I think this must have been the weekend that Janie and I stayed at Wild Thyme (which was lovely) – I think Tony joined us for dinner on the Friday evening – then the next day we took poor Phillie from the Katharine House Hospice to Stratford-Upon-Avon for the afternoon for the last time.
Tag: Phillipa Graham
Meeting Up With Folks While On A Business Trip To Manchester, 6 to 8 October 2010
My arrangements for these meet-ups are mostly lost in the mists of time. Back then, I think we still sometimes made social arrangements by picking up the telephone and talking to people – an archaic practice to say the least – certainly not Ogblog-friendly.
But a combination of the physical diary, some e-mails, travel records and some slightly surreal correspondence on the King Cricket website with King Cricket’s mum have helped me to piece the trip together.
My main day of meetings, for/with UNISON, was 7 October. But I saw some benefit in going up the night before and staying over that night to catch up with some other folk and have some leeway for the UNISON meetings too.
I booked into an apart-hotel on the edge of the Northern Quarter – well located for Arena Point and “Central Manchester proper”, relatively inexpensive and you get enough space to really be able to work as well as relax. I think it was this one; The Light Aparthotel. I remember being given a two-bedroom apartment rather than the one-bedroom place I had paid for, so I really was able to spread out and enjoy plenty of space.
I arranged to meet my cousin Mark Briegal (second cousin once removed, actually, since you ask) after work 6 October for a quick drink before he returned to the bosom of his family in Warrington. We met up in Sam’s Chop House, which was a very suitable venue. It was really nice to catch up, albeit briefly.
I then went on to meet Ashley Fletcher (a good friend from Keele) for dinner at Bem Brasil on Lever Street, quite near my hotel. I’m used to Manchester portions being big, but this was one huge meal, with people coming round with cuts of meat regularly. Good fun and ridiculously inexpensive by London standards. I had sent Ashley a copy of my draft play, Ranter, which he had discussed with a few friends who are familiar with the 17th century history involved. No issues with the history elements but Ashley had a very bright idea for a twist in the denouement. I still want to write one more new play before I give Ranter the edit/rewrite it deserves. Might be quite a wait.
After my swathe of business meetings on the Thursday, I met up with Alex Bowden, aka King Cricket, at Sam’s Chop House. I had assumed Alex was based in Manchester, as he supports Lancashire and had talked about Manchester a fair bit on his website. But it turned out he lives in Macclesfield, which made me feel bad that I had dragged him up to Manchester just to meet me! He didn’t seem to mind too much. It was a very pleasant evening. I do recall Alex telling me the time of the train he needed to catch back to Macclesfield and then having to gently remind him of the time, not to get rid of him, but to avoid the need for him to run or (worse) miss the train. I was, coincidentally, reminded of my evening with Alex quite recently when I had a very pleasant but slightly surreal dinner with Ant Clifford that ended similarly – click here – I remember thinking “what is it with people who live on the edge of the Peak District almost missing trains”?
What I cannot remember is who suggested Sam’s Chop House in the first place; Mark or Alex. Because my main arrangements with Alex are preserved on e-mail and are silent about the venue, whereas those with Mark must have all been phone/SMS, I am guessing that the original idea came from Mark and that I then suggested same to Alex by SMS on the day we met. It had several benefits; I knew where to find the place (as presumably did Alex), I liked the place, I knew it offered decent beer as well as decent wine and I quite fancied trying the food at Sam’s on the second night. So Alex and I ate as well as drank at Sam’s and jolly good it was too.
I did some work on the Friday – I think I might even have fitted in a follow-up meeting at Arena Point that morning, before (according to my travel records) taking the train to Banbury.
My physical diary says Hil and Chris for the weekend, but clearly we ended up cancelling that and going to see Phillie and Tony instead. Another story, I suppose.
