Holiday

We are off on holiday on Friday. Monte Carlo? The isles of Greece perhaps? A cruise along the Nile?Disneyland? No my friends - none of these. We are heading to a windswept island off the north coast of Wales - Anglesey or in Welsh Ynys Mon.

We decided to rent an inland property which was once the gatehouse of a small country estate now owned by a former high ranking naval officer. Living in a city with thousands of fellow citizens in close proximity I decided to go for a very peaceful and remote place, paying a bit extra for the sheer quality of the accommodation.

It sits off a one track lane in the middle of nowhere with a little stream running through the garden. It is possible that we'll end up complaining about the dawn chorus, the rooks, the howling foxes, the snuffling badgers, the wind in the trees and long to get back to the peace of city life - distant sirens, the hum of traffic and faraway trains rattling towards Chesterfield or Rotherham. But I don't think so.

Fairy Glen

The weekend weather forecast is very promising. We don't pick up the key until 4pm on Friday so we may make a detour to Fairy Glen near Betws y Coed. We have two original paintings of this scenic place but have never been there. It is somewhere I have wanted to visit for the past thirty years.

When ensconced in our country gatehouse, the advertised wi-fi may be unreliable so blogging could prove difficult but I shall try so that you can also partake in our vacation - albeit vicariously.

"Parade"

Sometimes one's blog can function like a confessional. Oh, bless me father for I have sinned!

I press the re-wind button and my life flickers by in reverse until we arrive at 1966. 

I am a schoolboy aged twelve. Every morning I ride the East Yorkshire Motor Services bus into Hull and ride home in the afternoon - a total round trip of twenty six miles. This was the dubious reward I won for passing the 11+ examination with flying colours.

At school, the masters wear black academic gowns and the headmaster is a fearsome fellow called Harry Roach. He struts onto the stage every morning to lead the daily assembly while I linger in the corridor with the Jewish boys because I arrive late every day. When the religious stuff is over we filter into the back of the hall to hear the day's notices. There are rugby results, details of extra-curricular activities and ominously the names of boys that Harry wants to "see" after assembly. "See" means "cane" with a bamboo rod. We all know that and fear being thrashed. In caning, Harry is an Olympic champion.

A back copy of "Parade" from the 1960's
showcasing a guitar virtuoso on the cover

I am learning Latin, French, Chemistry, Physics, Biology and something called Divinity which is incredibly boring and always focused on the Christian Bible. There's also History, Geography, Art, Woodwork, Mathematics, Music, English and on Wednesday afternoons - rugby - a "subject" in which I quickly begin to excel.

But in my head there are other things going on. Secret things and novel urges I had not experienced before. Another boy shows me a secondhand copy of a "dirty" magazine called "Parade". We thumb through it together in the cloakroom and my eyes pop out on stalks. Looking directly at us and smiling knowingly, there are lovely young women with their breasts exposed. Overlooking my babyhood, they are the first breasts I have ever seen and I like them. I like them very much indeed.

My lusty  companion explains where he bought his copy of  "Parade" and one lunchtime the following week I make a special trip to a seedy old bookshop on Spring Bank. I see the pile of back copies of "Parade" near the door - just where he said they would be. Plucking up courage, I grab the copy that's sitting on top of the pile and bravely part with a shilling. It is such a relief to get out of the shop but I have my very own "Parade".

In the weeks that follow I turn those pages a thousand times. The readers' letters are interesting but it's the pictures I like the best and it's there that I linger. If only I could put as much commitment into my Latin homework. I seem to recall that there was a particular dark-haired beauty called Sharon Powers. In my imagination we become lovers, holding hands on country walks before rolling around in haystacks. She looks up from the page as if she recognises me. It's our little secret.

Nowadays youngsters find it easy to access hard-core pornography on the internet. Any age restricting defences are cursory and simple to circumvent. Puberty has always been a time of discovery, leaving childhood innocence behind and the awakening of sexual interest is perfectly natural. However, I am glad that back in 1966 we didn't have access to pornographic films, just mildly raunchy publications like "Parade". I kept my copy in my satchel before sneaking it under my mattress at home which is where my mother discovered it when changing the sheets. Did she have to rip it up and burn it on the fire? Poor Sharon and the other girls - it was a horrible way to go.

Trees

Surprisingly, Sheffield is the greenest city in Great Britain and one of the greenest in Europe. If you could view the south of the city from a summer sky you will be surprised by how many trees line our streets and valleys. This should be one of Sheffield's proudest boasts, along with the fact that football was invented here and yet the city council seems determined to keep such information secret from the rest of the world.

Living in modern times we are meant to pay homage to free trade and private enterprise. Cash-strapped city councils have had to farm out services to private companies. In Sheffield, the maintenance of our streets used to be the sole responsibility of the council's Works Department but nowadays it is mostly undertaken by a private profit-oriented company called Amey. With massive government funding they are currently involved in a long term project known as "Streets Ahead" - supposedly to improve the urban environment.

As a feature of their "Streets Ahead" scheme, Amey have been chopping down a lot of mature trees, claiming incorrectly that they are all dangerous and diseased. In place of these lovely green giants they generally plant puny little saplings which are staked to the ground and would take many decades to mature into lofty trees if indeed suitable varieties were being selected.

There have been many protests about the felling of our trees. Some people have been arrested and many trees earmarked for destruction have been dressed in yellow ribbons and protest posters. Often Amey have arrived unexpectedly  to chop down trees in the early hours, disturbing residents and arranging costly police protection ironically at council tax payers' expense. To me the bottom line is that Amey are not keen on pollarding our mature trees or pruning them. This process can be quite costly and of course such annual servicing would reduce Amey's profits.

