70s Reflections

A few days ago I was in the lobby of a city hotel, no, not drinking, just waiting for my lift to drive me home. I guess my mind was wandering as it took me a second to realise that there was a fine specimen of a redheaded lady just entering the bar – suddenly I was back 34 years to 1975 and seeing Red for the first time as she entered the lobby bar of the old Wentworth Hotel in Sydney. I can tell you that, although it only took a second to see that the face, although similar, was not that of my old companion/wife/whatever, it rather shook me up. If I was one of those dramatic type people that love to exaggerate things I would say that the experience tore me in half, but, as I am from an old English family, where emotions were scorned and never allowed to show or even be recognised as such, I will simply say that I found the experience, ‘somewhat disturbing’.

However, it also got me to thinking, something I usually try and avoid. Do you realise that in about 14 weeks it will be 40 years since the 70s swung into being, struth! 40 years, that just can’t be right … can it?

I remember when females started wearing those one piece mini dresses that had a zipper right down the front and at the top of the zipper was a huge ring similar the ring on a parachute rip cord. Now that just wasn’t fair, all these nice female forms and this big ring that seemed to draw your hand towards it – all you had to do was pull the ripcord and ‘presto’ something was bound to happen – usually a lot of screaming and pretended offence. I ask you, if they didn’t want the blasted things pulled, why have them????? Actually Red had one of dresses before we became a couple – I remember we were sitting in a bar after returning from somewhere and I was giving ‘The Ring’ a lot of thought, it was so very tempting. She must have read my mind because she said ‘Touch the zipper and you will be singing soprano’, instantly I lost the urge, by then I knew she had it in her to do it.

It’s now 22 years since Red went out of my life, 22 very empty years even though I was, for the most part kept busy with heaps of people around me. I guess it gets back to that thing called ‘The Core’ of a life, every life has one, a time that is unique to you and the one that is most remembered and cherished. Other times can be good, but a life is only allowed one ‘special time’.

For me the 70s was where things really started to happen. The 60s were good but for most of that time I was charging around the world in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy so I missed out on the clothes and music. Actually I’m a bit angry at that, you only have one shot at youth and to have 9 years taken up in learning to be responsible for property and lives is a huge chunk out of the ‘good’ years.

Then came the 70s and things changed …. Little did I know what awaited just over the horizon, the miles to be steamed, the friends to gather around me and then lose, the ships, the seas and oceans, the places and people, it was indeed a very full and succulent life; I’m not sure if you can use the word ‘succulent’ in this context but it just seems to be right. Plus there was Red, the centre piece of that whole wonderful time. She died only a short time and half a world away after we parted and that just seems so wrong. I used to rage about this but now realise that you can never second guess life or your actions within that life, to do so would be an empty gesture without any meaning except to make you feel you are doing something about a situation that can never have anything ‘done about it’.

I recently received an email from a young lady who had read the book, naturally she loved 'Red' (most women do); also, again naturally, she was a Frida fan. In one part she asked why I never mentioned the song 'I Wonder' as she thought it just about described the core 'issue' of the book (I didn't know it had a 'issue'). The reason I hadn't mentioned this song is because I didn't know the blasted thing existed. Anyway this is the link she sent I hope you enjoy it as much as I did http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti04nG1LZ2w

Anyway, I guess it’s time toast the 70s, just another decade – but ‘hey’ it was fun wasn’t it, especially those dresses with the big ring pull zippers …

When the postman doesn't call anymore

I guess there has to come a time when you must face up to being ‘irrelevant’, no matter what the past has included, one morning you wake up and realise that nobody would notice, or give a dam, if you hadn’t bothered.
Plus, once the irrelevance sets in, you increasingly experience the waves of grief, despair and frustration that come with the flooding arrival of old memories, not the good ones, rather all the bad stuff which had been safely locked away for a thousand years. When I wrote the short story “Captain (D)” I was starting to understand what the old chap was, at times, going through; now I am living the same thing myself. You get an inkling that it’s coming, there is a feeling as if you can actually feel the approach of heavy grey/black clouds, ready to block out everything bright. Then it hits like some vast wave engulfing a ship, you hang on, pinned to the deck until the wave passes and the again vessel breaks free into the sunshine. As time passes the waves become more frequent, more dark, more heavy and the temptation arises to just let go of the deck and let the wave take you over the side, it’s very peaceful in the water surrounding you ship … no more waves.