But returning to the surreal correspondence on the King Cricket site with King Cricket’s mum regarding Sam’s Chop House, I think I realise what must have been going on. KC’s Mum writes kindly on the King Cricket website…
As KC hasn’t answered your question yet maybe I can Ged. I believe you met in Sam’s Chop House. Meeting you was obviously of sufficient import that KC mentioned it to me.
…but I think that KC was following that well-known protocol when meeting for the first time with people you know only through the internet, “make sure that at least one of your loved ones, e.g. your mum, knows exactly where you are going and why”. Very wise, although in my case I assure you not necessary, merely wise as a standard precaution.
Janie and Phillie’s Birthday Bash 2010, Sandall Close, 26 June 2010
Janie and I don’t remember much about this one. My diary simply reads:
Phil & Tony, Hil & Chris?
I certainly racked up a super play list of mostly dance music for the occasion, not least a fair chunk of Barry White:
Here’s the playlist – click here.
I’m pretty sure it was a family only affair that year and not all that many people. Phillie really wasn’t at all well by then. I’m pretty sure Pauline didn’t come that year and I don’t think all the youngsters came, although I think Charlie and Chris were there.
Th gathering was on the Saturday evening, but Janie and I took the Monday off; possibly just to enjoy a bit of the summer; I don’t think we did anything in particular.
Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts, With Tony & Phillie, 1 January 2010
Tony and Phillie stayed with us over new year that year and we went to see this exhibition on new year’s day.
We had the idea for it when we went to the V&A with Z/Yen a few week’s earlier – an event that will be Ogblogged in the fullness of time.
Tony and Phillie really enjoyed spending the day with us and also enjoyed this exhibition – Tony especially enjoying the V&A and its artefacts.
There is a good V&A resource about it – here.
I remember being astonished by Phillie’s energy, although she was very poorly by then, as she wanted to explore some other bits of the V&A before we left.
A Few Days in Burgundy With Tony and Phillie, 1 to 5 September 2009
I had to do some serious detective and memory work on this short trip to Burgundy, as I didn’t keep a journal.
Here is an extract from an e-mail from “Auntie Janet” at Ultimate Travel:
I think you are best to fly to Lyon, which is about 2 hours/86 miles from the hotel.
The flights are as follows:
01 Sept. BA 360 Depart Heathrow 08.40 Arrive Lyon 11.15
05 Sept. BA 363 Depart Lyon 19.25 Arrive Heathrow 20.00
…small automatic hire car, Citroen C3 or similar…will be on request if you want to go ahead and they can be quite scarce.
Darn right about scarcity – we ended up needing to reacquaint ourselves with a stick shift for that trip.
We ended up booking this hotel, Moulin d’Hauterive. It boasted a pool and a tennis court. The tennis court was an interesting wreck, I remember, variable bounce, varying between “in yer face” and non-existent, like playing real tennis except without walls, galleries and roofs. I have written a short aside on the tennis – here.
Tony and Phillie were going to be on a driving all the way to South of France holiday late August. The idea was for us to join them in a nice spot mid-France as they wended their way back to Blighty. Once we’d booked, I wrote:
We fly in to Lyon late morning on the Tuesday, so should arrive at the hotel some time mid afternoon if all goes to plan. Suspect we might get there before you unless you leave early and put your foot down.
The hotel restaurant does not open on Wednesdays and the nearest alternative is some 15 kms away from the hotel. We might want to try that alternative place or we might want to arrange a picnic for the Wednesday! We can decide all that when we are there, but thought you ought to know this vital fact.
We did indeed arrive some time before them on the Tuesday, 1 September. Janie got busy making sure that we (and Tony/Phillie) had the best available rooms, which got us off to an interesting start with the son of the proprietor, whose name escapes me and is absent from the website. Sonny took pains to tell us that he had worked in advertising in Paris for many years, before reluctantly agreeing to retreat and help run the family business when it got a bit harder for his parents. The parents were noticeably absent throughout our stay.
