2439 The reality of the Cruel Sea II

I commenced to read the second part of reading the Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat on my train journey from Newcastle to London King Cross a week ago, dividing the three hours between the books and reading the material for P L A C E visits. It is now Thursday 28^th March 2013 and I am at Newcastle station once more on a train to Kings Cross although I will be alighting this time at Newark Northgate spending Easter in the Midlands and staying at the Mansfield.

 

In the first part of the book the reader is introduced to the officers and some of the crew of Compass Rose, a British Royal Navy Corvette, hurriedly designed and built for convoy escort work in the north Atlantic. We are taken through the process of commissioning and sea trials and the escort journey as the crew discovers the difficulty of accommodating eighty men in the cramped ship, no more than a large trawler, as she rolled in the ocean rough with water splashing in everywhere or condensation from the close quartering of men and supplies for war and for body.

 

The only experienced officer is Ericson, the captain, with experience of the Royal Navy and of Merchant shipping making him the ideal individual to attempt to shepherd convoys from the prowling sea serpents in the form of the German submarine. His home is Liverpool but he had mixed reactions on learning that their ship was to base in the port such was his appreciation of the demands of command in war. During the year covered by part 2 although his sea going son was also based in the city port they were never to meet.

 

The bane of everyone’s life was Bennett the number 1, second in command, just as inexperienced as the rest but gaining seniority because of his age and the ability to project himself through the confidence of being a former salesman. He loved tinned sausages which he selected for breakfast, lunch or tea at least once a day. There were two subs, Lockhart who had sailed a boat on the Solent, a free lance journalist writer who had mixed in what he describes as a bohemian world and who had experience of relationships with women but now knew it was wrong to engage in a new relationship until the war ended. His views as those of the husbands and wives who remained loyal to their partners during the long years of separation were much more common than more recent generations.

 

The second sub Ferraby was a very different man inexperienced of the sea and of life although newly married. He had jumped at the opportunity to train as an officer but quickly found the process of giving orders to experienced seamen as well as other novices, a challenge which he repeatedly failed to meet to his own and the satisfaction of his colleague. As in life outside the Services the weak have a tendency to attract the attention of the bully and in the close confines of small ship the bullying and the exploitation can become relentless. He had wanted to move his wife up to Liverpool but Bennett refused to pass his request to the captain.

 

As in the film and radio play a fourth officer was to appear before the departure of Bennett for a suspected duodenal ulcer. Morrell also married, to an independently minded minor actress, Morell had the measure of Bennett and new how to put him down without being insubordinate. It was Lockhart who expressed concern at way Bennett treated Ferraby arguing that instead of constantly picking on the young man words of encouragement would help to bring confidence. Such was the expression of dissent that Bennett insisted on putting him on report to the Captain who tried to defuse and then side step confrontation, supporting his deputy as the service code dictated but refusing to go beyond a reprimand as Bennett requested.

 

Bennett had spent his leave picking up a woman of the night at the hotel in which they stayed although I cannot remember if this is the same woman who he brought to the Christmas Party before their first convoy venture. She had his measure too.  It was also Bennett who when they returned from leave made the infamous remark about Morell and Ferraby having left a bun in the oven which provoked gasps in the cinemas given era when it was  first released..

 

But the initial focus of the second part of the story was not any of the officers but Tallow who lived with his sister Gladys at 29 Dock Road and who the first leave when half the ships company were granted six days he brought with him his friend Chief Watts from the engine room. Gladys had been widowed four years previously and quickly struck a friendship with the chief a mild mannered man who went off for a drink with her brother while she prepared them some tea. It was a year later when the two returned from one of many convoys that they were given shore leave along with those who had family or loved ones after the news that Liverpool and the surrounding Merseyside had been blitzed for more than a week and they feared the worst when the phone to warn of their arrival was not answered. The street was badly damaged with so many died that the Mayor and Corporation had attended the mass grave burial. She would have known and felt nothing was the attempt to soften the horror of what had happened.

 

There was irony for these men had by then become accustomed to the prospect of being sunk once the fall of France had occurred and the German Navy was able to use French Dutch and Belgium ports for its submarines and its fighter escorts were also based along coastal airfields. There had been no meeting the enemy on those first convoys and no convoy ships sunk only finding that the corvette rolled its innards out when the water was rough and they were more often than not. Then the first ships was lost and less than a third of its crew survived and by the time of the second year they were losing up to a third of a convoy as the submarines commenced to hunt in packs. They became sued to sending out a boat to pick up the survivors while they went in vain search of the submarine before returning for the boat and then to bury those who did not survive and were recovered. Sometimes a ship would just exploded or split in two before sinking within seconds and as the author comments men learned quickly how to die without making a fuss.  This will have been true for some, but only some I suspect a comfort for families and loved ones left behind, as with Gladys someone on hand to declare she did not know anything, she did not therefore suffer

 

They all learned how to cope with the four hours on and then off, barely sleeping but knowing that when on duty they were required to function at their best, especially in storms when the convoy was dispersed on fogs when there was risk of collision so the normal zig zag pattern had to be abandoned. It was Bennett who was found out, eventually, and who got himself out of the service. He managed to  spend most of his Watch hiding from wind and the cold checking on the asdic or using some other excuse and delegation to others as a means of escaping the elements

 

His departure had a bonus for Lockhart who was made up to Number 1 as they had to depart before a replacement could be found. He had already been promoted to Lieutenant on Ericson’s recommendation so after assuring the captain he could cope and doing well on the first convoy in the new role, the appointment was confirmed.

