Antipodean Connection

          Last year, friends in Australia alerted me to the fact that an exhibition of aboriginal art, Songlines, would be touring to the UK, opening here in Plymouth, because it is the port from which captain Cook set sail on the voyage that led him to ‘discover’ Australia. The exhibition finally arrived last week and I was at the door on day one.

          The theme of the show is a legendary story of seven sisters, whose travels through the country are dogged by a mal-intentioned, shape-shifting male whose attentions they are keen to avoid. No one knows how old the story is because there is no indigenous writing, but I assume it to be as old as the culture itself, since it resides in human memory, in place names, cave paintings and the distinctive indigenous pictorial style. Thus do the paintings on display have both aesthetic and anthropological appeal. In these days of heightened awareness of and concern for habitat destruction, Songlines is a timely reminder of what life was like when humans lived in harmony with nature, before the imposition, by colonists, of the acquisitive economic system that they unquestioningly regarded as progressive and civilised. But, despite the British having at best thoughtlessly and at worst deliberately attempted to obliterate the native culture, its persistence – and partial revival – is testament to just how deeply rooted is the human sense of attachment to place.

          Songlines was a cultural highlight, but I also embraced physical activities during the week: I took to the water again – for the first time since the unfortunate kayak-capsizing incident a few months ago. At the invitation of our friends and neighbours, Pete and Sue, I boarded their impressive catamaran (a sort of water-borne motorhome, as I see it) for two days of coastal sailing, with an overnight mooring in the mouth of the river Teign. I looked forward to this, despite the slight apprehension with which I now contemplate deep water. My previous experience of sailing is limited: a three-week round trip from Aberdeen to Spitzbergen, skippered by Sir Robin Knox-Johnson, in a cadet-training vessel large enough to accommodate 50 people; and a couple of hours on the Solent on a racing yacht owned and skippered by John, who is not, technically, my brother-in-law, but is for practical purposes. What both these experiences had in common was that they took place on the open sea and with little or no input from me. On the catamaran, however, I had a go at helming, fumbled with a few of the many ropes and showed an interest in the technicalities of wind traction. Unfortunately, the exhilaration of scudding over the waves was somewhat dampened by an abiding sensation of queasiness. The most enjoyment I had was when we moored up to visit the pub.

          Seasickness does usually subside but, even so, it is not the only downside to sailing. There is what I call the ‘faff-factor’, something I have experienced in other fields of leisure activity, notably the ski slopes where the excitement of swift descent on slippery surfaces is countered by the tedium of the return to the top. And, before you get started, there is the kitting up in special gear, the monetary expense of the whole enterprise and the sense that time is slipping expensively away while you could be reading a good book. Sailing is like that, but with a lot of urgent shouting thrown in. Having said that, the social side of things is a blast, fuelled, no doubt, by the physicality and camaraderie involved.

          Should I be invited again to go sailing, I might politely decline. Apart from the fact that it’s no fun for the host having a less than enthusiastic guest, I do have the feeling that no real good ever came of sailing. Just ask the aboriginal Australians, for example.

Put Yourself In My Shoes

          According to an article I read last week, there is at least one person who discards his shoes when they become grubby, preferring to buy new ones rather than clean them. I would like to think he is an exception but would not be surprised to discover that there is a whole Facebook Group devoted to the practice. Whatever motivates such behaviour – laziness, obsessive-fashionista-disorder, or the commonplace profligacy for which the human race is renowned – my reaction to it is deep dismay. Invested as I am in a lifestyle that favours sustainability over excessive consumption, I find it increasingly hard to condone what I now define as ‘wanton wastefulness’. Even watching a TV programme last night, about a couple who spent a million quid and a year of their lives building a huge extension to their house, I caught myself tut-tutting and disapproving of the unnecessary lavishness of their project. Yes, the route to parsimony is a steep and slippery slope, down which I am sliding. To be fair, though, I am on the lookout for an escape lane, a bit like those sandpits off the side of steeply descending roads, intended to halt vehicles in case of brake failure. I don’t want to end my life as a disapproving old curmudgeon.