I recall that we did indeed eat in the hotel with Tony and Phillie on the Tuesday and the Thursday evening. The food was very good there. The wine pricey but that’s Burgundy for you. I also recall us going into Beaune on the Wednesday evening and having a very pleasant meal in the town. Tony decided to drive in the end, after we toyed with the idea of getting taxis too and fro.
We mostly just all relaxed together for two-and-a-half to three days. Tony and Phillie set off for home Friday morning; we’d booked the extra night.
Tony and Phillie both looked at us quizzically before they headed off when the answer to their question, “what are you going to do after we leave today?” was, “we’re going to the Bresse service station for lunch”. Our culinary service station quest was largely a result of reading this article by aptronym extraordinaire Heston Blumenthal.
We did also want to see Beaune…
…and Bourg-en-Bresse, but the most important bit was to eat lunch at the Bresse service station, where they serve poulet-de-Bresse and yes indeed it was wonderful food.
After lunch, we strolled around and found a nice music shop (I think in Bourg, not Beaune) where I bought some very good CDs, not least Jean-Guihen Queyras’s Complete Bach Cello Suites (we have subsequently seen him perform at the Wigmore Hall – click here). We also bought some well-cool Paris Jazz CDs, which Janie still plays when she is feeling in a suitably continental mood.
When we got back, the weather had perked up, so we played tennis and relaxed around the pool. I was reading Life Beyond the Airing Cupboard by John Barclay – a seriously good book btw.
If anything were ever to happen to the King Cricket site, a scrape of that review can be found here.
We didn’t take many photos on that trip; indeed I think none until after Tony and Phillie had gone. In truth, Phillie was not very well by then (it turned out to be Phillie’s last holiday) and I don’t think she much fancied being photographed. The few pictures we did take are of Beaune and of me and Janie relaxing when we got back from our poulet-de-Bresse quest – on this small album going forward from the starting point.
Worms Party, Sandall Close, 27 June 2009
Phillie loved a birthday party, but by 2009 the zest for a big do with lots of old friends had passed. But 2009 did mark Pauline’s 80th, so we arranged a small, just family evening in Janie’s garden.
What could possibly go wrong on 27 June? Well, for one thing, the weather turned locally awful on us that late afternoon and evening. While some parts of London got away with it, Ealing copped huge amounts of rain. We braved it in the garden for a while between showers until a heavy deluge came, which led to our retreat indoors.
There are some pictures from that do, but the indoor ones (most of them) have more red eye than a New York to London overnight flight. Click here to see them in Flickr.
I made up a pretty decent play list for that do, one of my earlier efforts, but it still sounds pretty good on the old iTunes – here’s a pdf of it: Worms Party 2009 pdf.
There are a few in jokes and references on that list. Firstly, a lot of jazz from 1929, which was the year of Pauline’s birth. Secondly, more Barry White than you might expect on one of my playlists; Phillie was especially partial to the Walrus of Love. Thirdly, rather a lot of Neil Young. That is because Neil Young was playing in Hyde Park that night. Tony, Chris and I had secretly plotted to sneak off to see “The Youngster” if Pauline played up at all. She didn’t play up and/or we didn’t have the courage to mutiny, beyond the knowing grins and glances when the Neil Young tracks came around.
Several Friends And Family Events In The Space Of A Few Days, 21 To 24 May 2009
Thursday 21 May 2009
Janie might try to deny that she attended Michael Mainelli’s last Gresham lecture in his series as Professor of Commerce, but all the evidence suggests she was there 21 May 2009. Her diary. My diary. Worst of all, CCTV evidence if you merely look at the thumbnail of the video – click here.
Back then, of course, that four year series of lectures was the bedrock of what would become a joint magnum opus between me and Michael, The Price Of Fish. So that last lecture of the series was both a milestone and a landmark personal event. I suspect we all ended up at The Cheshire Cheese for a Samuel Johnson-inspired meal afterwards.