 

 

We also learned of the problems which Morell was to encounter when he returned home to find that his wife had carried on leading the same social life as hen he had been with her before enlistment. He wanted to spend time with her quietly recovering at home but she wanted to be out eating, and partying on every night. She seemed to know people mainly men everywhere they went and one telephoned to enquire if she would soon bring her great body to wherever he was. An instead of showing any interest in what his experience was like she only commented that he had only one stripe and not three.

 

Worse was to come for Morell during the long leave while the ship underwent a major refit but before then we learned another lesson of war. This concerns another crew member, Able Seaman Gregg, who failed to report for duty having gone ashore during a period of leave before their first convoy of 1941. There was surprise at his failure because he was considered a dependable crew member and that he had missed his ship entirely when on active duty was a very serious charge. That he offered no explanation but was prepared to take whatever punishment the captain ordered was something that neither the Captain or Lockhart was prepared to accept without making some effort to establish the cause.

 

His story and that of Morell was to become one familiar during the war, of those who when parted from their loved ones for any length of time find it difficult to resist the opportunity of a relationship should such a circumstance arise, and there have and are likely to always remain men willing to approach a woman even though she wears a wedding ring who he fancies. Admittedly there are also some women, more now than then who do not need much persuasion whether their partner is long away or not should opportunity come their way, but in general it is some men, not all who are on the constant look out for an opportunity.

 

In this first instance Gregg returned home early to discover a vehicle outside his home and the lights on upstairs. There was an attempt on the part of the couple to bluff their way out of the situation and then remorse and promises which might have been sufficient for the man to have returned to sea, but before he was due his wife disappeared and he went in search only to eventually find her abandoned once a pregnancy was established, and so being dependable he had agreed to take the woman back and make the child his. His reason for silence had been the wish that nothing of the circumstances would get the other ratings which would normally have proved the situation if recounted during the official hearing before the captain. Because the captain arranged for Lockhart to question in private it was possible to conduct the official hearing in such away that these details were not exposed and for the captain to order a punishment which void custody. This was not to prove a blessing in disguise.

 

But as I say he was not alone among the ship’s company as I have already hinted that the actress wife of Morell did not restrict her active social life while he was away or when he returned. But it was only on the long period ashore during the full refit and she had gained a part in along running production in the Westend, and she made excuses why she had to go off for some evening meal or to some party without him as a means of securing her acting future and the ardour of her passion disappeared that the dark thoughts arose and lingered.

 

And then the reality, the horror, the full nature of the war hit them. The hunting packs of submarines grew larger and the number of sinking increased despite the gaining greater Navy support for the convoys they now went to meet off Gibraltar.  First their sister Corvette, which had travelled with them from the beginning, The Sorrel had gone with only a handful of survivors including the Captain fund on the raft nestling a dead rating who he had attempt to help survive the night before the rescue party arrived.

 

And then there was what was to become their second or third darkest moment of the war although when it happened for the captain in particular and also for Lockhart who as number 1 became responsible for the Asdic and advising on the nature of object thrown up on the screen. It was when they were going to rescue men from sunk cargo vessel that Lockhart was certain there was a submarine below and Lockhart the Captain made the decision to drop the depth charges only for their to be no sign of the enemy afterwards, only the dead of their own. Afterwards two of the previously rescued captains, tried to bring comfort but for Ericson the war had changed and that Lockhart said his was the greater responsibility failed to help. They had done what had to be done and for them there was not even the knowledge that they had saved countless others by getting the submarine.

 

But worse was to come when the ship with a party of wrens some 20 who they had seen taking air on deck was sunk but worse still was when those rescued were also killed when their second ship went down.

 

Then their engine had to be repaired to avoid a complete breakdown and they sat motionless and alone listening to hammering as they felt sure would any submarine coming their way. Then as they strove to catch up the convoy they spotted something on the radar and as they approached the coning tower of an enemy submarine could be seen trailing the convoy and waiting for the night to attack. They had manage to fire couple of shots before the sub dived but they were quickly upon it with depth charges as the pinging grew louder and quicker.  They watched as the U boat rose to the surface and there was an element of surprise when someone fire back at them from the machine gun so their two pounder was then even quicker in its response. They watched as the U boat crew swam towards them, their craft doomed.

 

The German captain was held separate in Erickson’s cabin and was none to please by the greeting of Heil Hitler saying he had been taken by surprise and by implication that Ericson’s tactics had been somehow unfair. Ericson warned the guard that the prisoner was dangerous and that if he made any move to shoot him. After burying the one man of their crew killed by the machine gun and one of the German who had also not survived Erickson commented of he enemy that they looked a scruffy lot and said to Lockhart, I think we ought to win the war, don’t you?”

2438 Journey to Croydon and visits to Wallington, Mitcham, Wimbledon, Waterloo and the Millennium Dome

I do not have the time before making my third visit of the year to provide a considered account of my short visit to Croydon, Wallington, Wimbledon and the Millennium Dome experienced in artic conditions, including one blizzard. True the visit cannot compare with visits made to the Olympic and Paralympic games last summer but the experience was of interest and enjoyable apart from the walk to find an oriental buffet restaurant on the Sunday morning.

