely followed by the middle and upper classes of the day and are an example to them. However not so the husband of the lady of the house, a squadron leader responsible for the management of an air base at Hendon who uses the London home for not one but two extra marital relationships. He is close with his daughter who wishes to become an actress rather than go to Oxford. She discovers the infidelity when in London part of the social scene where she has met and caught the eye of a well known portrait painter and minor aristocracy and where in what I believe is the end of the TV series. as I have only found a synopsis of five episodes, the couple marry. There is a fourth family where the son visits and becomes a conscientious objector and has an emotional break down inevitable given the behaviour and outlook of his father and then acquiescence of his mother.
I was struck by the contrast between their experiences and my own. The physical contrast in life style although at the time I had no idea that our experience was not everyone's. This changed as soon I began to cinema two three and four times a week and immerse myself in the adult fiction after moving from preparatory to the senior school.
The one difference which strikes me now is their possession and use of motor vehicles throughout the wartime, when I recollect seeing so few vehicles and where only one relation came to own a car in the late 1940's. The second was the cultural and recreational experience of our respective families. They are created as the quintessential English family with servants, nannies, and an overall sense of decency and doing the right thing (marital behaviour excepted. It was my good fortunate when I left school at sixteen years in the mid 1950's and went to work in a local government office in central London to be attached to a section of six men, one who had fought and lost part of his leg in the first world war and five who had served in second, one at sea, and at least one in the air and something of their lives, their dissatisfactions a decade later and their good wishes that my experience would be better than theirs. They influenced me greatly although I was only there for two years, they influence me still.
This morning I needed some bread and milk but went into the town centre to the bank and to the greengrocers below the station in the search for quality cherries.. There was a mature street musician with a pleasant voice guitar and mouth organ, so I sat on nearby public seating and enjoyed two and half songs, including Let it be, and the war past and present was along way away. I continued to notice the number of mobility vehicles including one lady who whizzed along behaving as if she was still driving a car. There were also two groups of three in pushed wheel chairs with disabilities and a number using disability walking sticks as well as conventional walking supports. I had also noted this mixture when visiting Beverley but there was also the contrast in the dress and physical appearance.
Last night I watched another film on World Vision. The lack of audience appears to have already reduced the amount of time when films are shown from midday to early evening and with the same films being recycled including Travelling Light which is being shown every day. There are several films I wish to see but either they are too late or there are greater interests. I am not sure of my reactions to Our Song a film about Afro Hispanic teenage Americans because the culture is so different from my experience although I did work within a west London West Indian Community for over three years and had subsequent experience of the problems of those of one race or mixed face brought up in a different race or culture.
The interesting aspect of Our Song directed and written by Jim McKay (his first film on a similar subject was Girl's Town) is that being black or mixed race is not the governing issue and the story has a documentary feel which I believed to be authentic. It is the story of three girls who suddenly find their world turned upside down when their school closes because of asbestos and they are individually required to find new schools. Such as situation would not occur in the UK or be tolerated by any of the major political parties and by the community in general. The state through the local education authority involved would be expected to make alternative arrangements and where each young person and their families would be consulted and advised to ensure there was the minimum disruption.
The second interesting aspect is the girls were not controlled or governed by either a religious/moral framework or their parents in the way which young people used to be until the 1970's here in the UK and to a major extent still. They were surprising "mature" about some aspects of life. The one big influence in their lives which required dedication and commitment was their membership of a 60 a strong marching band, the like of which we do not have in the UK although there is the more sedate bands of drums and kazoos with baton wavers in the northern counties of England. Most children almost without exception attempt to steal something from a store such as Woolworths as a dare, to be part of a group, or to test themselves. In the same way that going to parties, discussing boys and their sexual experience was also part of their lives at one time the film did not suggest that these were other than events and therefore my impression sit hat three were intended to represent normal teenagers albeit from different family background experiences, one when the father is in prison, one separated and one together and understanding. So the culture was different but I felt there were truths and realities about growing up. I also felt sad and angry because it seemed to me that the odds were already stacked against all three and that they would have to have exceptional drive and be exceptionally lucky if they were not quickly to find themselves prisoner of their social cultural conditions. My impression is that girls and women are even more unequal in black communities in the USA and Muslim communities here in the UK as their white counterparts.
I am drinking a wine from Argentina this week and the teletex today announced that Newcastle has signed an Argentinean player Gutierrez. I will mention that And Murray was outclassed and humiliated by Nadal in the Quarter final at Wimbledon so his reign over the British need for the hero (covers heroines) was one of the shortest in living memory. He had to put up and do down fighting. He did neither and for that rather like Gordon Brown the British public are unlikely to forgive unless he can do the impossible next year and win. Brown and his present Cabinet never appeared to grasp that Tony Blair won a third term as did Margaret Thatcher despite their personal popularity Interestingly it was those of significant lesser ability who brought the two leaders down, not the British public.
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