But before that, we held a reception in the Headmaster’s Study at Barnard’s Inn Hall, during which someone without question will have told me I look like the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, a copy of which hangs in that study. I’d been handling that quip in that place since 2005 and at the time of writing (2020) am still handling it there and in other places.
Friday 22 May 2009
I did some work in the morning before heading down to Balham/Streatham Hill, where I treated my mum to lunch at a delicatessen named Fat. Now long gone. I rather liked it, but mum had her favourite places (by that time I think there was a Parisian-style cafe, also in Balham, which she favoured) so I don’t think we went there a second time.
Postscript: actually it looks as though Mum, me and Janie went to Fat together the following Sunday (31 May), so I have a feeling I might have posited the idea of Fat with mum on 22 May without us actually having vivited it that day.
In any case, I think I went straight on to Sandall Close, where Janie and I had a quiet evening in.
Saturday 23 May 2009
Phillipa and Tony arrived. They were staying in the Crown Plaza, on the Hanger Lane gyratory, very near to Sandall Close.
We went to Chez Gerard in the evening; no evidence as to which branch; Janie’s and my combined brains reckon Chiswick most likely.
Sunday 24 May 2009
Both our diaries say “Barby” or “BBQ” at Kim’s. That will have been the main purpose (or at least the focus) of Phillie and Tony’s visit. In truth I don’t remember this particular Sunday lunchtime gathering especially well. We wouldn’t have known it at the time but it was to be Phillie’s last such visit to Kim’s place.
The following picture was taken just a few weeks later in Sandall Close. I prefer its look in B&W because the colours, not least the red eye, were not so good:
Dartmouth With the Worms, 17 to 20 April 2009
It seemed like a lovely idea for Janie, her sisters and the husbands/significant other to gather for a long weekend somewhere nice. We settled on The Dart Marina in Dartmouth. Very nice.
We gathered on the Friday as the afternoon went on. I think Janie and I got there first, obviously, as we had by far the furthest to travel. We all agreed/decided that the pub adjoining (part of, really) the hotel would be our best bet that first night. It was old-fashioned fish and chips type food, done very well.
On the Saturday, Phillie, Tony, Hils and Chris had planned a pootle around town while Janie and I went off to meet our friends Nigel and Viv (who then lived in Totnes) for lunch – more pub grub.
This time we took it easy a bit, though, as we knew we had a big meal planned for the evening in the hotel’s posh restaurant:
If it looks as though we spent most of the weekend eating and drinking…well you’re not entirely wrong. But that was about to change.
The Sunday plan was for Phillie and Tony to do a bit of gentle shopping while Chris, Hils, me and Janie did a proper walk. Chris and I planned the walk and off we set up the hill. Hils (no aptronym here) started protesting vigorously that we must be going the wrong way as we were walking far too much up hill. Now despite my spatial and directional challenges, I am quite good at plotting routes on maps. Moreover, Chris works for Ordnance Survey and is a specialist map guy.
In short, I think we were going in precisely the right direction, while Hils was barking up the wrong tree.
Still, once we explained the plan to her, which included descending to a lovely sounding village with a pub, she calmed down and cheered up.
By the time we got to the pub, Hils was a convert to this walking thing and has undertaken many walking holidays since. Must be to do with the pubs…I mean the exercise.
In the above photo, I’m sporting a West Indies ground staff tee-shirt from Nigel and Viv’s recent sortie to the Caribbean (was it Antigua or Barbados, I forget?) with Charlie and Dot. When I sported the tee-short again in front of Charlie later that summer, it had the desired effect (intense and voluble envy).
That evening we ate in the third of the Dart Marina’s restaurants – the bistro -style one, which we decided was possibly the nicest of the three for our purposes, not least because the weather smiled on us enough to enable us to eat outside under the patio heaters. There was some debate about meal timing and whether or not Chris and I could choose the wines we wanted to pay for rather than the house wine that Hils insists is always adequate. The photographic evidence (below) suggests that, for once, Hils didn’t get her way:
There are other photographs from that trip – click here for the Flickr set, but in truth they are for completists/connoisseurs – the ones that tell the tale are included in this posting.
