The picture above shows Kay, who hosted the evening, top left, reading her piece at the Virtual Threadmash. In normal times Threadmash is held at The Glad, but these are unprecedented times. Chris wrote a poem about the evening during the evening and Rohan presented a short, stray piece about nicknames. Eight of us prepared and presented pieces for the evening, either on the theme Charlotte Thomas (I didn’t present my text piece on that topic) or on the theme of soft furnishings. Below is the text of my soft furnishings piece.
Before Beany and Baggy…
…what a strange sense that phase has to me; “before Beany and Baggy”…
…I can barely envisage Janie’s place without Beany and Baggy.
But of course there was a before.
There is photographic evidence from before. I even took a photograph myself of “before”:
There’s Janie. The year is 1994. And look; there is an array of floor cushions; quite nice ones. But not Beany and Baggy.
That picture was taken before.
Here’s how it was. Before Beany and Baggy, there were floor cushions. Several floor cushions. For a great many years, Janie had been content, nay, even happy, with that array of floor cushions. Here is a picture from the mid 1980s. Same Sandall Close living room, same floor cushions.
But, early in 1996, something must have changed in Janie’s brain. Those floor cushions were lacking something; they were no longer sufficient to satisfy Janie’s need for large scale soft furnishings suitable for sitting, reclining or lying around upon.
There are rough scribblings as early as January in Janie’s 1996 diary that indicate, to my razor-sharp, investigative writer’s brain, that soft furnishing schemes were on the march in Janie’s mind. Ikea. World of Leather. Just the odd name and/or telephone number. Then the diary paper trail runs cold.
But Janie remembers clearly where and roughly when she acquired Beany & Baggy.
“I saw an advert in a magazine for gigantic, armchair-like beanbags. I really liked the look of them, size and shape-wise, but the advertised ones were all garish colours. I phoned the vendor, who turned out to be a Greek-Cypriot gentleman named Costas, to ask him if he had any of those armchair-like beanbags in black.
Costas said that he didn’t have any black ones in stock, but he was expecting a new consignment any day which would include black ones. He said he’d call me when they arrived and he did call me back quite soon. Costas’s shop was in Richmond, near a shop I wanted to visit anyway to get a garment to wear at Michael and Elisabeth’s wedding…”
That’s how we know that Beany and Baggy entered our lives in the spring of 1996. Back to Janie…
“I had intended to buy just one giant bean bag, but Costas was a persuasive salesman and offered me a very good price for taking two. When you came over on the Friday, you said I’d made a mistake buying two, because the pair of them seemed to dominate the living room. I was already thinking along those lines. But you named them Beany and Baggy and we both soon got used to the idea of them”.
Beany and Baggy don’t actually speak, but they do make sneery noises, usually when Janie and I address either of them by name, implying that we have got the two characters mixed up. Our hit rate for guessing the right name is so bad, precisely 0% over 24 years at the time of writing, Janie and I are starting to think that these rebukes might just be a little game that Beany and Baggy play with us.
Anyway, after their arrival in 1996, the next 15 years were Beany and Baggy’s glory years. They had pride of place in the living room, where they were the first port of call for us to flop into and relax after a hard day or week’s work.
And it wasn’t just Janie’s and my rump that graced Beany and Baggy back then. Janie’s living room was also the waiting room for her surgery and there were high-falutin’ folk who could not resist the charms of Beany and Baggy.
Perhaps the most high profile rump that regularly graced the cool black leather of Beany and Baggy was the late, great actress Anna Massey.
Coincidentally, Janie and I saw Anna Massey play Queen Elisabeth I in Mary Stuart at the National Theatre in the spring of 1996, around the time that Janie first took custody of Beany and Baggy.
According to Janie, it was Anna Massey’s habit to arrive early for her appointment and she was keen to sit in Beany or Baggy, even towards the end of her life, by which time she needed Janie to help her out of the squashy armchair, be it Beany or Baggy, once Janie was ready for her.
It wasn’t all the celebrity lifestyle and relaxation with me and Janie though, even in the glory years. Both Beany and Baggy had their struggles with anorexia. Frankly, both of them got quite saggy after a few years.
Mercifully, Janie’s best friend Kim is a highly-regarded surgeon in the soft furnishings world (and indeed in the world of cuddly toys), so a quick visit to Kim’s Hospital; then Beany and Baggy were no longer saggy, indeed they were both really quite portly again.
Here’s the only picture I could find of me and Janie with Beany and Baggy in their pride of place position in that Sandall Close living room.
Really perceptive readers will spot three pairs of hands in that picture – Kim is hiding behind us holding up the embarrassing pom-pom things. Even more perceptive readers will notice the well-hung painting, top left. Rumours that I was my father’s model for that picture are, I regret to say, fake news.
Of course, all wonderful things come to an end. Janie moved from Sandall Close to Noddyland in the summer of 2011. Anna Massey never saw Noddyland; she died just a couple of weeks after we moved there.
Beany and Baggy nearly missed out on Noddyland too. At first there was still work going on in the house and very little room for soft furnishings – they sat stacked on top of each other in whichever room wasn’t being worked upon.
Janie even suggested that Kim might like them for her workplace, Theme Traders once the new furniture arrived. Kim demurred, Beanie and Baggy were too special; she suggested that we should find room upstairs for them both.
Kim was right.
Now one of them lives in the bedroom, under the telly…the other one lives in the spare room.
Beany…or is it Baggy…in the bedroom
It’s a sort of semi-retirement for them both. Janie occasionally sits on Beany…or is it Baggy?…in the bedroom.
In truth no-one these days tends to sit on Baggy…or is it Beany?…in the spare room.
They are sort of living back-to-back now, in closer proximity than they were before. Less than two meters. Not sure if it counts as social distancing what with the wall‘n’all. So they live separately yet together, very close and unquestionably a couple. Janie and I can relate to that.
If only we could work out which one is Beany and which one is Baggy.
But in these unprecedented times (oh boy am I becoming sick of hearing that phrase, “unprecedented times”) the only way we can ThreadMash is remotely.
So that’s what we did.
The brief for TheadMash 6 was set at ThreadMash 5. Rohan waved a leather-bound notebook emblazoned with the name “Charlotte Thomas” at us. Rohan had bought that notebook cheap in Paperchase on the Strand. Someone had ordered it before Christmas but had not turned up to collect it. “Who was Charlotte Thomas?”, Rohan wondered. The brief was simply to write a short story that addressed that question.
Eight of us have written Charlotte Thomas pieces. Four of us addressed the mystery of Charlotte’s leather-bound notebook in our stories.
Here is my story, steeped in the experience Janie and I had volunteering for Crisis At Christmas. The character, Sharla, is based on several of the vibrant characters we met at Crisis. As far as we know, none of them were actually named Charlotte Thomas in real life, but then again, you never know!
THE NIGHT OF CHARLOTTE THOMAS
The karaoke was in full swing. Not the best karaoke we’d ever heard, frankly. But also not the worst. This was not your semi-professional karaoke of regular singers hoping to be spotted. This was impromptu karaoke. Informal, party, Christmas night, karaoke.
We heard one of the guests belt out Delilah, rather well, in a strong Middle-Eastern accent. Then we heard another guest belt out My Way…badly. Daisy and I couldn’t see the karaoke. We were in earshot, well within earshot, but we were on duty and had to remain at our post.
Then we heard Sharla sing. We didn’t know that she was called Sharla at that juncture, of course, nor did we yet know what she looked like, but we did know that the quality of the singing had gone up several notches, above and beyond the Delilah guy.
“…I should have changed that stupid lock, I should have made you leave your key, If I’d known…”
Daisy gave me one of her “I’m impressed” looks. I responded with my “too right” nod. I wished that I could go and have a look over the balcony to see this singer, but that would have meant breaking the rules and leaving my post. I wasn’t about to do that.
