FRAGMENT: The 1970s

 We married in the summer vacation of 1969 before Jean started her new job in Oldham Unfortunately we had already offered on a house in Marple on the edge of Greater Manchester town and country.  The view over Manchester below was stupendous. That meant a tricky commute to Oldham through Hyde and Dukinfield. A colleague lived close by so they shared lists from time to time.. She was a history teacher with some religious education. It was a bizarre school, an independent grammar school that used to be called 'Direct Grant' as opposed to Local Authority schools. The heads of departments came out of the ark and we still have Miss Roker's greening academic gown with occasional cigarette burns, all a bit of a change from the rough and tumble secondary moderns of her teaching practices where the high spot was Shite O'Brian, nicknamed for her vocabulary. Once I remember she got to school only to find she had lost her voice - not noticed earlier since our morning routine did not include conversation.

From those four years in Oldham some friendships still exist. Among her pupils were daughters of a Yorkshire TV producer who reappeared in her life unexpectedly. As she graduated in Oxford's Radcliffe Camera for her MSc in 1986, the eldest daughter graduated for her PhD and we found ourselves reminiscing with her step-mum and sister, her own mother having died a decade before.

My time was taken up with PhD research for which I had three years funding. My undergraduate work had been in critical Biblical Studies and my PhD focussed on ancient Hebrew marriage, something that had been scarcely tackled up to then (1970). That was finished in 1974 before a major wave of feminist study linking exegesis (explaining what texts say) to female experience today (hermeneutics) enabled writers to go down relevant experiential wormholes.  Times have changed and my own normal advice to my PhD candidates to to look for depth rather than breadth, contrary to the advice I was given.

When funding finished in 1973 the mortgage still had to be paid. My grant had been £600 per year, the house cost £4300 and the monthly mortgage was £22 6/8. We wanted to start a family so needed to supplement my wife's salary. Pregnancy normally meant giving up your job in those days. Pregnancy happened very quickly and I was offered a post in Buxton, a new convergence of grammar and secondary modern schools. I had not done a PGCE, which was not required then, so it was learning on the job in the deep end. The baby miscarried in November and there were no more pregnancies. Throughout the 1970s a succession of crude medical interventions were unsuccessful. IVF was first successfully performed in 1978. Discussions with the adoption services accepted our application eventually, but after four years of ineffectiveness. We offered a home to up to three siblings, any colour or condition, but they would only sanction a white baby (who never appeared). The 'service' had no further communication with us. Additionally our niece died of  meningitis aged eight in 1977. So all in all it was not a good decade.

The merging of two schools did not go well. Nor did starting a teaching career without guidance or mentors. My Head of Department had a nervous breakdown in November (I found him crying in the cloakrooms) so I was in charge of a department of one. My teaching load was around 800 pupils, one lesson a week so it was hard to build relationships, hell at report time. I had more time with pupils who did not want to be there. It was ROSLA year when the school leaving age was raised to 16 leaving a reluctant cohort imprisoned and unable to get jobs. So I looked out for teaching posts which meant I could leave mistakes behind and have GCE classes. It was rare then for an RE teacher not to be a regular churchgoer so an atheist like me did not fit in well, so my next job was in Wiltshire a local authority grammar school about to go comprehensive. That meant a major upheaval moving house and for Jean a change of job. Reflecting on those choices in retrospect, that was not a good decision. The distance from family and friends. My new school had many failings and poor leadership. Jean had opportunities for promotion in Devizes, though her line manager was misogynist which had mental health implications. 

 I was offered a term of 'schoolteacher fellowship' in in St Martin's College, Lancaster in 1979 hoping to turn my PhD thesis into a book. That did not succeed, but had other implications. The decade allowed us to see my mother's sister in Portsmouth, who we became close to, and my grandparents in Nottinghamshire, a rather longer journey. Salisbury also had a good theatre, often frequented. However, retrospective reflection contain moments of regret and none of this was easy on Jean, a guilt I now feel strongly. It left Jean at the mercy of grunting hedgehogs and an escaped tiger which made the national news. The circus came to Devizes and a tiger escaped and wandered around the school. While senior staff hid in their cloakrooms, Jean rounded up the pupils outside to bring them to safety. This is how management delegation works: never do anything you can't get some other poor soul to do.

The staff begged me to be the union rep in a school that was increasingly unhappy. That was probably a mistake and certainly brought me no benefit. The headteacher regarded me as a threat, not a supportive helper and our relationship was soured. The chance came for university level teaching, so the 1980s saw many changes.

FRAGMENT: Youth 1 - Secondary School

 I moved to a Grammar School ten miles away in 1959. It was a sparsely populated rural county with pupils from close to Lincoln (my primary school) to Grimsby and Cleethorpes to the east, a thirty mile radius. We relied on a school bus but for after school activities had to use a late service bus or on occasions a bicycle. The house system focused on villages and geographic areas. Mine was Stow, Rasen covered Market and Middle Rasen, and Hainton the area east towards Wragby. The fourth house was the Boarding House, many the sons of forces families. The latter had an advantage of being able to practice for long hours. The school had a small swimming pool, but I was never taught to swim I latterly discovered that a close work friend had lived in the school when her father was headmaster in war years, and later I had a student who had left the school two years before I started

My younger brother was born when I was 11, when my younger sister was four. My older siblings were away at Boarding Schools .I developed caring responsibilities as the oldest of three still at home..  Enough to say here that it was an emotionally turbulent time for me. My first three secondary school years are best forgotten. It was a 2 form entry school of 300 pupils and this resulted in my relegation from the top form to the bottom, after being caned for something inconsequential. Fortunately this relegation came at a time of renewed motivation and I became a compliant pupil and achieved moderate but acceptable GCEs. Previous to that I experienced physical abuse from a bullying teacher, and psychological (coercive) abuse from another. I managed to turn myself around at 14 and would like to say a teacher helped me do this, but they did not. I was not a high flier and was socially awkward, a bit of a loner. I managed to set up a study with a 6x3 foot desk and book shelves behind. These survived until my mother's death.

In terms of sport, I was competent at soccer and rugby but found some resistance from staff, ending with being the only first  soccer team member (my preferred team sport) who was not given 'colours'. I concentrated on athletics, winning the victor ludorum (winner of five disciplines) and still holding the school record for triple jump and taking part in the national championships for long jump.

Intertwining with school was church, which for me was the Plymouth Brethren (and sisters, uncaptalised). Sisters were not allowed to teach 'Brethren', much as female priests and vicars could not exist. The 'Brethren' were and are fundamentalist evangelical Christians who inhabit 'Gospel Halls'. Those that brought me up did a door-knocking ministry, much like Jehovah Witnesses, and  open air addresses. It is true these hoped for new converts, but they also consigned hearers to hell as those who had heard and rejected the message no longer had the excuse of not having heard. The Brethren I knew were authoritarian, patriarchal, believing in verbal scriptural 'inspiration' which means authored by God. They certainly did not like the kind of questions I asked. The inner tensions meant I had no friends at school, and limited relationships at church. 

The resulting confusion of loyalty led to my decision to apply to university to read Biblical Studies, and to get there I studied it for A level through a correspondence course with Wolsey Hall, Oxford as there was no one in school to teach me. I completed the two year course in nine months. and achieved an A grade. Biblical Studies in university was critical even though many of the lecturers held clerical positions (e.g. the title Rev.).  Manchester and Sheffield Universities had professors who were affiliate to the Brethren and had good critical reputations and I chose Manchester. School were convinced that I would never get a place, but I ended with a First Class degree. The course required learning Hebrew and Greek from scratch, but it was a later course on Hebrew Social Institutions by a Latvian scholar Arnold Anderson which led me to a PhD on Hebrew Marriage and Family - far too large as was common in those days. I submitted the thesis just before feminist exegesis started which would transform this particular topic over the rest of the century involving mostly women scholars.

This pushed me towards the university Christian Union in spite of the theological contradictions which came to a head during my second year which ended in our marriage. Yet some of those friendships have lasted over the next fifty years. However theologically I had moved though agnosticism to atheism, that is a rejection of literal scriptural interpretation regarding the Bible as word of God. I contributed a chapter on metaphorical and symbolical language in my edited book Creating the Old Testament (1989) which was my anti-fundamentalist manifesto. I had hoped for a university post but there were none available in the 1970s and we had a mortgage to pay, so I became a school teacher. Eventually I made my way into teacher training.

All this is ancient history now. Life is what you make of it so when doors close find some that are open. Know what you want. For me it is to work towards are fair and just society and world. And try not to be distracted.

FRAGMENT World 1 - Syria

 These fragments will be renumbered over time. Today Syria has raised its head because of the earthquakes.

We went to Syria in the mid 1980s alongside a week in Jordan. At that time it was rare for tourists to go there. The Assad family were autocratic and apt to send in heavy handed troops. It was a coach tour, since independent travel was not possible. There was a great deal of poverty with queues for bread and food. We crossed the border into a huge traffic jam at Passport Control.  The 'ghost' of D E Lawrence was evident as we visited the Crusader fortress of Krak de Chavaliers near Homs. Lawrence  had visited Syria as a student and wrote thesis on Crusader fortifications. He was remembered in Homs from his more belligerent days. Laurence supported the local insurgents against the Turkish authority on behalf of the British war effort. Homs suffered from the vengeance of the ruling Assad family, so not much changes.

Damascus was the base for visits to mosques, including one that held a head of John the Baptist, who was a Muslim prophet as well as a figure in Christianity. There are other heads. We visited a Christian monastery who gave us sips of nice wine so we bought a bottle. Having got it back to the hotel the wine was foul so we used it as disinfectant to clean the toilet.

Palmyra was better, a nice hotel with underground bathing, a 'spa' in which we were the only visitors. The Roman ruins are the best in the world, enormous in scope. Again we were the only visitors. When children took an interest, a parental voice shouted Leave them alone. But the children we met were fine and I introduce you to Maria. She was about 12-13 and was looking after four younger siblings.  I asked her if I could take their photograph, and she was delighted. Alas my Syrian slides have disappeared but I haven't given up on them. Maria would be in her 50s and I often wonder how she fared.

Syria was a tragedy then, a tragedy later, and a tragedy today in earthquake country. The tragedy was exacerbated by British and French decisions on boundaries between Syria and Turkey which robbed the Kurds of their land. Destabilized by the ISIS war, Syria is a criminally tragic place.

FRAGMENTS 2:Childhood - Flint House.

 Flint House was my home up to the age of 6. It was near the Common. It was built in the year of Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, 1897 by Mr Flint who manufactured tarpaulins. My parents had bought a shop in the last years of the war, hardware and bicycles and bought what was a prestigious but run down house after demob. As a Warrant Officer he may have had a substantial severance.

The front had a tiny garden, although its current appearance may be a refurb building out a reception area to what is a B&B/small hotel. The back garden I remember more, my secret garden. There was a tennis court to the left, then a rose garden, a small pond with a naked lady in the middle (small boys notice these things). Then a door to the outside world, not openable by me, a shed containing dangerous chemicals which could have killed me and did kill the goldfish. These gardens were sold off after we left,  the tennis court surviving for a while, and eventually demolished to make way for housing.

Up the stairs to the house was an outdoor toilet on which I spent many happy hours reading my books. It was from this vantage point I saw a barrage balloon being taken to the Common around the time of the 1953 Coronation.

Indoors I remember the Victorian encaustic tiles in the hall that I ran my blue police car over. I had whooping cough here, my siblings had scarlet fever. There were three of us at that point born 1944,1946 and me 1948. We slept in the same room upstairs, and had a living in lady, Mrs Kyme, with a daughter Ann. I assume but cannot confirm that she was a war widow who was offered accommodation for some light household duties.

There was an indoor bathroom/toilet because I remember getting up early and making my parents a cup of (pretend) tea with water taken from the toilet since I couldn't reach the sink. I remember their horrified faces to this day.

For the Coronation my aunt had arrived from Ireland with her two daughters (father was from Dublin) and they had coronation frocks made by mother and aunt who went to sewing class. My mother's sister and daughter also were given a room but in the coronation photograph she wore ordinary clothes. Mother's sister an family moved to a wooden house my uncle built, near an RAF base where he worked. Father's sisters family moved to a council flat above a shop which became part of the family chain of hardware shops run by my uncle who had severe mental health problems. To fund all this Flint House was sold and the family, soon expanding to five children, moved to an out of town semi wholly inadequate for family needs. Four years later we all moved to a more roomy house in a village quite a way out of town.

I remember school close to Flint House as being a terrifying place. I could already read and write so copy-writing onto slates was not particularly enthusing. These were the days of 40 to a class so education was rudimentary

FRAGMENTS 1. Childhood - Santa

These accounts cover remembered events, many of which have been frequently discussed among family and friends. Though limited in scope, they raise life issues of some importance.

 This first one is about me aged 3-4. The house and context will be explored in the next item. I recounted this with one of the carers who was horrified, until I said, "Well, I was only 3!". I remember it as a discussion with my siblings, especially my older sister. I was saying, somewhat stridently, that there is no Santa Claus. Presents came from Mum and Dad. Sister said she would stay awake and prove me wrong (she didn't manage that). Mince pies were put out, which were eaten (by Dad said I). My mother indicated that I preached this far and wide, and other mothers dropped by to tell her to shut me up (no easy matter). 

How I worked all this out I do not recall but I suspect I was over aware of what was said on the radio and to the conversations around me. The wider issue of lying to children stayed with me. There is of course a magic in fantasy. Through childhood the fantasy world in Rupert Bear Annuals was a constant influence (Christmas presents) but these were obviously (to a young child) just stories. Father Christmas has a big presence in these Annuals.

My skepticism made me ambivalent to the evangelical Christianity I was brought up in. Many of my age mates there stayed with it for life, but my awkward questions were found uncomfortable and I was even by one declared a heretic who ought to be thrown out. 

Respect for children and intellectual honesty is what I have drawn out of this.

Valentine.

 Busy with tidying up and throwing away unwanted papers, I came across a Valentine Card to us both from a carer in 2020. It says:

Happy Valentines Day 2020.

A little sweet treat for you both the share.

The devotion you have to each other in the daily care shown in your beautiful home speaks volumes and is quite something to be part of.

Keep caring

Keep loving

Keet smiling

Keep laughing

Keep going

Keep well

Keep doing an amazing job Stephen in your care and love for your beautiful Jean.

If she could tell you today how much she loves and thanks you I know she would. 

In Other Words - Songs of Experience

Not a poem but I hope you enjoy this anthology.

Relationships last for days or decades, all remembered , all .dear. Here are a few songs conveying emotion, hope and love, life's soundtrack.

* * *

I took my love, took it down
I climbed a mountain, and I turned around

And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
'Til the landslide brought me down
Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm

* * *

Everyday seems a little longer

Every way, love's a little stronger

Come what may, do you ever long for
True love from me?
Everyday, it's a-gettin' closer
Goin' faster than a roller coaster
Love like yours will surely come my way

* * *

Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away.
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died

* * *

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence.

* * * 

We were talking about the space between us all
And the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth
We were talking about the love we all could share
When we find it, to try our best to hold it there with our love
With our love, we could save the world, if they only knew.

* * *

Always and forever, each moment with you
Is just like a dream to me that somehow came true
And I know tomorrow will still be the same
'Cause we've got a life of love that won't ever change.

* * *

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Hineni, hineni, I'm ready, my Lord
There's a lover in the story, but the story's still the same
There's a lullaby for suffering and a paradox to blame.

There is a crack, a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.

* * * 

Can you hear me calling Out your name?
You know that I'm falling And I don't know what to say
I'll speak a little louder I'll even shout
You know that I'm proud And I can't get the words out
Oh, I want to be with you everywhere.

* * *

Why not think about times to come
And not about the things that you've done
If your life was bad to you
Just think what tomorrow will do
Don't stop thinking about tomorrow
Don't stop, it'll soon be here
It'll be better than before
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone

Acknowledgements:

Stevie Nix, Buddy Holly, Don McLean, Simon & Garfunkel, George Harrison, Rod Temperton/Heatwave, Leonard Cohen, Fleetwood Mac.

Comments.

#1 I met my wife on the Conniston Old Man mountain

#2 My wife's first LP was a Buddy Holly compilation.

#3 American Pie was iconic in the 1960s. I was brought up with church music which died for me after church abuse. 

#4 The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel was also iconic. Silence is political, the decision not to be aware of social justice.

#5 George Harrison's spiritual songs emphasise relationships and ethics, a summary of our lives.

#6 Rod Temperton was a secondary school fellow pupil. I focus this passage on my wife who I am caring for, a life of love.

#7 Leonard Cohen has been the soundtrack of our lives. These extracts emphasise love and service..

#8 The loss of our conversations sums up my reaction to her and possibly her mental struggle to express herself. Meanwhile, reflection on life can be positive.