New Year’s Eve 2008/2009 Party, Ealing, 1 January 2009
We arranged for a gathering of friends and the three sisters to see in 2009. With Phillie’s health now unquestionably in decline, it was a fine balance between ambition and pragmatism. But the big points were that Phillie wanted to dance and she wanted that close set of friends and family with her.
So we planned to take a big table at a public gathering in that hotel in Ealing currently (2016) known as the DoubleTree Hilton – I can’t remember what it was called at that time – Janie thinks it might have been a Ramada back then. You know the one; on the junction of the Uxbridge Road and Hanger Lane. Not normally our sort of thing, but the ability for the out-of-towners to simply retreat to their room without the need for transport/going out of doors was a big plus.
These five must have been a terrifying quintet at school
Considering the quality of photographers present (not least Anthea Simms and Mitchell Sams) the overall quality of the photo set is less than special…
…with a handful of notable exceptions….
This proves that the photo pros were mostly busy enjoying themselves rather than taking snaps, which is a good thing.
It was a remarkable evening, not least because Phillie had been so poorly in the run-up to the evening, we thought even the day before that she might need to be in hospital over the new year festivities. In the end, Phillie had a great time and danced almost all evening. We did not get any pictures of the dancing, although dancing we all, not just Phillie, certainly did.
Indeed, we all had a great time. Even me, despite evidence to the contrary in the following picture!
Family Seasonal Stuff, 13, 21, 25 and 31 December 2008
13 December 2008 Hil & Chris
This will have been a Christmas presents visit with Janie cooking dinner for all of us. The details of the menu are not recorded in Janie’s diary, but we do know that Janie & I took a cab after dinner and stayed at my flat, letting Hil and Chris have Sandall Close for the night while we went back to Sandall Close via the tennis court in the morning.
21 December 2008 Charlie
Charlie visited her grandma and then came over to Sandall Close for dinner and to stay the night. The menu is not recorded again, but the words “Champagne in fridge” do appear in Janie’s diary. Priorities.
25 December 2008 Christmas Lunch In Battersea
With Dad and Len now gone, we felt that the gathering at Janie’s place would no longer be appropriate. We ended up booking a restaurant in Battersea – I cannot remember its name or how we came across it, but it seemed keenly priced for Christmas Day and suitably located twixt North-West and South-West London.
I recall our Addison Lee driver really struggling to find Battersea High Street and getting very stressy with us. I recall the place being pretty darned good for the price, in terms of food, drink and ambience. I’m pretty sure it was just me, Janie, Hils, Jacquie and Mum that year. Janie thinks Michael and Dorothy joined us, but I think their first appearance for a Christmas Day do was the following year.
I think mum picked up the tab for all five of us – hence me not having a record of the name of the place.
31 December 2008 – New Years Eve Gathering At The Ramada
Phillie really hadn’t been at all well that autumn and there was real doubt as to whether she should or would attend this event. But we had arranged it with her in mind – she wanted to dance – so we took a large table at a communal New Years Eve dinner and dance at the Ramada Ealing (the DoubleTree by Hilton at the time of writing, January 2019).
Wouldn’t have been our choice independently but, hey, it was what Phillie wanted and everyone at that time thought this might be her last hoorah. In the end, Phillie needed to have herself put together with sellotape and promise the doctor that she wouldn’t not to dance too much to get permission to attend.
We think the attendees were Max, Micky, Kim, Anthea, Mitchell, Hil, Chris, Tony, Phillie, Charlie (I think), Janie and me.
Phillie, in her inimitable style, complied with “doctors orders” by dancing all the rest of us off the dance floor – I’m talking non stop dancing for hours. Kim and Janie’s thoughts on the matter are captured photographically below:
