Snippets. Best years of your life…

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I was thinking what piece of reminiscing baggage I could offload after the nice post I wrote about my Nan. I could think of nothing. Then, speaking to friends recently, I remembered an incident from school. Not a fight in the playground or a failed exam. A very short and insignificant classroom lesson I had when I was well under 10 years old.

Actually, the only two, strong recollections I have from my time at Towerbank were being the only kid in my entire class unable to pay to go to school camp. I recall having to spend an entire week on my own with my primary school teacher. Alone. All day in class. I could feel her discomfort. Kids are inexperienced – not stupid.

The other was a project to talk about what your Dad did as a job. I never knew my father and I never missed him. I spent most of my childhood living with Nan and Pa. I liked them – they were good people and kind. I had no “issues” living with them. They were decent, honest people. Pa was always my Dad so there was a “father figure”. Whatever that means.

I told my teacher this. I said “I don’t have a dad”. Millions of kids don’t. Many through illness. Some through accidents but the majority simply because Mum never wanted – or got – the useless sack of shit that you knew, secretly, your real “Dad” was.

So when my time came to make my short speech the teacher intervened. She announced that ‘Christopher’ could not tell us anything about his father. She informed them this was because he did not have a father. He was “illegitimate’. She spelt it out. There was no murmur or comment from the kids. I find it incredible now to think I was the only one in this position but as recently as the early 70’s this was still a taboo.

So, instead, I spoke about my Grandad.

Nothing much was said except outside by one other boy. I cannot recall if it was Craig or Kevin – for some reason I know it was one of them. He said that the real word for illegitimate was “bastard” and that I should say “bastard”. It do not recollect any malice. It was not said in a nasty way. Whoever it was simply had an older head than mine and was repeating something they felt made them sound “grown up”.

I did not know this word. So I asked at home what it meant. My Nan smiled and said it was such an ugly word and I should not use it. She said I was a “love child”. I still feel better when I think of that.

My friends never again discussed it. I was never taunted. It never became an issue.

Except that over 40 years later when discussing school and listening to how my friends loved those years – I recall it. Which surely says something.

Snippets. Snatches of memory.

ChrisComments Off on Snippets. Snatches of memory.
Posted in Blog Scribbles

I was reading an article discussing the archiving of the internet.

Once it was an ambition of several organisations to archive the content of everything we put online. This, however, is fanciful. Content changes continually and rapidly. Content is generated to be different for each viewer. Databases and algorithms and sales metrics alter and change what is now a very plastic medium. It is not an internet of published texts which can be indexed easily.

People try, however. And in the spirit of remembering I may write short pieces about people or events. They may be archived. They most likely will not. The internet is full of scraps and junk so these snippets are unlikely to matter to many people. They matter to me.

I would like to write about my maternal Grandmother. I never knew my father but I was close to mum’s parents and spent many years growing up living with them. Their names were Charles Lamb and Helen Lamb (nee Pennycook).

My nan was always called “Ella”. She was very short in height and quite stout. That was when I knew her. In her youth she was very petite. Her wedding dress is testament to how slender she was. A waist equivalent to my thigh.

As a young woman she danced ballet. I only know because she told me – almost whispering – on a couple of occasions. Talking about yourself and doing what I am doing here – discussing it – was to be frowned upon and treated with suspicion. It was a different time and different values.

Her brother Jim had a dance band which practiced in the attic of their large house. She came from a reasonably affluent family. Sometimes dances were arranged in the attic. This would have been in the late 1920’s through to the 1940’s. It must have been wonderful.

Sadly, Jim drank too much and had a short life. He had two sons – Ronnie and Brian – my mum’s cousins. Jim’s decline was reflected in the decline of the family’s fortunes and by the time I knew my grandmother she was living in a small flat in a tenement basement. With my “Pa”. The family business had gone and the family had drifted apart.

Nan had three children. My Uncle Bill was the eldest and he died in 1969. My Auntie Eileen did not live long, either. They all had children. My cousins still all live within 30 miles of me but we have little contact. It happens.

Perhaps the reason I reminisce on this family history is that a piano store based in Joppa, where I grew up as a young boy, is in the news today. It is selling all of it’s 300 pianos. From £300 to £40,000.

My nan played piano. Rarely, by the time I knew her. We had a small, iron framed upright piano which was kept in her bedroom. I recall her playing Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky. Especially Tchaikovsky. And she played it beautifully. However, she did not play it often and when she did I could sense loss and some sadness. Even as a very small boy I could sense this in the music.

Which was not how it made me feel. It brought me great joy and great pride. To this day I feel emotional when I hear a performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1. And for that reason I am providing a link to one of my favourite pianists performing the piece – a woman of enormous talent – Martha Argerich. As I type this tiny recollection I am struggling not to shed a tear. I still miss her very much:

Martha Argerich and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, 1975

Perhaps, some time in the future, an archive will be read and it will be noted that Ella Lamb played Tchaikovsky on the piano, with some gusto in spite of her diminutive size and it brought tremendous pleasure to those who heard her play.

What’s in a name?

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Unaccustomed as I am to making speeches – I recognise there are certain ‘tricks’ to assist me if I ever was called upon.

A common ruse is the ‘best man’ method – trying to make humour of an embarrasing or humorous anecdote. Being relevant would be nice.

Another common technique is the Dictionary ploy. It follows the line of “Marriage – I looked marriage up in the dictionary – and guess what I found!’.

Using the dictionary technique I decided to look up Trump. There was little of surprise – it can be noun or verb.

  1. (n) Cards: A card from a suit which outranks other suits
  2. (n) To outdo
  3. (v) To take a suit at cards

Then there was the verb phrase:

The accusations against his political adversaries were little more than trumped up scaremongering.

The addition of the word “up” makes the rather conceited word “trump” into a far more interesting collection of letters.

I visited Thesaurus.com and discovered these:

bogus, concocted, cooked-up, deceitful, devised, dishonest, fabricated, fake, false, falsified, fictitious, fishy, framed, fraudulent, imaginary, incorrect, invalid, invented, lying, made up, misleading, phony, sham, unfounded, unsound, untrue

Such a small addition to a word illustrates how careful we have to be with the things we say. The phrase can become so dangerous – even when constructed of such seemingly innocent words. A word which initially seems strong and righteous suddenly becomes deceitful and mischievous.

Words are also sounds. The word Trump is very close to the word trumpet. As in “blow your own”. The dictionary also defines this. Another section on “trump” states:

  1. (n) a trumpet.
  2. (n) its sound.
  3. (v) to blow a trumpet.

Origin
1250-1300; (noun) Middle English trompe < Old French < Old High German trumpa, variant of trumba trumpet; (v.) Middle English trompen < Old French tromper, derivative of trompe

Suddenly “trump” is not only deceitful it is also suggestive of “blowing your own trumpet”. A triumphalist squawk of a noise.

One of the most immediately recognisable and evocative pieces of music played by a member of the Trumpet family is the “Last Post”.

All of this made me consider other words. Unfortunately “Donald” is a proper noun and so I do not like to try and consider meaning and derivations of it. All I associate with Donald are:

  • a Duck
  • “where’s yer troosers”