About five minutes after I Will Survive had finished, a pint-sized, super-confident-seeming female guest came up to our station and engaged me and Daisy in conversation. Sharla was only one or two words into her husky, deep-voiced opening gambit with us and we both knew we were being visited by that singer.
In truth, Sharla had taken a shine to Daisy, not really to me, although she seemed interested in both of us once she learnt that we were not just a duty pair, but an actual couple in real life. At this stage, Sharla pretty much asked all the questions and Daisy provided most of the answers.
Soon after Sharla moved on, Daisy and I were reallocated to a different station; ground floor. It was getting late by then, perhaps midnight, but quite a few guests were still milling about.
We chatted with several interesting people down there, before hearing the unmistakable sound of Sharla singing. The karaoke had long since finished. These were snatches of songs, mixed in with chatter.
“Pull up to my bumper baby, In your…every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little…”
Daisy complimented Sharla’s singing again and asked her if she’d ever considered singing for a living. Sharla told Daisy that she wasn’t the first person to have asked her that question.
Later, Daisy and I were advised to wrap up warm for front door duty. Now about 2.00 or 3.00 a.m., Boxing Day morning, gosh it was cold out there. A few guests still hanging out, some having a smoke, others just having a chat. Sharla appeared around the corner, a large mango in each hand. She told anyone who’d listen that a local 24 hour shop had given them to her. She vehemently denied the suggestion that she might have “liberated” them without the shopkeeper’s consent.
Sharla seemed in her element outside; indeed she told us that she was so used to rough sleeping, that she felt more in her element outside than inside at that hour.
Sharla must have spotted that I was feeling cold – at least Daisy had been given a padded hi-vis jacket to wear, I just had one of the flimsy ones…
…Sharla darted inside and badgered one of the indoor volunteers, who was wearing a fleecy hi-vis, to swap with me.
“Thank you, that was very thoughtful of you, Sharla”, I said, wondering why I hadn’t thought to take that action myself.
“I’m very grateful to you volunteers”, said Sharla, “unlike some of the fucking dickheads around here. I’ve seen some of ‘em being so fucking rude, it’s a fucking disgrace. I was in a bad mood last night, but I’m never that fucking rude to volunteers. I’m ‘avin’ the best night ever tonight”.
Outside, Sharla opened up to Daisy more than before. Sharla talked about her disorganised upbringing and the similarly chaotic upbringing to which she had subjected her own children. She talked about the drugs and the prostitution and the rough sleeping. She talked about her family in Jamaica and her desire to visit them. Not all of Sharla’s stories quite stacked up, nor were they all entirely consistent with each other. But all her stories were eye-opening.
“You have led a fascinating life”, said Daisy, “you should write your stories down and get them published.”
“You’re not the first person to tell me that”, said Sharla. “In fact, just last week, down by the Strand, I was talking to a nice gentleman and he said just that. He said he’d buy me a leather-bound writing book with my name on the front as a Christmas present. He even wrote down my full name and made me spell it out for him. Charlotte Thomas”.
“Ah, Sharla stands for Charlotte”, said Daisy, “our niece is called Charlotte.”
“Nice,” said Sharla, “anyway, that nice gentleman never showed up with my present.”
“Maybe he’ll show up with your present after Christmas,” said Daisy.
“Nah,” said Sharla. I knew he wouldn’t and I know he won’t. People make promises like that all the time, but they don’t really mean ‘em.”
We didn’t see Sharla again for the next few hours. We were on various dormitory floor duties and Charlotte Thomas was clearly not one for using the Crisis beds.
The last time we saw Sharla was at about 7:00 in the morning on our last duty; near the entrance, making sure that incoming daytime volunteers and wandering guests all went in the right directions. We replaced another pair who very quietly pointed to a sleeping Sharla, sitting in a chair, her upper body sprawled out across the table, fast asleep. “She pretty much fell asleep mid-sentence while talking to us”, a grinning volunteer told us, in a whisper.
And there slept Sharla…Charlotte Thomas, for the rest of our shift. The arms of Morpheus had finally got her, just when most of the other guests were getting up and starting to mill around again. What was Charlotte Thomas dreaming about, I wondered? Such a life she leads, so many stories she has. She really could do with that writing book. Maybe that nice gentleman really will turn up on the Strand with her gift after Christmas.
How does one describe Threadmash? It is sort-of a writing club, where people write and recite pieces, often being encouraged outside their safe places, by ringmaster Rohan Candappa.
But it is not so much about what we do as it is about how it makes those of us who participate in it feel. I probably described that for the first time at the end of the Ogblog piece in which I set out my second threadmash piece:
Rohan is not one to let a birthday or anniversary go unmarked…
…nor is he one to miss an opportunity for a party of sorts.
So Threadmash 5 was cunningly scheduled for the first anniversary of Threadmash. Well played, Rohan.
There were several new faces this time, observing the readings and whole-heartedly participating in the party atmosphere. Several of them had “Sh” names, such as Shirani, Shivangi, Shazia and Rowan.
Terry went first. He wrote a job application letter, to become a taster for Mr Kipling cakes. He used the application as a mechanism to tell us all about is “work experience” as a youngster. It was very amusing and touching in parts.
Jan then read us a letter to a plate of food that she was forced to “study” outside the headmistresses office for the whole afternoon, when five years old, because she had the audacity to abstain from eating the ghastly gunk that was her school dinner. This too was a very funny and touching piece.
…followed by Chris who wrote a letter to his own testosterone, explaining how their relationship had changed and was likely to continue changing over the decades. Not only funny and engaging, this piece was also moving and quite risky in the level and nature of its confessional humour.
Flo’s piece was the fifth one. A letter, decades later, to a youth with whom she had enjoyed extended correspondence and an unfulfilled dalliance “back in the day”, probably because she was less ready for romance at that time than the young man. As with all of the pieces, there was a mixture of drama and humour; this one especially bittersweet because the mismatch was one of those timing things that so many of us probably, if we put our minds to it, experienced one way or another when we were in the early stages of romance. I probably wasn’t the only man in the room thinking, “crickey, I never, ever put THAT much effort into wooing a girl. Poor chap.”
Next up was David Wellbrook, who wrote a very moving letter in the part of a soldier on the front line in WW1, writing home having just killed a man in hand-to-hand combat. David is a very versatile writer. To a greater extent than most of us, he is able to pick up on Rohan’s entreaties to stretch ourselves beyond our safe zones and make that stretch comprehensively.
Strangely, Kay’s letter was to her late Grandfather and talked a great deal about his active service in WW1.This seemed like a particularly coincidental echo, coming immediately after David’s WW1 story and also in relation to mine, which was also a letter to a dead relative of the grandfather generation, albeit “grandfather-in-law” in my case. Kay’s piece was very touching, not least because clearly her grandfather had been unable to communicate feelings very much when Kay knew him and also because it is clear from the letter that Kay feels she might not have communicated with him sufficiently either.
Geraldine’s letter was directed by Rohan to be a letter of resignation, but Geraldine cleverly and delightfully twisted the idea to make it a letter of resignation to her former husband, explaining why she felt she simply had to escape the drudgery of the “American dream, American housewife” role in which she found herself cast as his wife. It was a beautiful piece of writing, full of love combined with a steely determination to explain herself and not to apologise. As with all of the pieces, the letter was probably the right length for such a performance piece but (and because) it said so much while leaving me wanting to know more.
After a short interlude, Rohan took us through a 10 point agenda. Is this is all getting a bit business-like?
…not as business-like as it looks, once you read the items
The brief for Threadmash Six is to write about an unknown woman named Charlotte Thomas. All we know of her is that Rohan managed to acquire a cheap moleskin-like notebook that had been customised with her name but never collected from the shop. Our job is to write about whosoever this person might be.
It did cross my mind to recycle my Theadmash One story, which is about a youthful dalliance with a young woman who I only ever knew as Fuzz, thus not even knowing her real first name, let alone her second name. She might very well be (or have been) Charlotte Thomas…
…but that would be cheating – I won’t do that. I think I have already decided on my Charlotte Thomas idea – it will be a bit of a stretch but I guess it is meant to be.
There was an awards ceremony, during which Rohan’s Edinburgh nemesis Rowan presented Adrian (in absentia) and Julie “Croissanita” with awards which, given their origins from the same stable as the Charlotte Thomas moleskin-type thing, I suggested should henceforward be known as “Charleys”.
It was a birthday party so of course there was cake…
…and goody bags.
Even the awkward silence was superb.
Then Rohan performed a new piece of his own, a very evocative piece which the agenda claims to be a collaboration with a top musician. But Rohan actually confessed that Brian Eno is…was unaware of the collaboration. I’m hoping Rohan will tell me which ambient piece he used to back up his words, at which point I shall update this piece with the information and possibly (with Rohan’s permission) let Brian Eno know how well he did.
Update: Rohan reports that the piece used was Neroli. You may hear Neroli on-line by clicking here or the embedded thingie below:
Rohan’s new work, about 15 minutes long, is a lyrical, poetic piece named Park.
Rohan was so pumped for his recital that he even felt the need to change for his performance:
Not only was Park a very charming and thought-provoking piece, it was, in a way, the third coincidence on the topic of troubadours. Of course, we will never know whenether the troubadour tradition was one of singing the lyrical poems to tunes or the dramatic recitation of lyrical poems with musical backing…almost certainly a bit of both depending on the piece and the troubadour. In any case it occurred to me that Rohan’s piece was very much of that 800+ years old troubadour tradition.
As always, the very act of gathering and spending an evening with such super people is a huge part of the Threadmash thing. I have known several of the people for just shy of 50 years now, whereas some of us have just met in the last year and about half the people at this anniversary evening were new to the thing. All were great company.
I’ve written too much already. It was a cracking evening. Thanks as always, Rohan.
The brief was simply to write a letter, although Rohan Candappa gave me some additional guidance suggesting that I try fiction this time. Here is the piece I performed for that event.
Dear William
Hi. It’s Prince Harry here. The sun is streaming in through my window here in France. It’s late morning; 1152 to be precise and you should know…indeed I want everybody to know, that I’m in love, William, I am in love!
Look, I know it isn’t going to be easy. She’s several years older than me, she’s a divorcee and she’s from across the pond. She might not be accepted by the great British public as “one of their own”.
She’s also a bit of a crusader. One tough cookie who doesn’t mind putting up a fight for the stuff she believes in. I like that about her.
William; she is SO beautiful. Not just how she looks in the pictures – those media types can make any old minger look special – but she really is a stunner. Real hotty totty, eh what?
But I’m not marrying her just for my own selfish reasons. Hell no. I’m getting married for the good of my country. We are in such a political mess at the moment. Near anarchy, I’d call it. Britain needs a royal wedding right now.
But, William, I would really like to know what you think. I know you can’t really give me answers, but you really know your pussy. Heaven knows you’ve played the field more than I have, more than most people. Droit du seigneur and all that.
So I wonder if you think my proposed marriage will work? I really could do with some familial advice and frankly I have no-one else credible to turn to in matters of the heart…
…just a second, all hell seems to have kicked off outside the Château. Bloody French, what the hell’s it about this time? They’re always revolting about something or another. Got to go, I’ll finish off this letter later on.
LATER ON
Hello again, William. It was 1152 when I started this letter; it’s 1173 now. Crumbs – when I said that I’d finish this letter later, I didn’t have “21 years later” in mind. Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun? Heck, how should I know; I’m not having much fun. Frankly, things haven’t gone swimmingly well since I wrote the first part of this letter.
It’s not all bad news. I’ve been King of England now for 19 years, which makes me a pretty important bloke, especially when you also take into account all my Dukedoms and Counties in France, including your old Dukedom of Aquitaine. Nice place. Decent weather.
So I did marry your grand-daughter, Eleanor. Wow, she really is a goer. Boof. We’ve had loads of kids. But therein lies the rub. It is nigh on impossible to keep all the kids happy with lands and castles and stuff. Eleanor doesn’t help because she insists on interfering – you know what women are like.
To be honest with you, I have fallen out with rather a lot of people lately, including Eleanor…and all of our kids…and my former best mate (now late mate) Thomas Becket… the Scots, the Irish, the Bretons, the Flemish, most of the French nobles, many of the English Barons…and the Pope.
But you know what, William? I know it might be hard for you to believe, but NONE of this revolting business is my fault. None of it. Heck, I’m just trying to do my job, establishing some sort of order out of the political mayhem I inherited.
You of all people will understand what I’m going through. You too fell out with your wife and had a ruction with the church. At least I haven’t been excommunicated; twice. But history will look kindly on you, William. It already does. You’ve not even been dead for 50 years, but already you are remembered as a bon viveur, a great lover and especially as the first troubadour. Heaven only knows how I’m going to be remembered.
How did you get away with all that stuff, William? Your behaviour…and the language you used in your songs – I’ve never seen the “F” word and the “C” word used so much in all my life.
Times have changed, though, William. The younger generation are prudes and snowflakes.
In truth, I don’t see much of Eleanor these days. Heck, I’m a busy fellow with loads of revolts to quell and I cannot bear being nagged. Anyway, Eleanor permanently stays indoors at the moment; I have security see to that. But I do still love her, in a way. A chivalric way. You of all people will understand that.
In fact, it occurred to me that, as you were the very first troubadour; the chap who established the tradition of secular performance song which will endure for centuries if not millennia…
…I thought I should end this letter with a song that explains exactly how I feel about your granddaughter Eleanor.
Sincerely yours,
Your devoted grandson-in-law
Henry Plantagenet
ELEANOR
VERSE ONE
You’ve got a thing about you; Grandpa was a troubadou, I really want you, Eleanor legally;
Your power intoxicates me, though all the French folk hate me;
There’s no-one like you, Eleanor, regally.
CHORUS ONE
Eleanor, you of Aquitaine, as they speak in Northern Spain, Southern France and parts of Italy;
Eleanor, can you be more kind, I want you to change your mind, try to reign beside me prettily.
VERSE TWO
Sometimes I think your hassle, treating me like your vassal,
Seeking advance for you and the offspring;
Don’t suppose you envisioned, that I’d have you imprisoned,
When your coup failed with Henry The Young King
CHORUS TWO
Eleanor, you of Aquitaine, you’re a right chivalric pain, all our sons will not forgive me;
Eleanor, can you be more kind, I want you to change your mind, at this rate you’ll way outlive me.
OUTRO
Eleanor, gee I think you’re hell, ah-hah; Eleanor, gee I think you’re hell, ah-hah…ha-ah.
Not that they had chords in the 12th century, but for those who might be interested in the chords I used, the image below will help you. Aficionados might note the devils intervals I used to conclude the “musical piece”.
Performed on my Roosebeck baroq-ulele, tuned DGBE. Thus A4th is fret 2 on the G&B strings, D4th is open D and F# on the E string. Not very 12th century but a bit medieval…or just evil.
I offer space on Ogblog for Threadmashers if placing their pieces in the public domain pleases them; I am delighted and honoured to host any or all such pieces. This time, Kay Scorah has submitted her touching account entitled:
The Gift. Bobo
The Holme Lane Theatre Company – HLTC- specialised in Dickensian tales of poverty and suffering. Inspired by…
…well…
…Charles Dickens tales of poverty and suffering.
Their performances always featured a fierce heroine; Olivia Twist or Nicola Nickleby, who overcame tyranny and liberated the oppressed. This heroine was always slight of build, sharp-witted and fleet of foot. Uncannily like a certain small, skinny girl who always came top of the class and had to run fast to escape the thick bully boys in the neighbourhood.
The cast of HLTC, a motley collection of dolls and soft toys, would rehearse in my attic playroom in Hillsborough, Sheffield, and then head out on tour, which involved moving the entire production down to the living room to play to a captive (as opposed to captivated) audience of long-suffering grown ups, or GUs as we shall call them.
Bobo joined the cast in September 1961. A birthday gift from Granny. The first black doll in our company. She turned out to be the Russian doll of gifts. Which is weird because you don’t come across many black Russians….not outside of a cocktail menu, anyway.
Bobo the doll was just the wrapper around the gift of layers of learning.
Bobo gift 1: Golly has to go. With her movable arms, head and legs and her eyes which closed when she lay down, Bobo was a far more versatile performer than Golly, who just flopped about the place with a fixed grin. And, to be honest, in spite of being rocketed to stardom after having been featured on the side of a jam jar, Golly’s place in the company had been uncertain for some time. Some of our audience did not approve, even threatened to boycott performances, and with Bobo’s arrival… things became very awkward. No. Bobo most certainly could not be expected to work alongside Golly. This was perhaps the only time in history that a black female was given precedence over a male of any hue.
Bobo gift 2: Fluidity in representations of gender. With Golly gone, there were no male cast members. So we became an all-female theatre company. Male characters, if we must have them, were played by girl dolls. In 1961. Yes, The Holme Lane Theatre company was way ahead of its time.
Bobo Gift 3. Questioning the concept of gendered naming. Bobo arrived on a Tuesday. In conversation with Mr Baidu down the street, I learned that Bobo was Ghanaian for “Tuesday child”. I didn’t know that it was Ghanaian for “boy Tuesday child”. Nor did Bobo.
Bobo Gift 4. Heated debates on colonialism, cultural appropriation, integration, assimilation, ancestry, origin, custom…. Some of the GUs argued that Bobo should have an English name, like the other dolls – Wendy, Susan, Lorraine, Katy… “She needs to feel that she belongs.” “Just because she’s black doesn’t mean she isn’t English.” Others defended her right to claim her ancestry…. It could be hard to get their attention back to the play; to Olivia Twist MP’s fight for workhouse reform or Dr Nicola Nickleby’s courageous work among child polio victims.
So, here’s to Bobo, probably the first black female to play the lead in a stage adaptation of a Dickens novel, who, 5 years before the race relations act, called out racism and reclaimed African culture from the colonial Brits, and who, decades ahead of the LGBTQ+ movement gave rise to an all-female, gender non-conforming, cross-dressing theatre company.
Not bad for a doll.
Many thanks again to Kay Scorah for allowing this piece to guest on Ogblog.
Anyway, this time the brief was “The Gift”, with additional instructions to stick to just one page. I took that to mean “one side of a sheet of A4”, but some took it to mean two sides. No matter. I can write something War & Peace epic length next time to get my own back.
I sensed that Rohan Candappa had mischief in mind when he asked us to bring two copies of our text with us.
Once we started Threadmashing, after several of us had dined on goat pie (or whatevs) and made a start on the libations, I also sensed that there might be a mini riot when Rohan announced that we would each be reading someone else’s work rather than our own. But we soon settled down and knuckled down to the additional challenge.
40 years on, Chris Grant still gets head boy privileges.
Chris Grant, a first time Threadmash writer (although not first time attendee) was excused the additional challenge and thus read his own piece as an opener for the evening. It was a charming short piece.
We had each been given a few minutes to read the piece we had inherited.
Quite early in the evening, David Wellbrook read out my piece, which follows below.
David Wellbrook soldiering through my piece
Coincidentally, I was given David’s piece to read; a somewhat Dahlesque horror story, as Rohan had encouraged David to try fiction this time. I did enjoy reading David’s piece I must say. Rohan has strongly encouraged me to try writing fiction for the next one.
He doesn’t look dictatorial, does he? It’s a deceptively gentle form of throat shaking, Rohan’s dictatorial style – sttrong guidance followed by, “but it’s up to you, of course…only if you want to…”
Anyway, here’s my piece which was so capably read by David:
The word “gift” has two distinct meanings as a noun. A gift means something given freely, a present. But it also means a natural ability or talent, such as, “a gift for writing”. When Rohan suggested “The Gift” as his subject for Threadmash Four, I was drawn to the second of these definitions.
These past few years, I have been spending increasing amounts of my time on activities for which I am not naturally gifted, but they are nevertheless activities that I love doing and pursuing. Specifically, I mean sports, such as cricket, plus music. My mother came from a supremely musical family. One branch of her family yielded several notable professional musicians, especially violinists. Even my barber grandfather could, by all accounts, instantly play on the piano any tune you might choose to hum at him.
When I started secondary school, my mother gave me every encouragement to take up and play the violin. But quite quickly, the sound of me practicing, which resembled cats being tortured in a pitch-distorting dungeon, led mum to encourage me to give up violin and try something else. Anything else.
Actually I was growing quite fond of sport. Cricket, tennis and fives mostly. I wasn’t very good at sports either, but I wasn’t going to let an absence of giftedness stop me from trying. Nor was I going to let my own shortcomings stop me from becoming a fascinated follower of my favourite sports. And indeed also a devotee of many varied genres of music.
In truth, although I didn’t inherit the family gift for performing music, I certainly did inherit “a love of music”. And it has occurred to me characteristics such as “a love of music” truly are gifts to be cherished and celebrated.
Where I got my gift for loving sports such as cricket is more of a mystery. Neither of my parents had any interest in sport whatsoever. Not professional sport and certainly not my participation in sport; I don’t think either of my parents ever saw me play sport, other than me mucking about at some nonsense game at home.
Yet, my father’s very last birthday treat included a sporting revelation. The only way to treat my dad towards the end of his life…actually for most of his life…was to take him out for a good meal. As it happened, in 2006, dad’s 87th birthday, fell on a day that Middlesex were playing at Lord’s. I booked at table with a view in the Warner Restaurant, which followed an informal pavilion tour before lunch. They loved it. As dad said, “there aren’t many places I can go now and see people of my own age…apart from old age homes”. The England & Wales Cricket Board marketing folk may use that quote for nothing.
At one point that day, dad mentioned that he and his kid brother Michael had been given a set of cricket equipment by their parents as a gift, when the family moved to Clapham Common in the early 1930s and the boys started a new school there. Neither dad nor Michael had shown any interest in cricket before the gift, apparently, nor did that gift inspire either of them to take the slightest interest in cricket. My grandparents; Eastern European migrants with accents from central casting, were perhaps striving to turn their sons into quintessential English schoolboys through the peculiar sport that is cricket.
I wonder whether my grandparents’ intention with that cricket equipment gift somehow skipped a generation but still subconsciously fueled my love of cricket? A gift indeed.
Chris Grant remarked that he found it really weird hearing words that were so clearly mine coming out of David Wellbrook’s mouth. We have all known each other for over 45 years, so I suppose that is understandable.
All of the pieces were excellent, as usual. I also thought everyone made a good job of reading out someone else’s work, especially as most of us had not started the evening expecting to read something other than one’s own piece.
I caught myself categorising this Ogblog page as both “writing” and “friends and family events” this time. This reflects the fact that Threadmash has become, in my mind and I think those of others, a community of friends who, as it happens, like to gather to read and write together. It’s more than just “a writing thing” now. For all of it, I am grateful to Rohan for innovating and stewarding the ideas.
This time John Eltham came along to be part of the evening, as did Ben Clayson, although the latter arrived after the readings. It became, as always, a convivial gatheirng of interesting and interested people.
I took a few more pictures – all 10 pictures can be found on Flickr by clicking the picture icon below:
The question “where do I begin?” in the matter of a love story is, I suggest, a rather uninteresting question. Almost all love stories start when the lovers meet. OK, the story might have a short preamble to set the scene, such as the almighty punch-up at the start of Romeo and Juliet, but basically love stories start when the lovers meet. Simples.
So before I
begin the short love story I have prepared for you, I want to explore two variants
of the “where do I begin?” question:
Firstly – where did “where do I begin?” begin, in
the context of the film Love Story.
Secondly, I
want to explore the question, where…or
rather when…does love begin?”, which I think is a rather more intriguing
question. My attempted answer also informs the rather regular style of love
story with which I shall briefly conclude.
So, where did “where do I begin?” begin?
Francis Lai
had written a score for the movie Love Story, including the tune Theme From Love Story.
The Paramount
Movie people felt that the Theme needed a lyric and commissioned Carl Sigman, a top lyricist
at the time, to turn that theme tune into a song.
Sigman initially
wrote a schmaltzy lyric summarizing the love story depicted in the film, with
lines such as:
“So when Jenny came” and
“Suddenly was gone”…
…you get the
picture. But Robert Evans,
the larger than life producer of Love Story, hated Sigman’s original attempt at
the lyric; in particular fretting that the “Jenny came” line was suggestive.
According to Sigman’s
son, the great lyricist was furious at being asked to rewrite the lyric, throwing
a bit of a hissy and threatening to withdraw from the project. But the next
day, when Sigman had calmed down, he told his wife that he would try again. But,
“where do I begin?”, Sigman asked. “That’ll do”, or words to that effect, replied
Mrs Sigman. Thus, at least apocryphally, the famous line and song title was
born.
But the
question I really want to explore before I tell you my little love story is where…or rather when…does love begin?”
I believe that
people tend to rewrite their personal romantic histories somewhat, often
attributing a “love at first sight” narrative to, for example, the story of
meeting one’s life partner. But that attribution is made with the benefit of
hindsight.
Let me
illustrate my point with a slightly less emotive example. Falling in love with
a house.
I quite often tell the tale of my viewing our house in West Acton, at the behest of my then girlfriend, now wife, Janie, who had already seen it. I reckon I had been inside for no more than 30 to 40 seconds before I concluded that I could imagine Janie living out the rest of her life in that house, possibly with me in it too. In the vernacular, I fell in love with our house at first sight. We bought the house. Janie and I love that house. Noddyland, we call it.
The Noddyland Threshold
But supposing
the Noddyland house story had not panned out as it did. My offer might have
been rejected or the survey might have found an insurmountable problem with
that house. Or we might have been guzumped by David Wellbrook or some such
person who knows a fine house at a sensible price when he sees one.
Janie and I
would have resumed our search for a house and we’d no doubt have found another;
we might have liked or even loved that other house…
…but I would
not have looked back on my initial visit to Noddyland as a “love at first sight”
story. We might have mused about whether we’d have been happier “at that one we
liked the look of but didn’t get”. We would not have used the term “love” about
that house at all.
My point is
that the love comes later. We tend to back-fill the story in hindsight and
imagine the love to have come much sooner than it really did.
Returning to the question of romantic love, I wonder where or when that love genuinely begins. My view on this matter has changed as I have got older. Back in the days of my very early fumblings in the late 1970s, for example The Story Of Fuzz in my inaugural TheadMash piece…
…I don’t think I thought of those escapades as love stories of any kind.
But soon
after that, once I had started having “proper, long-term relationships”…I’m
talking weeks here or even occasionally months…I considered those adventures to
be “my love life.” Rollercoaster emotions would ensue; elation at the onset or
when a romantic setback was overcome; heartache when things went awry,
especially when the upshot was that I had been dumped. I know it’s hard to believe,
folks, but one or two foolish young women made that mistake and paid the
ultimate price of losing their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with me.
But when I
look back on those short-lived, early efforts now, I find it hard to recognize many
if any of the characteristics of a love story in those tales. At the time, of
course, I thought I was falling in and out of love. But with the benefit of a
more seasoned perspective, those stories are merely a good source for comedic
interludes or nostalgia-drenched asides…
Those early
entanglements are too fleeting and (I regret having to confess) sometimes too
entangled with each other to make true romantic copy.
Contrast that
sort of juvenile jumble with…
…David
Wellbrook’s superb recitation at ThreadMash 2, about his good lady’s near death
experience and David’s intimate account of his own reaction to it. Now that
piece was not written as a love story, it was written as a piece on the theme
of “lost and found”. Yet it was, I would argue, a profound and heartfelt personal
love story. I wouldn’t attempt to emulate or better it as a love story.
But it did
get me thinking about a couple of near-death experiences Janie and I went
through, particularly the first of them.
The incident was
many years ago, in the mid 1990s, when Janie and I had been together for fewer
than three years.
Janie and I went
over to my business partner Michael and his then girlfriend (now wife)
Elisabeth’s place for a Saturday evening meal that May Bank Holiday. Both Janie
and I experienced quite severe indigestion that night; a state we attributed to
Elisabeth’s solidly-Germanic, Sauerbraten style of
cooking, combined with perhaps a tad too much alcohol to wash down the heavy
food. But whereas my biliousness passed as the Sunday progressed, Janie became increasingly
poorly and doubled up with pain in her innards.
To cut a long
and painful story short, by the night of Bank Holiday Monday, I was convinced
that the locum doctor’s relatively casual attitude to a woman doubled up with
increasing pain was insufficient and took Janie to A&E, where they
immediately diagnosed (correctly) acute pancreatitis caused by a rogue
gallstone.
As I left
Janie in the care of the kind doctor, the youngster (yes, even when I was still
a mere 33 years old, the night-duty house doctor in A&E looked like a
youngster) took me aside. He warned me that, although they thought they had
everything under control and that the odds were in Janie’s favour, he was duty
bound to warn me how serious pancreatitis can be and that Janie might not survive
the ordeal.
I drove home, alone, with that “might not survive” thought and the strains of Miserlou by Dick Dale & His Del-Tones on the radio…
…well it was 1995 when Pulp Fiction was all the rage. I can no longer hear that tune without thinking of that lonely drive home.
But the incident
brought the romantic truth home to me; Janie wasn’t just the girl that I had
been going out with for longer now than any of my previous girlfriends – nearly
three whole years. It made me realize that I really did love Janie.
In fact it made me realize that I had recognized that fact a year earlier, when I discussed the idea of me setting up business with Michael. I had said to Janie that the venture was a big risk…
…the dangers of Michael and Elisabeth’s notorious cooking for a start…that’s an unfair joke that should not be repeated or put in print (apart from the Ogblog version of this piece 😉 )…
…the venture was a big risk because we’d be taking on indebtedness and if the business went wrong I’d have to give up my flat and have little or no money for quite a while. Janie had simply said that it wasn’t really a big risk because she still had a job and a flat and that we’d get by. It was then that I knew that she loved me and that I also loved her and that she and I were committed to help each other through life’s journey for the foreseeable future.
To me, THAT is truly the stuff of “where love begins”.
Extract From Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture
As for the more simple, “where do I begin?” love story; I suppose I should now tell you the story of how Janie and I met.
We met in
August 1992 at one of Kim and Micky’s parties; Kim being Janie’s best friend.
In some ways
it is odd that Janie’s and my path hadn’t crossed before, through Kim &
Micky. I had known Kim, through holiday jobs and stuff, since I was a youngster.
In the late 1980s, when I got to know Kim & Micky socially, I would see
them a few times a year at dinner or lunch parties. But I guess they saw Janie
and me as part of different circles. In any case, we were both otherwise
attached most of the time during those years.
Anyway, Janie
and I chatted quite a lot during the party and ended up as part of a smaller
group that was still around into the early evening, at which point Kim
suggested that we all go across the square and play tennis.
I had just
started playing tennis again, rather tentatively, following a particularly
nasty back injury. Goodness only knows how useless I was after quite a few
drinks at the party. But most of us had been drinking quite heavily, so I don’t
suppose the quality of the tennis was very high. I do recall thinking that
Janie was pretty good at tennis. It probably helped that she was the only sober
person among us.
Janie had
mentioned several times that she had driven to the party in her car and
therefore wasn’t drinking. After the
tennis, I asked her if she could drop me at a tube station. She said that she
would, but that she wasn’t prepared to go out of her way and that the only tube
station she’d be passing was Hanger Lane. That was ideal for me, as Hanger Lane
and Notting Hill Gate are on the same line.
Janie and I
chatted some more on the fifteen minute car journey.
Janie said
that she liked poetry.
When she
stopped the car to drop me off, I asked Janie for her telephone number.
Janie said
no.
In order to
get out of the car with my dignity intact, I took from my wallet one of those
sticky labels with my name, address and telephone number on it. I stuck the
label on her steering wheel, saying, “in that case, you can have my address and
telephone number”.
Janie thanked
me and said that she would write me a poem.
I’m still
waiting for the poem.
While preparing
this TheadMash piece, I asked Janie if she wanted to apologise for her terse refusal
that first evening and for the continued absence of my poem, some 27 years
later.
“No”,
said Janie, “love means never having to say you’re sorry”. Who could argue with
that sentiment in the matter of love story.
In
any case, Janie assures me that the poem is coming; she never set a specific
date for its production. It might end up being my epitaph.
I
look forward to that.
Meanwhile,
if this short account has left you wondering how on earth Janie and I got it
together after her initial rejection…
…well,
that’s another story or two – not for ThreadMash.
But those yarns will be linked to the Ogblog version of this piece. They involve ossobuco…
Postscript 1: For Those Readers Who Like Their Stories Circular/Complete
I realised after completing my first pass on this piece that Robert Evans, the producer who sent Carl Sigman back to the drawing board to write the “Where Do I Begin?” lyric, was the subject of a play Janie and I saw a couple of years ago; The Kid Stays In The Picture…
On pondering the topic, lost and found, I soon realised that the thing I tend to lose most frequently at this stage of my life is time. And that the thing I am seeking to find with the most gusto is memories.
Those thoughts reminded me of two anecdotes.
The first one came at the end of the cricket season a few years ago.
Late season, I always try to take in a day of county cricket with my old friend, Charley “The Gent” Malloy. It helps us both to prepare for the inevitable winter withdrawal symptoms. The cricket season starts earlier and ends later each year, yet it seems to fly by faster than ever. Where do those months go?
In order to investigate this temporal phenomenon, which I shall paraphrase as ‘in search of lost time,’ I decided to add a large packet of madeleines to the picnic. I had bought that large pack earlier in the season but had not got around to using them. Those madeleines would expire before the next season. Besides, as any fool knows…
…or at least anyone with a vague knowledge of the writings of Marcel Proust…
…when in search of lost time, what you need more than anything else, is madeleines.
No sooner had the umpires called “tea”, than out came the madeleines.
And no sooner had the crumbs touched my palate, than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses. Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?
And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings nanny would hand me, after dressing me in my little sailor suit, when I went to say good morning to mama in her boudoir.
“Are you getting involuntary memory from these?” I asked.
“Yup,” said Charley. “I can recall the rare occasions in that grim North-Eastern mining town, when mum would put a tiny pile of cakes on the table and the whole family would fight like wildcats in the hope that a few crumbs might touch yer palate.”
Now Charley is Essex born and bred. He does have some County Durham ancestry way back, but I’m not sure he’d ever even been to County Durham until we went together to the Durham test match in 2013.
“Hmm”, I said. “I think we might both be getting false memory rather than involuntary recovered memory from this packet of madeleines. Must be the lack of lemon zest. Still, they’re surprisingly good for packaged cakes. I’ll have another.”
“Me too”, said Charley.
So we ate three or four each and Charley took the remainder home to share with his starving wife and bairns.
…
Now, not all that long afterwards, I experienced a real example of finding a lost memory as a result of eating food. The foodstuff wasn’t madeleines this second time; it was caviar. Janie decided to treat us to a small pot of Ossetra caviar to help celebrate New Year’s Eve.
And this time, the recovered memory was an extremely peculiar but absolutely genuine memory…
…about Hitler.
Now there is an internet adage known as Godwin’s Law, which states (I paraphrase) that any internet discussion will eventually descend into a Hitler comparison.
Surely Threadmash should be a Hitler-free, safe space; not subject to an immersive equivalent of Godwin’s Law? Normally, yes, but not today.
From my infancy all the way through my childhood in Streatham, we had a wonderful lady doctor, Dr Edwina Green. Edwina was a GP who went way beyond the call of duty.
For example, because I was…how should I put this?…more than a little fearful of my jabs as an infant, she came round to our house to dispense the vaccinations. On one famous occasion, when I was feeling particularly averse to being stabbed, Edwina indicated to mum that my rump might make a better target in the circumstances. I worked out the coded message and tried to bolt. The end result was a chase around the room and eventually a rather undignified bot shot delivered by Edwina under the dining room table. My mum oft-reminded me of this later in my life.
Not even the trike was fast enough for me to escape Edwina’s needle
This extraordinary level of pastoral care and attentiveness went beyond zealously inoculating reluctant Harris miniatures – Edwina and her family were close friends with my immediate family, not least the ones who came “from the old country”. Uncle Manny, whose opinions were so robust and plentiful, that everyone in the family called him Pundit…and Grandma Anne – a traditional Jewish grandmother, who peppered her heavily-accented English with “bissel Yiddish”.
Grandma Anne With Dad (left) & Uncle Michael (right), c1930 Uncle Pundit (centre) with Dad (left) and Uncle Michael (right), c1950
In the early 1970s, at Christmas-time, my parents would go to Edwina’s house for a seasonal party, along with many other local folk. Naturally, my parents plied Edwina and her family with gifts…many of Edwina’s other patients and guests most certainly did the same.
A strange tradition arose, in which Edwina reciprocated our present giving by handing down a generous gift she would always receive from a wealthy Iranian patient; an enormous pot, I think a pound, of Iranian Beluga caviar.
By Mai Le [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Edwina and family didn’t like the taste of caviar. Nor did my dad, as it happens. But mum loved it and I acquired a seasonal taste for it too.
Each year, mum and I would eat Beluga caviar on toast for breakfast for the first couple of weeks of the year.
Even back then caviar, especially Beluga caviar, was very expensive. Not equivalent to the “critically endangered, barely legal, hard to get hold of” price levels of today, but still very much a pricey, luxury item.
I remember mum warning me not to tell my friends at school that I was eating caviar on toast for breakfast, because they would surmise that I was a liar or that we were a rich family or (worst of all) both.
There was only one problem with this suburban community idyll; Don Knipe. Edwina’s husband.
Don liked his drink. Specifically Scotch whisky. More specifically, Teacher’s whisky. A bottle of Teacher’s always formed part of our family Christmas gift offering, that bottle forming but a tiny proportion of Don’s annual intake.
By ramkrsna (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramkrsna/384365364/) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Don I recall always being described as “eccentric”, but, as the years went on, Don’s eccentricities gained focus with increasing unpleasantness. Don joined the National Front, at that time the most prominent far-right, overtly fascist party in the UK.
One year, when I was already in my teens, my parents returned early from Edwina and Don’s party. I learned that Don had acquired a large bust of Hitler, which was being proudly displayed as a centrepiece in the living room. My mother had protested to Don about the bust, asking him to remove it, but to no avail. Mum had taken matters into her own hands by rotating the bust by 180 degrees. When Don insisted on rotating Hitler’s bust back to its forward-facing position, mum and dad left the party in protest.
Mum told Don and Edwina that they remained welcome at our house but that she would not be visiting their house while Hitler remained on show.
One evening, a few weeks or months later, my parents had Edwina, Don and some other people around our house. The topic of Hitler and Nazi atrocities came up. Don started sounding off about the Holocaust not really having been as bad as people made out.
Edwina And Don At My Bar Mitzvah, Natch.
My father stood up and quietly told me to go upstairs to my bedroom. I scampered up the stairs but hovered on the landing out of view to get a sense of what was happening.
My father was a very gentle man. I only remember him being angry twice in my whole life; this was one of those occasions.
“You f***ing c***!”, I heard my dad exclaim.
I learned afterwards that my father, not a big man but a colossus beside the scrawny form of Don Knipe, had pinned Don to the wall and gone very red in the face while delivering his brace of expletives.
I heard the sound of a kerfuffle, a few more angry exchanges, ending with “get out of my house”. Then I heard Don and Edwina leave the house. Edwina was weeping, apologising and trying to explain that Don doesn’t know or mean what he says.
Dad – a supremely gentle fellow…usually
The story gets weirder. Edwina remained our family doctor, although social visits were now at an end. Don and Edwina remained extremely attentive to Uncle Manny’s branch of the family and Grandma Anne.
And the seasonal exchange of gifts remained sacrosanct.
For reasons I now find hard to fathom, I became the conduit for the seasonal gift exchange. Why my mother, who organised the errand, felt that I would be less defiled than my parents by visiting a household that displays a bust of Hitler, I have no idea.
Anyway, for several years I would go to Edwina and Don’s house to deliver our presents and collect the fishy swag. I didn’t go into the large living room which contained Hitler’s bust; I would usually be received in a smaller front drawing room.
As I got a bit older, Don would ask me to join him for a whisky and a cigarette; offers which I accepted.
I can’t recall what Don and I normally talked about; not politics. We probably just chatted vaguely about my family and the weather.
But I do recall what we talked about in 1981, my last visit in this ritual.
By late December 1981 I had completed four terms at Keele; I was far more politically aware than I had been in earlier years.
Don greeted me at the front door, as usual, but this time said, “come through to the living room and have a whisky with me.”
“Not if Hitler is still in there,” I said.
“Oh don’t start all that”, blustered Don, who I think must have made a start on the whisky before I got to the house that morning. “I really want to chat to you about your late uncle and your grandma.” Don started to cry.
I relented and entered the forbidden chamber.
And there he was, in the sitting room, glaring in my direction.
Hitler.
The bust of Hitler, I mean. I said the story was genuine and strange, not deranged.
Hitler’s bust, resplendently positioned with Nazi flags and books about the Third Reich on display around it.
I accepted a generous slug of Teacher’s and a Rothmans; then I reluctantly sat down.
Don was crying. “I miss your Uncle Manny and your Grandma Anne so much”, he said, “you have no idea how fond of them I was. I love your family.”
I remember saying words to this effect, “Don, I understand that you sincerely love my family, but I cannot reconcile that love with Hitler, Nazi memorabilia, your membership of the National Front and you keeping company with those who hold such views. Those are antisemitic, out-and-out racist organisations and people. It makes no sense to me.”
“It’s not about Jewish people like your family. I love your family.”
“So what sort of people is it about?” I asked.
“Other people. You don’t understand”, said Don.
Don was right. I didn’t understand. I still don’t understand. It isn’t as if our family was so secular and Westernised. Uncle Manny and Grandma Anne were like Jewish stereotype characters from central casting.
“Godwin’s Law, Godwin’s Schmo, Don Was Always A Mensch Towards Me”
I think I was polite in making my excuses and leaving fairly quickly. The visit certainly didn’t end in any acrimony or hostility. For sure I got the caviar. But I resolved not to run that errand again and (as far as I recall) didn’t ever visit that house again.
Strange. And I found that memory simply as a result of sampling a small pot of caviar with Janie.
Now, as an experiment this evening, I thought it would be fascinating for all of us here at Threadmash to see if we can find lost memories in this way.
So, at my own cost…
…with absolutely no expense spared…
…I have bought each of you a small pot…
[TURN PAGE IN SEARCH OF THE PUNCHLINE]
…I have bought each of you a small, pot-entially Proustian…
…madeleine.
[HAND OUT WRAPPED MADELEINES FROM BAG]
Postscript – Brief Review Of the Evening, Written The Morning After
We gathered excitedly at the Gladstone Arms for this second Threadmash. Ten of us with stories to tell and just a couple of people this time observing only.
People listening intently to Rohan’s intro
As last time, Rohan was the arranger and compere for the evening. He stitched me up to go first – which explains why I was in a good position to photograph some of the group from the side during Rohan’s intro.
Eight of us were having a second go; two new people joined us in telling a story.
The stories tended to be darker and more visceral this time. Perhaps the topic, “Lost and Found” was asking for that. Two of the stories were about experiences with drugs and/or addiction. Two were about nearly losing a loved one, together with the intense emotions that arise from such events. One was about nearly losing a cherished artefact – in this case a violin; a personal story, interestingly, nevertheless, told in the third person.
Several of the pieces this time were experimental in their written style. One was in blank verse. Two were fabulist, in one case making it intriguingly hard to tell the extent to which it was based on personal experience. One story spanned over fifty years and ended with a fascinating revelation.
All of the stories and performances were very good indeed; delivered and received with great warmth.
To continue the thread for next time, Rohan brought a pile of single records, from which we each picked two at random, so we shall each have a different title next time and some element of choice from the records we picked.
Not a bad random choice to trigger story-telling
One story teller, earlier in the evening, had said that we don’t always find stories to tell; sometimes a story finds us. I was pondering this fascinating idea, after parting company with the last of my companions, as I switched to the Central Line at Bank. There, on the train, as I sat down in the almost empty carriage, on the seat opposite me, a story found me:
There simply has to be a story behind that crumpled Ann Summers bag. It won’t be my next Threadmash story, but it is a story that should be told. If you want to tell it; please do so – it might not be for me to tell that story.
It had been a wonderful evening.
As I write, the next morning, my head is full of all of those stories and the warm, friendly feeling that pervaded the evening. Strangely, I cannot find a single word to describe that feeling in English, whereas there is a suitably descriptive word for it in German: Gemütlichkeit.
Once again Rohan, many thanks for making Threadmash happen. Here’s to the next one.
When Rohan was organsing this evening, he sent round a note asking us to “pencil in” this date.
Now I’m not one who is naturally disposed to doing what I am told…
…so I joined the small band of pencil-resisters and informed Rohan and others:
I have written “Rohan Thing?” in big letters in my diary, in ink. If my inflexibility in the pencil verses ink aspect deems me ineligible for the event, I quite understand.
Rohan responded:
Ian, it’s mainly your hat that I’m inviting. But, apparently, it can’t make it without you wandering about underneath. As for ‘Rohan Thing’ – that makes it sound like you’d met me at a party the night before, but can’t remember my surname. Despite all this, I still want you to come along.
Now I know what some of you are thinking. You’re thinking that I am buying time here, in a rather pitiful way, by quoting Rohan’s witty remarks while avoiding actually telling a story of my own.
Well, y…
…NO! Not at all. But that bant does form part of my story.
Let’s start with Rohan’s initial reference to my hat. Now it seems to me, that Rohan was, rather obviously, dropping a heavy hint that he wanted me to tell the story about the day I bought this hat.
And in many ways it is perfectly understandable that Rohan should try to coax me, kindly, gently, directorially towards telling that story. Because it is a darned good story. Within three minutes of buying this hat, from Lock & Co. in St James’s, in early June 2016, I was afforded the opportunity to accost Boris Johnson while he was on his bicycle and had to stop for me at a pelican crossing on The Mall. I waved my real tennis racket at Boris – an implement which, I have subsequently been told, has the unfortunate look of a sawn-off shotgun when in its archaic canvas bag. It wasn’t my intention to seem quite so threatening. Oh well.
Here are some of the items for you to peruse
Anyway, I let Boris know what a knob he was being by supporting Brexit, endangering our economy and potentially causing geopolitical mayhem. My noble gesture was temporarily cathartic for me but ultimately, it seems, futile for the nation and the world.
I could milk that anecdote into a full blown dramatic…or perhaps I should say tragi-comic recitation…
…if I wanted to…
…but as you know, I’m not one who is naturally disposed to doing what I am told…
…or even what I am kindly, gently, directorially coaxed towards doing…
…so I’m not going to talk about the June 2016 hat.
Instead, I’m going to talk about the trousers I bought four weeks earlier. These red trousers.
I made an emergency trip to the Retro Clothing Exchange shop at 28 Pembridge Road in Notting Hill Gate, to try and find an appropriate pair of trousers for a 1960’s party. Actually it wasn’t for any old 1960’s party. It was for my wife, Janie’s party.
The likely source of the party trousers was the basement of that retro shop. Despite its change of purpose within the “Exchange Empire”, I recognised the space immediately as the old bargain basement of Record and Tape Exchange.
[On with Sisters Of Mercy]
I inhabited that basement a great deal in my youth. Initially and several times subsequently, those visits were with my Alleyn’s School friend, Paul Deacon.
It was probably the pull of Record and Tape Exchange and my resulting familiarity with Notting Hill Gate that drew me to move into that part of London ten years later, almost exactly 30 years ago, when I was ready to find my own place. A most fortuitous draw, as I have been profoundly happy living there.
Now as some of you might know, I indulge a retro-blogging habit, writing up my diaries and memorabilia in the form of a life blog going back as far as I can go. Ogblog, I call it.
So, when I got home with my bright red retro trousers, I did a diary trawl of my 1970s second hand record shop expeditions, in order to Ogblog those memories.
Paul Deacon and I first succeeded in visiting that shop in late April 1978. I bought several records which had a profound effect on me. Most memorably from that first batch, a CBS sampler album, The Rock Machine Turns You On, which had, amongst other treasures, Sisters of Mercy by Leonard Cohen. I remember the hairs on the back of my neck standing up when I first heard that track. I played it over and over again, to the irritation of my parents who wondered why I was hell bent on playing “such dirgy stuff”.
But the dusty and musty smell of the 28 Pembridge Road basement actually reminded me most about a visit some three months later, during the school holidays, not with Paul, but with a young female known as Fuzz.
[Off with Sisters Of Mercy – On with Me & Mrs Jones]
You might recall that Rohan thought the term “Rohan Thing” appropriate for someone you met at a party whose second name had evaded you. Of course, back in 1978, when we were 15/16 years old, it was not uncommon to get rather friendly with someone at a party without ever finding out their second name.
But I must confess that Fuzz, with whom I’d had a gentle squeeze at Anil & Anita Biltoo’s party a couple of weeks before she and I made that July 1978 Pembridge Road visit, has a unique place in my junior romantic canon. Because I don’t think I even found out Fuzz’s real first name, let alone her second name.
How we arranged that “date” at Pembridge Road is a bit of a mystery now…but nowhere near as much of a mystery as her name. “Everyone calls me Fuzz”, is, I think, as far as I got, name-wise.
But in other ways, Fuzz and I got a little bit further. I was on the lowest foothills of learning about romantic entwinement that summer, but I had discovered tonsil hockey a few months earlier and was quite keen to practice that sport when the chance presented itself.
During one of the quarter breaks in our tonsil hockey match at Anil and Anita’s party, I inadvertently overheard Fuzz excitedly telling her pals, that…
…I blush to report this…
…words to the effect…
…I was the best tonsil hockey player she had ever encountered.
[Off with Me And Mrs Jones]
Now please bear in mind, folks, I went to the sort of school where the only feedback you got from games masters, even if you were one of the best sporting boys the school had seen in years, was a phrase such as, “you’re uncoachable”, delivered with a clip around the ear…
…and I was far from being one of the best sporting boys the school had seen in years…
…I was one of those boys who would try hard at sport, but whose abundant enthusiasm could not compensate for my dismal shortages of athleticism and talent.
Not that my school sporting career was completely devoid of success. Oh no. Three years earlier I had, famously, defeated the mighty John Eltham – who was certainly one of the more sporty boys – in the fives quarter finals of 1975. I even have a “winning quarter-finalist” trophy emblazoning my drinks cabinet, a trophy mysteriously uncovered by a certain Rohan Candappa, as evidence of that victory.
But my point is, I was not used to hearing encouraging sporting words at all and I had, until that juncture, the low confidence of a novice in the matter of tonsil hockey. My previous experience at that sport (otherwise known as French kissing) could, in July 1978, have been counted on the fingers of one hand. Possibly even the finger of one finger. But I was hearing it on good authority that I was already up there with the very best exponents of the sport globally. Wow.
Of course, it occurs to me now that Fuzz’s prior experience of tonsil hockey might have been as limited as mine, or even less so, making “best ever” a somewhat meaningless comparative term. Oh well.
What Fuzz might have thought of my sartorial talent back then is lost in the mists of time, but it is very unlikely to have been good news. Baggy flared jeans and a yellow PVC waterproof garment, which my youth club friends teasingly described as “Ian’s Banana Jacket”. Little did those folks know that I was, in fact, a proto leader of the yet-to-be-formed gilets jaunes movement. The non-violent, social justice, French chapter. Not the Neo-Nazi English chapter that likes to describe centrist Tories as Nazis. But I digress.
Anyway, back to my date, on a hot day in late July, with Fuzz, in the bargain basement of the Record & Tape Exchange shop where, years later, I bought these red trousers. I suppose I became engrossed in my gramophone record searches and it seems that Fuzz became overwhelmed by the mustiness and dustiness of that Notting Hill basement. Fuzz fainted, banged her head while collapsing and needed to be revived by worried staff in the shop.
But apart from that, young Mr Harris, how was your hot date?
Reflecting on this ill-fated first (and perhaps unsurprisingly, last) date with Fuzz, I realise that it could have been a truly disastrous incident. Had Fuzz lost consciousness and needed attention from the emergency services, I might have had some explaining to do to the other type of fuzz when trying to assist them in identifying the young woman and notifying her next of kin. I don’t think the answers “Fuzz” or “Thing Thing” would have gone down terribly well with the fuzz.
Roll the clock forward again to May 2016, the day I bought these retro red trousers and a month before I accosted Boris Johnson while wearing this hat…
…I wrote up those 1978 Record and Tape Exchange memories on Ogblog and corresponded with Paul Deacon over the next couple of days, tidying up and expanding some of the text.
Paul emigrated to Canada some years ago now, where he now pursues his career as a voice-over actor, music archivist and part-time DJ.
As an aside to our e-reminiscing, Paul asked me if Janie and I had listened to his weekly broadcast on The Grand At 101 lately, which is available on-line. I had to admit we hadn’t. The show is on Saturday afternoons in Ontario, therefore Saturday evening in the UK. Janie and I are almost always out on a Saturday evening.
But, as luck would have it, our Saturday evening plans that weekend had, for practical reasons, been switched to Sunday lunch. So I told Paul we’d tune in. A few other old school friends also tuned in that evening and we had some fun with Paul, messaging in obscure requests for shout-outs and spins.
Paul then messaged us to say that John Eltham (yes, he of the historic fives quarter final in 1975) would be joining Paul at the studio “any minute”. I was aware that John Eltham was due to visit Paul, but I hadn’t twigged that the visit was so imminent, let alone that day. Then another message from Paul:
John’s here now! He’s just told me about the Rohan Thing…
Thus we learn that there is more than one Rohan Thing. Indeed, there are many Rohan Things.
And as for my red trousers, you must be wondering whether they worked with my 1960s party get up?
Well…
[Remove hat and jumper to reveal bandanna, party shirt, CND medallion and don the CND whacky specs]
…the red trousers were a groovy happening thing amongst many groovy happening things at that party, man. Peace and love.
Footnote: At the end of the evening, Rohan ceremonially handed out a lengthy thread to all who had performed, to symbolise the thread of story-telling that leads from Chaucer through Shakespeare and Dickens to our evening and evenings beyond.
Ben Clayson captured that moment and has kindly consented to me publishing a Photoshopped version of his photo here – (not that Ben knows it at this actual moment, but if the photo is still here when you look, then he probably has actually consented):
Thanks, Ben – and thanks Rohan for organising it all.