 

The greater part of two days was taken up with private talk with three relatives but I did see the prequel to the Wizard of Oz- Oz The Great and Powerful in 3 D and a viewing of one of the last showings of Les Miserables advertised in London. There were three very good meals, some reading and a little television and several noteworthy encounters with strangers.

 

Thursday morning was sunshine bright when I set off and the weather was such that I took the decision to turn off the central heating having kept it on low throughout the two weeks I was away over Christmas and the New Year, and again over the long weekend visit for my birthday.

 

On the walk to the Metro station I went around the green on the hill rather then crossing diagonally because of the steps, loaded as I was with the case, the rucksack and the Sleep Apnoea machine. I noticed, a young woman in dark glasses because of the sunshine taking the route I would normally, with another young woman exercising her dog and as the two paths converged so did I with the young woman in the dark glasses and unexpectedly she smiled and asked if I was going anywhere interesting. I do not recollect having previously identified the same person from my street or having previously encountered on the hill and while greetings of the day or comments on the weather are passed between strangers I could only think it was someone whose home I called upon in relation to the subsidence in the back lane. Later realised I must have looked similar to those men (and some women of the street, who carry all their possession  in a shopping bag trolley loaded with other bags and who dress for  being outside, including sleeping in all weather, with wool hat, gloves as well as coat and good walking shoes or boots.

 

I found myself telling her where I was going and what I would be doing as well as having a short return before going off again and afterwards debated whether this had been wise. She said she would pray for God to be with me so on balance I decided that she spent her day attempting to put into practice her spiritual beliefs and I was one of many with whom she spoke.

 

I enjoyed a coffee at the station after eating the three small roles I had baked earlier, filled with a Belgian Pate and a few olives with pimento. I watched a train for London arrive on platform 3 shortly after 11.30 which surprised as the 11.58 I was taking was scheduled for platform 4. My first reaction was that the train would turn round platforms for the noon train which meant there would be opportunity to find a good seat and store luggage at leisure. Alas I was mistaken for this was the 12.25 to Kings Cross, a train which I could have booked but at twice the cost of my selected ticket.

 

The consequence of the train from Scotland arriving was that everyone rushed to get on and could find nowhere to place their luggage with my case close to an exit door, the Sleep Apnoea machine in a vacant space on the luggage rack some distance from my seat and my seat part of twosome at the aisle and not a table. It also took sometime to reach my seat because of people coming in both directions However the journey was a good one with only stops at Darlington and York.

It was always a gamble to arrange a trip to London in March although for the past two years the weather in March and April had proved better than most weeks of the summer, especially two years ago when the sun shone hot at the start of the Cricket season and I sat in shirt sleeves, proclaiming how good it was to be alive. Having paid the accommodation and travel in advance I took the decision to make the journey.

 

I attempted to retrieve my luggage before the train reached Kings Cross only to locate but after going up and down the carriage several times I could not see the Sleep Apnoea machine bag. I had to wait until the last person left the carriage and saw the machine covered by a coat and the luggage of the last passenger a middle aged man on his own and I wondered if he had seen the orphan lap top looking bag and hoped it was unclaimed. I was too relieved to challenge his failure to alert me.

 

At St Pancras I topped up my Oyster Travel card with £20 and did not have to wait long for the next cross rail train to Brighton. It was cold when I left the station at East Croydon for the short downhill walk to the Travel Lodge. At booking in I asked if a flat screen TV was available but I was advised that they had no way of knowing which rooms had one. It was agreed I would go back if not successful which I did. Unfortunately the next room did not and I had to make do with a traditional set.

 

For the evening meal I purchased some chicken wings from Waitrose, four pain au chocolat, and a Ben and Jerry chocolate and fudge tub of ice cream for £1.69, (£1.50 at Asda). I turned the heating on the electric convector fire to the maximum.  Lunch was the Toby Inn in Mitcham where mine host had lost a great deal of weight and clearly had a health problem from which he made a recovery. From the bus stop we crossed the grass because of the driving sleet finding the round muddy, taking the path way round on the return journey. I enjoyed a beef roast dinner with a mountain of vegetables and shared the free chocolate fudge sundae, free for my birthday, normally £3.98 so it was a good gift.

 

On my journey to Wallington I had missed both the direct buses the 154 and 157 and waited in the cold as three other buses all with longer routes and different stops came and went. Then the 154 and 157 came together and I checked which was direct and which went round the former London overspill estate on the former site Croydon Airport, Roundshaw Park. Because of the threat of heavy rain I was advised to catch the 454 single decks bus which although went round the islands, as the expression goes, but stopped just before the Travel Lodge. What I did not appreciate was just how around the island we would travel. First there was the circuit around the Roundshaw Park estate but it did means passing the new St Elphege School. I say new although it is at least four decades since it moved from Demesne Road, now a day nursery, to its present location and where the school did not bring its records although I cannot believe that they were destroyed.

 

The bus then went down Beddington Lane from the Plough Inn to the ASDA supermarket where it turned around and then did of the local industrial and commercial factory area close to Mitcham before stopping lose to the Ikea store at the end of Purley Way and then heading for Croydon Ampere Way, Waddon, stopping at Reeves Corner, West Croydon Bus station and Katherine Street my stop. Along the journey were more than twice as long than necessary I enjoyed visiting familiar and some unfamiliar areas of my heritage.  I crossed over the road to Sainsbury where cheese twists were purchased for the morning, a sandwich and a chocolate bar for the evening meal which I enjoyed with some soup.