Last night, when knee pain disturbed my sleep, I had the idea of writing a protest poem which I plan to send in to the local newspaper - "The Star". Perhaps they will publish it and it will add a little extra support to the campaign to save our trees. Anyway, just this morning, I wrote it instead of taking a shower. Here it is:-

_____________________________________________________

City of Trees

From above, the city looked green

So many trees - such a marvellous scene

Trees to filter the fumes from the air,

Arboreal beauty everywhere.

Our City  of Steel was a City of Trees

With songbirds hidden amongst the leaves

Then Amey arrived with their corporate silence

Basing decisions on  pseudo-science.

To pollard or prune would reduce their profit

Though tax paying Sheffielders cried “Come off it!”

The vandals arrived in  the early morning

Dressed in hard hats without any warning

With safety glasses that hid their eyes

And Hi-Viz hoodies to complete the disguise.

On their backs they’d stamped “Streets Ahead”

But surely  this legend should have read

Something different like “Streets Behind”

For such was the vision they had in mind

A city of saplings and wooden stakes too

Bashed  into our streets where giants once grew.

Riverside

View to The Humber Bridge from Hessle foreshore

After the football match I got on board a double decker bus with my old friend Tony and we travelled back to the "Park and Ride" at Hessle. I should have just got on the A63 ready to speed home but on a whim I took a side road to the foreshore of The River Humber where I snapped the accompanying pictures:-

Looking across The Humber to New Holland in Lincolnshire

Old mooring chain near Hessle Haven

Looking along the Humber shore to the chemical works at Saltend

And then I was back in the car speeding home to Sheffield - a journey I have undertaken many times but always sweeter when my team has won. The A63 merges with the M62. Then it's over The Ouse Bridge near Goole before branching off  along the M18, past Thorne, Doncaster and the A1 junction to the M1. North along that road for two miles then left down the Sheffield Parkway. I could do it with my eyes shut.

Back home my faithful spouse had prepared a comforting cottage pie with garden peas and gravy. A suitable celebratory meal for a hungry Hull City fan.

Winteringham

South of The Humber. This was the point where Ermine Street arrived at the great river estuary. Ermine Street was an important artery in Roman Britain. It led from Lincoln (Lindum) to York (Eburacum) but in between was the  shallow tidal river over half a mile across that lies beyond the reeds you can see in this picture. It is said that the Romans forded The Humber from this point... or perhaps they used simple boats too. There were soldiers, builders and merchants. Taking this watery route avoided a forty mile detour. I think The Humber would have been shallower in those days with no dredging activity and perhaps there was a causeway of branches and reeds to make it easier to pass over the river mud at low tide, Today it seems almost outrageous that fording happened from here for four hundred years. The Humber is so very different from a babbling mountain stream.

I stopped here before heading over The Humber Bridge to watch Hull City beat West Ham United 2-1, adding extra hope to the possibility of remaining in England's Premier League.

Hockney

Last Friday night we had tickets for the Hockney exhibition at Tate Britain. There was me, Shirley, Ian, Frances and Frances's boyfriend Stewart. Beforehand we enjoyed a great Indian meal at a restaurant on Vauxhall Bridge Road - "The Millbank Spice". Yummy and not too expensive for central London.

And then Mr David Hockney was waiting for us. Born in Yorkshire in  1937, he has spent sixty years creating art and is still doing it. The exhibition demonstrates the different phases Hockney has been through - forever evolving, finding new things to "say" through his artistry while sometimes pausing to explore favourite themes such as Californian swimming pools or little travelled lanes in the Yorkshire Wolds.

"Going Up Garrowby Hill" by David Hockney (2000)

I remember a BBC interview in which Hockney declared that throughout his career as an artist he had only ever "done" what he wanted to do. He wasn't a follower or a conscious mimic and nobody ever controlled him. He only accepted commissions that he felt enthusiastic about. Not many artists can honestly claim such independence and creative integrity after so many years of making art.

I loved it all - the pencil drawings, the use of crayon, the charcoal, the pastels, the swimming pools, the homo-eroticism, the faithful portraits of friends, the pop art, the acrylic perfection, the masterpiece that is "Going Up Garrowby Hill". the i-pad sketches, the photographic mosaics. You were looking at reflections of our post war world seen through the eyes of a fallible genius.

It's fascinating that well into his seventies Hockney became absorbed by The Yorkshire Wolds - a subtle rolling chalk landscape with which I am very familiar. The icing upon the exhibition's cake was arguably in the penultimate room where the four walls hosted banks of video screens upon which images moved gently - images of Woldgate Woods in the four seasons. It was hauntingly beautiful and somehow spiritually  therapeutic. 

Though a few of his finest pictures were missing, I felt that Tate Britain had done a brilliant job in showcasing David Hockney's work, providing more than enough evidence to confirm his greatness.

Pictures

A selection of photographs I snapped during our very long weekend in London. Actually, it's also a kind of quiz for your delectation. Each picture is numbered. At the bottom there are five captions - all lettered - but can you work out which picture goes with which caption? It is an intellectual challenge that might have even defeated Albert Einstein!

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

Picture 5

Captions
A Egyptian geese and goslings by Tooting Common Lake
B Refreshing and expensive drinks on the 33rd floor of The Shard
C Ian and Shirley at Leicester Square tube station after we had been to see "The Lion King"
D Tourist writing home in the courtyard of Somerset House
E Elizabeth Tower (aka Big Ben) seen through The London Eye