Yesterday I again got released from hospital it was only a shortish visit but it was the 11th in 4 years and didn’t really achieve much. After a bit of patching to help for the immediate moment I was advised that there were two options. The first included some self administration (no details here) that would involve a level of pain for about 10 minutes every day. The second was more major surgery that, with my heart, I had only a 50/50 chance of surviving … actually I think there is a third option – do nothing and I confess that is the way I am presently leaning, sometimes it’s simply time to say “enough is enough”.

My friends have all departed and on returning home I found that I hadn’t had one email for three weeks, struth, I used to get 60 a day, when I saw how empty the inbox was the word ‘Irrelevance” sprang freely to mind and there it has found a home. I think you have to weigh up the value of life, evaluate purpose or reason for continuance. I can no longer: -
· No good food
· No good booze
· No bad women
· Walk for more than ten minutes
· Breath without oxygen close by – just in case
· Dance – I was never good at it but it’s coupled to bad women
· Sit with friends over a good meal that lasts for hours – The friends are DEAD and the food and wine has slipped into the past.
I do lament the loss of women, there have been so many over the years (that is not an ego thing it’s just the way we were). I guess a hundred would be a conservative estimate and that includes the 12 years when Red was around and I stayed faithful to her alone. The thing is I can’t really remember names and faces; they are just a confusion of bodies, at the time that was sufficient, it was all short term and just for the hell of it. I do remember one lady quite well; it was during my time in the Royal Navy. Strangely it all started in the port of Stockholm, how odd that that city keep rearing its head in my past. With other officers from my ship I attended a dinner at the British Embassy (or Consul) I can’t remember which it was but we are going back about 40 years. It was there I met ‘Katya’ (not Katia) and she was also a lieutenant - but in the Russian Navy. The port had kept a distance between our ships but over dinner things got very close. By 0200 we were in bed together with the uniforms that should have kept us apart also entangled on the floor. Katya was blonde, about 5’8” and very stunning. She was also the strongest woman I have ever known and could even pick me up without strain – which was very disconcerting. We actually stayed in touch for a while and even had an unforgettable two weeks in a place called (I think) Vaxholm. We thought it would be far enough away from ‘Official’ eyes, we should have known better. Anyway, at least I can say that I had a romance that it took two governments to break up.
But on to other things – the trouble is that there are no new things, it’s all the past rehashed and rehashed, memory is great but there is nothing fresh about it, no surprises and life needs surprises. Music becomes pastel, the intended emotion diluted from overuse; there is nothing unexpected in any verse. How shocking to become one of those old bores that drives people away by telling stories of the past over and over again.

At one time I sailed endless oceans, had a tribe of good friends around me, we ate drank, fought, lived, died and generally squeezed every bit of life out of each and every day. The bill was always paid with a grin and it was then on to the next escapade with no regrets.

Now it’s just an empty inbox. There is no reason for anybody to contact me, I have nothing new to say and am only getting crankier with age and physical condition. Except, perhaps, as a visitor, I shall never again man the bridge of a ship, never utter the words ‘Let go all’, no, this little vessel isn’t steaming anywhere again but ‘oh brother’! you should have seen where we have been … so much strangeness, so much unfamiliarity, so many new places just waiting like new dishes to be tasted, Oh well, I just hope there are still others enjoying the meal but I doubt it, there are no real characters left, people have been regimented into extreme blandness.

I had started on book 2 of The Mucky Ducks but that inbox has shown that the stories made no lasting impact – there again book one was only penned as a memorial to the old crew so, perhaps, there is no need for a book 2. I hope book 1 stays around; I would like to think that, from time to time, somebody will still pick it up and take a wander through those great years and spare a thought for the guys. It never sold big but there again it was never at any time given any advertising; still I am told it has a cult following so some must have understood the underlying message.

So, what now … for the first time ever I confess to having no idea about the future. For some reason I had always thought the story wasn’t over, that we were just in an extended intermission – guess I was wrong, I think the curtains have been sown closed.
I think life is rather like one of those old English country houses like the one my family had. To be home and have value to the owners a house requires young things to be living within it and when they grow old, their young things keep the house alive with the zest for life and a deal of laughter and tears. However, again like a house there comes a time when there are no new young things, young thoughts, young ideals and dreams and when that happens the house starts to decay.
As in the book, perhaps it’s time to ring down ‘Finnish with engines’ and for the last time slip quietly ashore.
Again, pinched from the book, where it was pinched from Longfellow: -

"Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing;

Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;

So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,

Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence."

I think that just about sums up the whole thing … don’t you?

Time for a good malt whisky … or ten

I NEVER GOT TO LITTLE DUDDLESWELL

Over the past year or so I have caught up (via a UK schools website) with a few people from my school days. These are all people I haven’t seen for about 48 years and the ranks of the remaining are a bit thin compared to ‘what was’. It seems many of my early friends were not destined to make old bones.

Anyway this particular lady (now living in Wales for some unfathomable reason – I didn’t know people actually went to live in Wales) was talking about the changes she had noticed on her last visit to the old place and she said “It’s sad that Little Duddleswell is gone, it was such a grand place”. Reading on I found that a new bypass had ripped right through where Little Duddleswell (circa 100 ad) had been. Now, you are wondering why I should even bother to mention a vanished village that nobody would of heard of anyway … well, it’s because I never got there.

11 (ish) year old Harry

The village of Duddleswell itself lay between the Sussex Coast and our house outside the village of Oxted – not exactly in a straight line but pretty close to it. There were no important roads on this area no A1s or A2s definitely no M1s, as Motorways still lay in the future. I think the most important road that you briefly crossed before falling back into country lanes was the A25 or something. There was an old railway spur line about 5 miles away but it only ran about three trains a day between ‘nowhere’ and ‘nowhere else’, I seem to remember it was called ‘The Bluebell Line’ because of the wild flowers that lined the side of the rails during the summer.

As to Duddleswell? Well it was really one small country lane that briefly widened to show off a few (about 12) buildings, six or so on each side of the road. This was not a sleepy place, it was a sleeping place, had been since used as the hub of a staging post for regiments forming to fight the Napoleonic Wars back in 1730 something. The village had been there since about ad200 but briefly awoke to play this vital role, then it was back to sleep again. There was a stream that ran beside the village that also widened into a sort of big pond and on this pond could be found ducks and geese – no swans as they were far to regal to visit this unimportant place. The pond, indeed the village itself was not a place of oak trees, here soft weeping willows, silver birch and elms ruled the land.

Actually as you entered the village from the coast end, there was a small sign that said “Beware of Mad Angus” and underneath a drawing of a goose with wings stretched and head thrust forward in the attack position. I had met Angus he was the ‘boss goose’ of the pond and made a great village watchdog. If you offered him bread you could just pass the friendship test, however if you had some Lincoln Biscuits for him you were a friend for life. I do remember with a big chuckle that one of my friends teased Mad Angus by offering him a biscuit and then pulling it way at the last moment. The next second Dickie was running for his life with a 'not amused' goose painfully latched on to the seat of his pants - he had to push his bike almost all the way home. Dickie 0 - Mad Angus 1.

But I am getting way from the core of things. The one thing that really intrigued me about Duddleswell was a tiny road that branched off from the not quite so tiny road that ran through the village and at the branching there was a small sign that read ‘Little Duddleswell 1M”. Now considering that Duddleswell was no more than 12 buildings, including, pub, grocers and bakery come sweet shop, you have to wonder what ‘Little Duddleswell’ would consist of. Naturally the problem was that during those pre teen years there is always so much to see and do. I had a small circle of friends and we all had bikes, heavy iron frames, straight handlebars, no gears and dynamo lights just to make actually moving just that bit harder – still they were our flying carpets. We had hundreds of small country roads to explore (and get lost in) and sixpence in your pocket made sure you got a drink and a bun when hungry. We often cycled through Duddleswell and I always intended to ‘one day’ branch off to see Little Duddleswell, but always something got in the way.

Once, in company of a couple of friends, we set out with the express intention of finally getting to Little Duddleswell, which, I must confess, was starting to become something of a mystery place to our young minds. Needless to say, again, we never got there, a broken chain, punctures, broken pedal, and last but not least a severe summer thunderstorm that swept out of nowhere and had us seeking shelter in the Duddleswell pub that, I think, was called ‘The Forrester’s Arms’. By the time the storm was over it was twilight and time to head home.

Thirty years later I again ignored the urge to change course and try and find something, only this time it was a person and it’s something I have had to live with every day since.

So that summer passed and then the next and the next and Little Duddleswell faded back into wherever it emerged from. The sign was still there but I no longer actually saw it when passing. My old bike turned into a little MG sports car and Little Duddleswell didn’t, to my young arrogant eyes, seem a sports car sort of place. Now Little Duddleswell is gone - as has the way of life that, in its innocence, created it. What is slightly annoying is that I couldn't find even one pic of Little Duddleswell in any search engine, you would have thought that an almost 2000 year existence would entitle the place to something, just to acknowledge it once was there.

You know it’s funny, I can still see that sign and Dickie with an angry goose attached to his pants – but I can’t see yesterday.Anyway, I guess we all have a few ‘Little Duddleswells’ in our lives, those things we always meant to but never quite got around to until it was far too late. In fact life seems to be made up of a series of Little Duddleswells’, it’s the way of things isn’t it? Harry