 

Snow was falling heavily elsewhere and although I was committed to visiting the Millennium Dome I was not sure that my relatives would be able to make the journey from the country to the station for the journey to Waterloo.

 

Saturday morning was cold with snow falling and settling but nothing like as bad as the Whiteout encountered travelling home from Mansfield and although I missed the next available train to London Bridge I was able to get a direct train with a change of platform a few minutes later. As on my journey to Croydon I noted the extent of new and converted building going on south of the station along the railway tracks.

 

I like Waterloo station where trains go to Teddington, Richmond and Kingston reminding of the three years I lived at Teddington, came to know Richmond, Twickenham and Brentford/Chiswick as well as Hampton Court and Kingston and the route from there to Cheam, Sutton and Wallington. The station remains busy despite its loss as the start of the Channel Tunnel High Speed trains which have moved to St Pancras. It was too old to sit so I moved around looking in Smith, noting the restaurants with one public. Time was taken for coffee when my relative arrived and then the short journey by the Jubilee Line to North Greenwich.

 

There was no security check at the Dome although security guards with dogs were noted. After showing the layout the focus was the Oriental buffet which was deserted on arrival and only had half a dozen table customers when le around 2.15 for the cinema. I managed three plates in the hour and half of the three hour midday slot attended and one sweet bowl. It proved a well balanced mixture with a first plate of meat appetisers, then some deep fried prawns, chicken and noodles in various sauces including chilli, then five deep fried crab claws and a number of pieces of chicken in different forms. Finally two scoops of chocolate ice, one of vanilla over which was piled some fresh fruit and some tinned fruit salad. The account for two plus drinks was £20. Coming out of the cinema between five and six a transformation had occurred with thousands of people making their way to the arena eateries and bars including the Sky before for a performance of The Script. There were fifty plus queues waiting to enter the twenty or so restaurants in the main thoroughfare inside the dome but fewer queuing in the open air for the restaurants situation at the of bottom offices blocks on the between  the station, the river and the Dome. With the coloured lights shining brightly the atmosphere inside the Dome had been transformed. There was a similarity between the black and white opening of the original Wizard of Oz film, and the Prequel and our morning arrival changing to the glorious digital colouring of afternoon film and the sense that the place had come alive as we left. 

 

Returning to Croydon  taking the Teddington train from Waterloo to Clapham Junction and then a crowded standing all the way coastal train ending at Portsmouth and Southsea but with a first stop at East Croydon, where I made do with soup and a couple of hot cross buns, some dried figs and liquorice.

 

My morning was leisurely and I decided to investigate if the oriental buffet option close to the Travel Lodge was opening for Sunday lunchtime. The place looked closed closed although there had been a Sunday noon time opening. Possibly the lack of trade and weather was a factor. I decided to investigate if there was another in the main restaurant area in South Croydon.  There are some sixty establishments on the walk from the Travel Lodge down George Street, along the High passing the Grants complex and along the South End where there is a greater variety of food cultures including the Beirut. There was one other Oriental Buffet which was decidedly closed closed. The quality and price range was also significant from the sandwich bars and takeaways to those where a two course with drinks before and coffee for two would cost between forty and fifty. I passed the site of the Davis Theatre now apartments but could not remember the location of the Grand.  On the way back I considered the Wetherspoons at Grants but this was already packed out and decided that unless I fancied something else I would settle for the one in George Street. It was bitterly cold, was it cold!

 

At the restaurant I secured a table for four with a comfy bench seat against the wall in the far corner where I enjoyed a half roast chicken with a good range of vegetables and a pint of Carling Black Label for £7- £6.95 to be precise. I thawed out fortunately as I missed the next tram to Wimbledon and explored the Alders Arcade now given over to eateries but with wind howling down there were few customers for the seating although some hardy souls had come to purchase and take away. I was able to peak in at the now empty Alders store closed after 150 years for the second time and one suspects permanently.

 

 

The journey to Wimbledon involved going round the Reeves corner site where the insurance claim is still to be settled and the neighbouring shops are still bordered up. There was and remains something odd about what happened here and the protracted negotiations over a settlement.

 

As the on board announcer constantly reminded it is essential to swipe the Oyster card before getting on the tram as the route ends as part of the Wimbledon Underground and Railway station and if you just swipe on departure you are charged the full underground rate.  For the second occasion I forgot the location of the Odeon Cinema where one of the last showings of Les Miserables was taking place just before 3pm I was tempted to go for a coffee at the adjacent Morrisons supermarket but decided to book the ticket to ensure an aisle seat.

 

The young pretty assistant at the ticket desk then said “You come from Mansfield? I come from Mansfield but in a in a mid European perhaps Polish accent. I had obtained the Odeon cinema points card on one of my rare visits to the cinema there several years before and by coincidence had exchange some of my accumulated points for a free ticket on last visit to see Song for Marion on my birthday. The young woman added that she had never met anyone from Mansfield since coming to London. I checked and a queue was forming so I resisted asking her why she had come to London forgetting to look on her hand to see if there was a ring or rings. However she asked about the book I was carrying, The Cruel Sea, which so far I had not made time to read further since the train journey south. I first briefly explain how I cam from London, lived in the North East but obtained the card in Mansfield where I stayed several times a year and then something of what I knew about the Cruel Sea. She added that her best friend still lived in the town.

 

I went over to the Morrisons and although there was no café they had a coffee machine. I then purchased two packs of roast beef sandwiches at half price and one of prawn mayonnaise, a packet of crisps, a bounty bar and three Eccles cakes for the price of 2, cheap at £1. I returned to the cinema for a read of the local free paper and to keep warm before the film commenced. My ticket was an anywhere seat but there were also bookable premium seats indistinguishable from the rest as far as I could see.  I sat in the wrong seat and had to move with cinema almost full. Behind me there were two rows of seating which looked different from the rest and which I assume were the premium seats. There were only a couple of people in the end row so I risked sitting at the aisle more comfortable and with a better view. I therefore had opportunity to enjoy the film in almost perfect conditions. 

 

I enjoyed an Eccles cake back at the cinema and one in the evening with sandwiches. I also had the Bounty Bar at the cinema and the crisps in the evening, with the third Eccles cake and second lot of sandwiches for breakfast which was leisurely as I did not have to leave until around 11.30 for the 1.30 train to Newcastle. There was time for another hot shower to brace against the continuing sharp winds.  At the station I missed the 11.45 as I reached the platform so with 17 mins before the next there was time for a small Americano at £1.95 it was disappointingly not hot.

 

The cross rail train is no stop to London Bridge where I did not initially notice a woman enter to see her face but she was struggling with her luggage and getting it placed out of the passage way between seats at the allotted was space was already full including with case and bag, I clutched the Sleep Apnoea machine to me as I would for the rest of the journey. As she had grey and white hair, admittedly longer than usual and was small in build and stature I assumed she was old and frail so I went to her aid only to discover she was less than 25 and making a fashion or identity statement. I guess.             

 

My last encounter with a stranger was disturbing at the time and since. At King Cross I noticed the area waiting before the departure notice boards was unusually crowded with the explanation that passengers were held back on Trains to Scotland and to Sunderland until 5 minutes before scheduled leaving and the train to Leeds was being cancelled. The cause was some trackside problem requiring attention. I therefore made my way through the ticket barriers and position against a wall close to the main exit from the first five platforms and where two empty East Coast Trains were being leaned and prepared from fresh journeys. As I waited I noted a hunched figure of what appeared to be a well dressed woman with her head in her hands turned towards the barrier. She did not appear to move. She was possible a druggy asleep and out of the cold but given that she was well dressed in quality and warm what if my assessment was wrong. There were station personnel close by and other walking by but they were concentrating on tasks to hand. A train arrived on the end platform and several hundred passengers alighted some making for the exit barriers where she was sitting. No one went to enquire. I decided to approach a group of four station staff and one went over to investigate. My worst dears appeared justified as although he bent down towards her and was talking. She did not appear to move.  After what seemed several minutes and   communicating via  a radio a wheel chair arrived and the staff helped what appeared to be a semi conscious woman  on the chair and away. As an ambulance had not be called or the police my first assumption may have proved correct. The woman was at least in her thirties. I would never know her circumstances and if my intervention had been for the good or not. I have written to Network rail but do not anticipate a helpful reply.

 

Although the train was crowded with few vacant seats I was lucky in getting the window seat and having the aisle seat unoccupied except for between York and Darlington where I enjoyed a conversation about the weather and the economy which centred on South Shields. However before Doncaster we were held up for about three quarters of an hour because of trackside repairs. This entitles to fifty percent rebate on ticket paid but nothing was said to passengers or the extent of the delay. Reimbursement is available in the form of travel vouchers on line.

 

Back home the house was OK, the pipes were not frozen and the Cricket season ticket arrived. The snow had kept away but cold winds remained artic.

2437 A good film about Jazz, about a football fan, contemproary art, and fariy tales of different genres,

Listening to Duke Ellington Sophisticated Lady, The Mooche, Jump for Joy, Perdido, Harry James Two O clock Jump, Flying Home, and Music makers, Benny Goodman My Gal Sal, Nice work if you can get it, Django Reinhardt I got Rhythm, Sweet George Brown, Honeysuckle Rose.

 

There have been few serious films about jazz men and women and of these Young Man with a Horn is memorable and worth seeing more than once, despite the Young Man being played by a middle aged Kirk Douglas and the sexual love of his life played by Lauren Bacall, no longer the young psychiatrist in training she attempts to play. Doris Day is Doris Day and therefore there is a credibility gap as a swing band singer although if one thinks of her name sake Anita O’Day (Jazz on a summer’s Day) and that Doris do not purport to be a deep blue singer but a straight and loyal loving friend I was impressed by her performance. The film also features Hoagy Carmichael as the piano playing friend of Douglas as Rick Martin the trumpeter.

 

The importance of this film is that unlike Boogie Woogie the film brilliantly demonstrates that being a jazz man can become as much an addiction as any drug to the exclusion of any other interest including money, fame, family or food. The problem for Rick is that he becomes attracted to the wrong woman brilliant played by Lauren Bacall who uses the insights from her study of psychology and her sexuality in an attempt to take from Rick what she does not, to possess his creative art and nearly destroying him in the process. When Lauren finds someone else to take over after she flunks her course, Rick goes to pieces, drinks, turning on and isolating from his friends including the black jazz trumpet who taught him how to play when as a young boy he was able to purchase his first trumpet. When the man is knocked down and killed in a car accident after trying to appeal to Douglas to stop his spiralling descent into oblivion the trumpet is smashed he becomes a drink hobo until fortunately he is discovered by Doris and Hoagy before it is too late. He returns to success and appreciates the love with Doris Day has always had for him and support of Hoagy.

 

The film and the original novel by Dorothy Baker is a thinly veiled description of the life of  perhaps the greatest white cornet player of all time Bix Biederbecke and a man whose creativity rivals that of Louis Armstrong, a contemporary of his Whereas Louis went on to International fame and financial success Biederbecke died  at the age of 28.

 

 Whereas many people of different generations, whether they are interested  or like  jazz know the name of Louis Armstrong, Biederbecke tends to be someone rarely discussed outside the narrow world of jazz musicians although there was a  couple of seasons of a brilliant humorous drama mystery with James Bolam and Barbara Flynn, The Biederbecke Tapes which featured his music throughout although played by the British trumpet man Kenny Ball who recently died  at the age of 82 years and who I saw perform with his man at the 02 a couple of years back along with the bands of Chris Barber and Acker Bilk.

 

Biederbecke like Douglas in the film was a self taught as a very young boy whose ability to play by ear was commented on when still at school and where he also played with professional musicians as a young school age man. Whether his local fame and that he was white was a factor most biographies cover up of an incident in which as an eighteen year old he was arrested and alleged to have sexually assaulted a five year old girl. He was no prosecuted because of the age of the girl as a potential witness but it is understood that he never denied what he did. It would be surprising if this incident helps to explain the nature of self destructive alcoholism. It is too easy for biographers and commentators to claim that the alcoholism, substance addiction including sex addiction of musicians and other artists is somehow an inherent part of their lifestyle. He is reported to have had   a breakdown at one point in his life.

 

His interest in jazz and being a full time jazz player was activity discouraged by his middle class parents but in 1923 he joined the seven piece Jazz Group the Wolverines and the band recorded nearly two years before Armstrong created and led the Hot Five.  The older and more established Hoagy Carmichael invited the Wolverines to Indiana in 1924 and the two became friends. Whether under the influence of Carmichael who was studying law in addition to piano playing and composing, Biederbecke enrolled in a university on a course which included religion, ethics, keeping fit and military training but after a drunken bar fight was expelled having attended few classes. In 1926 he moved to a new and larger band which was to play at the now famous Roseland opposite Fletcher Henderson who advertised their Battle of the bands.

 

In 1927 he joined the already famous Paul Whiteman orchestra and although as the film and others suggested Bix found his requirements of a conventional dance orchestra stifling he thrived and commenced to study formal music.  Far from drinking caused by the beak up of a relationship, as the early bar brawl revealed him and become a hard and regular drinker along with many musicians although there is no record of his using drugs. He returned home and with the help of his parents attended a residential treatment clinic for a month. Although recovered he worked only occasionally despite his chair in the band being kept open.

 

The most memorable aspect of the two years before his death is the performance with Carmichael of Georgia on my mind playing to together with Jack Teargarden and Tommy Dorsey, Eddie Lang, Joe Venuti and Bud Freeman.

 

As faithfully recorded in the film he got up to play one night with the Whiteman band on their regular Radio Hour and his mind went blank and he could not play a note. He spent the rest of the year with his parents and then returned to New York for one last time, he died in his apartment from pneumonia assisted by his continued alcoholism. The 1955 film The Blackboard Jungle included some of his music.  There is a large collection of| his music available to listen free on Deezer radio. Having not read any full biography I can find no reference to his sexual interests and relationships which are odd and probably accounts for why the film script was written to include two relationships and a happy ending and emphasised his unique talent and preoccupation with music.

 

Bix Biederbecke and Frank Trumbauer Clarinet Marmalade, In a Mist (both composed by Beiderbecke) Trumbology and Jazz me blues.

 

Bix and Trum is a four CD set which also has Clarinet Marmalade and Trumbology but also singing the Blues, Riverboat Shuffle Way down New Orleans, Three Blind Mice and 70 tracks in total

 

A warm family film about football and involving Liverpool Football Club is Will. Although the film is a vehicle to show the loyalty and length which fans of a football club will go as well as comradeship which can develop, it begins with a heart rendering situation in which a boy loses both his parents.

 

Will is an eleven year old in a convent boarding school because his father cannot cope following the death of his wife and the boy’s mother. He reappears unexpectedly one day calling at the Inn which his friend Davy manages (Bob Hoskins) to claim his old room and explains that he has worked through his grief and now wants to reunite with his son who he visits to the concern of the school head  given his failure to keep in contact and having made false promises. 

 

He takes the boy to his mother favourite picnic spot and then surprises with providing two tickets for them to travel to Turkey to watch Liverpool play Milan in the 2005 Champions League Final. He tells the head of his plans to settle in the area and for the boy to become non residential. She takes charge of the tickets. The horrific double tragedy occurs when father does not arrive for a visit and it is Hoskins who has the task of informing that his father had died from a brain tumour.

 

It is at this point that film begins to have similarities with Africa United in which a young football player with the possibility of being good enough to play for his national side makes his way to South Africa for the World Cup, revealing something of the reality of Africa to day with boy soldiers, militia, poverty, lack of educational opportunities and health care. In this instance Gareth, played by Damian Lewis, has an ally at the school that helps him first break into the head’s study for the match tickets and then leaves the school where he turns to Hoskins who explains that he cannot help him.  Fortunately an assistant has brought the takings to be safed and while Hoskins is contacting the school, Gareth takes the funds and makes his way to France.

 

He has his money stolen but fortunately again makes contact with a former professional footballer from Yugoslavia who works as delivering goods and helped to get across the channel..

 

He is persuaded to take Gareth to Turkey despite publicity throughout Europe to be on the look out for the boy. He takes him to his family village where the reason for his leaving football is revealed. He had returned to the village with footballs for the children and one of these had been kicked by a young blind boy into a cordoned area where there was unexploded ordinance from the civil war. The boy dies and Alek (Kristan Kichling) stopped playing football and vowed not to return.

 

They meet up with Liverpool supporters on their way by coach who do not advise the police when questioned that they have any knowledge of the boy. Unfortunately the buy get to Turkey they find the tickets are fakes and Alek’s efforts to buy spare tickets fails. Fortunately they meet up with the Liverpool fans and then Kenny Dalglish spots the now famous boy at the Gates and arranges for him to enter, meet with the team and lead the team onto the pitch with Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher accompanying him as them.

 

At one point Alek had been in contact with the school to alert that the boy was safe and had agreed to wait until the school head came to collect him, The head with the rest of school watch the game and are delighted to see that Gareth has made it and is able to go onto the pitch to receive the applause of all footballers.

  

Boogie Woogie is a satirical film rather than a comedy and which sets out to reveal the pretentious world of the contemporary art dealer and collector. A world in which vast sums of money change hands, older men attempt to seduced attractive young women and older women take up young artists, all familiar stuff and done before in various ways.

 

What makes this film interesting is the number of established actors who participate, including Christopher Lee, Joanna Lumley, Charlotte Rampling and the young Amanda Seyfried who came to the fore in Mama Mia and  only recently in Les Miserables. My problem is that I was not engaged by any of the characters or what happens to them, but more significantly the film is so unbalanced, throwing out the baby with the bath water. Of course the people who buy and sell artworks can become the subject of confidence tricksters; the sums of money exchanged are preposterous but no more than bankers or professional footballers and Hollywood film actors. and sex governs much of human activity, but contemporary art is important and most contemporary  artists serious people attempting to express themselves in a relevant, creative and original way foremost and earn a living secondary, much as most musicians, actors, writers and other creative artists.

 

 What a Girl Wants is a 2003 USA from remake of a film and play scripted by William Douglas Home and called the reluctant debutante. The features a young woman brought up by her mother who fantasies about her father with whom she associated when in North Africa and Europe.  Her mother has become a wedding singer and she works as a waitress envying the brides given away by their fathers and with whom they have the second dance.

 

The father is played by Colin Firth as Lord Dashwood who is abandoning his title in order to enter the House of Commons with a view to becoming the party leader and future Prime Minister.  He is being pushed into this course by Jonathan Pryce, an influential political fixer and whose daughter he has become engaged.

 

His natural daughter goes off to Europe and London to meet her father where Pryce attempts to sideline the girl but Firth takes to her and arranges for her to have a coming out season bringing her into contact with royalty and also a young well connected singer. The girl wrestles between the new status and life and her feelings for the young man deciding in the end to return to America. Rather than settled for his life, after meeting the girl’s mother who arrives for the coming out ball he goes to the USA, abandoning his engagement and political career, especially after it emerges that Pryce had originally persuaded the girl’s mother to return to the USA and not marry Firth.   Firth also bring with him the young man and the dream of the girl to have her father give her away at the wedding and have the first dance is fulfilled.  Everyone sigh with happiness.

 

I also enjoyed the Arabian adventure film Black Gold which poses the question would the life and culture of desert city and nomadic living Arabs have been better if they had not embraced the offer of modernity by entering into contracts with oil exploitation firms. The French produced film also called known as Day of the Falcon and Black Thirst was disastrous at the Box Office and with the critics despite featuring the excellent actors Mark Strong and Antonio Banderas.

The story centres on two ruling families who have gone to war for many years over disputed territory between their two cities drawing in support from the nomadic tribes who also live in the area. In order to seal the peace agreement, the father of one agrees that his two young sons should be brought up in the household of the other. The two boys have very different personalities with the younger sensitive and bookish and establish a close friendship with the daughter of the household Princess Leyla until she reaches puberty and is hidden away with the women.

 

Then the balance is disturbed when the Emir (Banderas) bringing up the sons of the other is persuaded to allow those working for Texan oil to commence drilling in the area of disputed territory thus breaking the agreement. Arsing from the first successful drilling, prosperity begins to reach his city and he makes one of the adopted sons a senior office in his army and the other head of a new Library, while the daughter looks on admiringly. By a mixture of bribes and promises he gets the leaders on the nomadic tribes to support the oil extraction and then sends an envoy to try and bring his former enemy into the deal sharing in the opportunities for hospitals, schools and other social benefits.

 

Amar (Mark Strong) remains a traditionalist Sultan and hostile to progress and refuses the offer of a percentage of the profits. His eldest son Prince Saleh believe he can persuade his father and leaves the other Palace but kills one of his minders in doing so and he is captured and killed. The Emir decides to allow his daughter to marry her life long friend Prince Auda as a means to prevent war and shortly after the marriage sends his son in law to try and convince his father.

 

Instead Auda is persuaded that there is much in favour of his father especially on learning that only 5% of the profits had been offered. He meets up with the tribal leaders and persuades them that their way of life is threatened although he opposes the slavery operated by one group, rescuing the daughter of another leader which results in gaining the man’s support when she is returned.

 

The Emir has used his new wealth to purchase planes and tanks, machines guns and other modern weapons which creates a tremendous imbalance between the two forces. Audi’s father hits on a plan in which he leads the official army in the straight route to the city while his son and the tribes attempt to cross the desert and attack the Emir from an unexpected quarter.  They and the camels barely survive the travel from a lack of water but just when all appears lost Auda works out that there are fresh water springs just off shore so they are able to find drinking water for themselves and their animals. Auda also appears killed in a battle but survives turning him into a god which has the benefit of inspiring the others to take on the planes and the tanks which are ineffective in the desert conditions.

 

The consequence is that are able to come to city which has become poorly defended. In the battles and skirmishes which take place, the Emir loses his son and Auda’s father is killed.  Princess Leyla who has refused to divorce her husband as the Emir has wanted joins her husband as they become leaders of the two cities. But what to do about the Emir? Auda has the brilliant idea of using the father in law’s cunning and diplomatic skills to act as the representatives of the new combined states to negotiate the best terms with the companies for the exploitation of the oil. And the film closes with everyone gaining from the agreements reached.

 

Remained open mouthed in disbelief at the morality of Contraband watched because it featured Mark Walhberg who I have got to know as an actor through the TV series about New York’s finest the NYPD Blue Bloods.  In this film Mark, having married (Kate Beckinsale) had settled into a law abiding and respectable life with their two young sons, having previously been a drug courier.

 

When customs approach the ship in which his brother is bringing in huge consignment of drugs, these are dumped in the Mississippi River to the disbelief of those who had paid for the supply to be brought in. Mark operates a construction business with a best family friend who is also a former drug running associate and in order save his brother’s neck and threats against his family, Mark with his brother and another friend join the crew of the smuggling ship to visit Panama to buy $10 million in fake bills for entry into the USA to sell on return to raise the $, 7 million debt. On arrival they find that the counterfeit money is badly made and they go to a drugs war lord who can provide better quality. He insists they participate in a robbery which involves the contents of an escorted armoured vehicle. The robbery is partially successfully in that he contents are removed, a multimillion pound Jackson Pollock creation. The ambush is itself ambushed by the police/military and drug baron and his men are killed/captured leaving Mark and co with the painting and the money which they take back to the ship in their van. Some of the funds are used to purchase drugs unknown to mark until later. When Mark finds out he says they will be dumped before they get back to port. The complications multiply for the Captain in league with the drug runners warns the Border agency in advance of docking and they check out Mark’s van and find nothing.  Mark has got the drugs back on land and secreted at the home of the ship’s captain so when he is forced by those owed money to show them where the drugs are kept he takes them to the house of the Captain and gets away just as the police arrive to captured the  “real” villains.

 

Meanwhile while away and fearful of the threats made to his wife and son Mark has an arranged for his business partner to protect them, not knowing as we do that in fact it is the business partner behind the original drugs deal and the present deal in order to pay off his substantial gambling debts with interest to the mob. When Mark’s wife realises who the traitor is she accidentally bangs her head and appears dead, so the businesses partner take her body which he covers in plastic sheets and places in yet to be concreted foundations for the building site the company is working on.

 

Fortunately Mark also works out the treachery of his partner and goes in search of the man and the whereabouts of his missing wife. He is told she is dead, rings her cell phone and hears it ringing in the concrete trench just in time. If this was not miraculous enough. The two brothers retrieve the $10 million of fake notes dumped in the river before the arrival of border control agents. They also buy the van back at a police auction for the Pollock art work which is still in the van as paint splattered canvass said to have a value of $20 million. The film closes will his family enjoying life in a luxury waterfront property.

 

Now to two incredible films produced for the weekend teenage cinema going market.  I watched Shark Night in 3D at home. Seven University undergraduates in North America drive to the holiday home of one of their number bordering a private lake where she encounters red neck boyfriend from the past who with his friend are also racists who immediately pick on the black student.

 

One of the groups is then badly injured in what appears to be a shark attack. As the film progresses student by student is attack, some eaten with the exception of hostess and one of the other students. What emerges is that the former boyfriend and his mate aided by the local young Sheriff have stocked the lake with killer sharks and they then film people lured into the water being attacked, killed and eaten. The baddies get there just deserts or more accurately the sharks get theirs and the eventual body count from the ten adults is eight. The sharks looked models that CGI.  To echo a well known tennis player, “You can’t be serious.” This low budget film is said to have made a little profit.

 

I only have a vague memory of Playback a film released on my birthday a year ago which as with Shark Night I believe involved the baddies filming their victims and which  also involve a corrupt policeman. However I may have confused this story with another about supernatural power unleashed and which threatens everyone in the university based town.