          Meanwhile, I continue to find encouragement and justification for my eco-view among a widening circle of friends and acquaintances and, though I am aware that the like-minded do seek each other’s company, I have found support also in the world of business, most recently at Richmond Exhausts and Brakes, the garage up the road. When I noticed a metal rod dangling from the underside of the campervan, I drove it there for a diagnosis. From previous experience, I knew to expect informal yet competent service, in the best old-fashioned tradition of friendly neighbourhood businesses. I am pleased to say I was not disappointed. I ventured into the office, from which Frank runs the outfit without ever moving from his chair. The place looks and smells like 1960, scruffy and stale with cigarette smoke, but the welcome is personal and comforting. The problem was identified as a corroded metal strap, one of a pair that support the fuel tank. Not a difficult engineering challenge, yet a new pair of straps, from the main dealer, was available only with the fuel tank attached and at a cost of £600. “Don’t worry,” said Frank, “Dave will sort something out.” And so he did, by sourcing a pair of straps on eBay for £30. “You buy ‘em, we’ll fit ‘em,” he offered. A satisfactory outcome from a privately owned local enterprise that is, in effect, a community asset.

          The sense of community is an important component of societal cohesion – sociology speak for “we all like to belong” – and there is a local not-for-profit Community Interest Company that is engaged on a long-term programme of buying and re-purposing buildings. Its strategy is to retain control of the built environment so as to ensure the locals are not alienated or left out of the picture by profit-motivated developers. The company is concentrating on a stretch of Union Street, where there are several grand but now abandoned theatres, a legacy of its once central role as an entertainment hot spot in the days before TV took over the job. One of the theatres, recently acquired, was opened up for visitors and I went to admire what is left of the ornate interior and to join the conversation about how to bring life back to such a building. Total renovation is not a financially viable option, but re-purposing does not require such rigour. Even so, money will be tight. We live in a poor society, alongside people who feel rich enough to throw their shoes away.     

Encounters with Delightful Ladies

          One fine morning last week, I went to the recently re-vamped, re-opened and re-named Museum of the Home in East London. It used to be called The Geffrye Museum, after its founder and benefactor, but that name is now known to be tainted by the fortune he made on the backs of African slaves. (His statue is still in its niche above the door, though an explanatory notice is to be found among the exhibits upstairs.) On entering, I was greeted by a cheerful, exuberant lady at the reception desk and, though the fact that she was of Afro-Caribbean descent made it hard for me not to read her presence as a witty riposte to history, the notion was swiftly banished by her proficiency. She had both the skills and the personality to make a visitor feel welcome and valued.

          But, before I entered the galleries, she pointed me towards coffee at the adjacent Molly’s Café, where I was made to feel equally welcome, by no less a person than Molly herself – or so I led myself to believe. As I entered, she was apparently working at a laptop at one of the tables, but promptly dropped everything to greet me, take my order and even ask my name. I took a seat and, momentarily, felt very popular with the ladies – before realising that I was the only customer, so far, in either establishment. Still, I felt flattered and in receptive mode.

          The museum’s main exhibits, room-settings through the ages, remain unchanged, but for me they are most appealing when they reach the 20^th century. Here, the furnishings morph into modernity to reflect new ways of living. Technology also makes its grand entrance into the home. The 1970 JVC Videosphere, a portable TV that looks like a space helmet, is just one of the items I covet, despite the fact that its performance – assuming it still works – would certainly be disappointingly lo-fi compared with any up-to-date flat screen. Still, it is strong on nostalgia appeal, as are so many other items, among them the ubiquitous paper and bamboo lampshades made popular by Isamu Noguchi, the Japanese/American sculptor and designer. There is a show of his work currently at the Barbican Centre, which I had been to the previous day and where I learned about his wide-ranging and often large-scale oeuvre. His accomplishments were many and highly lauded but, since he is long since deceased, we will never know whether he was best pleased that the humble lampshade became his most recognisable legacy.

          I seem to have encountered more than my fair share of bright, personable, positive women this week. The last was a saleswoman in the formal menswear section of a department store – though why not a salesman was something of a surprise. Still, she knew her stuff and did not blink when I told her I was looking for a pair of “grey flannels”, a description I assume to be obsolete but for which I know no equivalent. She was exceptionally helpful – though, again, this might have been due to the fact that I was the only customer. She selected a pair for me to try for size and showed me to the changing room. Unfortunately, they were too large. As I took them off, she called out “How are you getting on?” and, before I could answer, came in and caught me in my pants and socks. I was not embarrassed, but an anomaly did occur to me: how likely is it that a salesman would be in charge of a ladies’ wear department? And, if he were, would it be considered proper for him to enter the dressing rooms? If any of you ladies have had this experience, I would like to hear about it.

P.S. I am still intermittently shopping for grey flannels.

Slow Motion

          When the lady from the estate agency turned up as arranged, she appeared dejected, despite having been briskly cheerful when we had spoken over the phone the day before. “Sorry,” she said, “I’m upset. I had a family bereavement overnight.” I was taken aback and muttered, “Sorry to hear about that.” On reflection, it would have been more humane to add, “Would you like to talk about it?”, but we were strangers, so I kept my distance from her grief. Anyway, who comes up with lines like that outside of playscripts? I wasn’t expecting anything other than a professional transaction, so I fumbled for a response that managed to be polite but failed to be compassionate.

          We should always expect the unexpected. After all, “that’s life” is what we say. But when it comes to it, perhaps some individuals are better equipped than others to respond appropriately on the spur of the moment. Which reminds me of another recent incident in which the element of surprise got the better of me. It was the middle of a quiet afternoon and I was rousing myself from the sofa, where I had fallen into a newspaper-induced snooze. I am not sure whether I heard it or saw it first, but a squirrel entered the room from the adjacent hall and stopped abruptly by the door. In the moment that we looked at each other, an observer would have been hard pressed to tell which of us was the more astonished – though, that said, I have subsequently noticed that squirrels typically wear a perpetually astonished expression. Nevertheless, I was certain the squirrel did not expect to encounter me and did not want to be in the room with me. It had definitely ”barked up the wrong tree” – perhaps because there are no actual trees nearby.

          We sat, frozen for a second or two before we both panicked. The squirrel ran pell-mell around the furnishings, both vertically and horizontally, while I made a lunge for the door, thinking to confine the situation to one room. This caused the creature to hurl itself at the balcony windows, which I kept shut for fear of it leaping to a watery fate in the river below. (I now realise that it could have climbed the exterior wall of the building to the roof and safely down the other side.) Meanwhile, I hatched a plan: to throw a bath towel over it, wrap it up and release it through the bedroom window, whence it must have come. But throwing a towel over a fast-moving squirrel is nigh on impossible and I succeeded in the end only because it made a tactical error: it ended up in the kitchen sink, where it paused, apparently to consider its options, but just long enough for the towel to land. I carried my squirming bundle to the window and released it onto the ledge below it. Then I put the towel in the washer, for fear that it might now be contaminated by some animal virus that would cross the species barrier and cause a pandemic.

          With the excitement abating, I did belatedly think about why I had not captured the episode on video for release on social media, where it would have raised a few chuckles. Obviously, my old-fashioned wiring is too clunky for the modern equipment in my pocket. But perhaps that is not a bad thing, since it would be uncharitable to film an innocent creature’s distress for the entertainment of unsympathetic humans. I also took time to mull over my reaction to the unexpected encounter, which I had escalated into a ‘situation’. If I had simply picked up the newspaper and ignored it, the squirrel probably would have found its own way back to the window, without all the stress of the chase. Spontaneous decision-making may not be my strong point, but I’m quite good at hindsight.

A Good Night's Sleep

          Almost a year has passed since we moved from Manchester city centre, where we had lived for twenty-five years. One of the drivers, for me, was to get away from the city’s night life – the drink and drug-fuelled frenzy (from which I had been retired for years before we even lived there). The scene just seemed to be getting noisier and messier – or else it was me getting older. Whichever. Just before bedtime, my level of anxiety would rise as I chose whether to keep the window open and plug my ears or close it and sweat it out. I used to hope for biblical overnight downpours to wash the revellers from the streets. It rarely happened, despite the city’s rainy reputation.

          We now live in Plymouth, in a flat on the first floor of a low-rise block just outside the centre. The river is in front of us, the communal garden behind and the access road is a cul-de-sac, all of which adds up to quiet nights. Quiet as a grave, I think sometimes when I wake and imagine I am prematurely embalmed. But I was back in Manchester last week, re-living the other nightmare.

          Before I caught the train, I attended the clinic for the annual old-person ‘flu jab session. It’s funny how one doesn’t think of oneself as old until one finds oneself in a queue of one’s contemporaries. I stood as erect as possible so as not to be mistaken for a crock. Still, when my turn came I was offered a pneumonia jab as well (in the other arm). “What?” I said, unaware there was such a thing. “Yes,” said the nurse, “We offer it to everyone over a certain age.” Thus was my ego punctured, along with my arms.

          The train arrived at Manchester Piccadilly just as Saturday evening was gearing up. The station was swarming with football fans and people arriving for a night on the town. It was warm, and the girls were dressed as if for a beach party. The streets were full of the new term’s students, gaggles of freshers marked by their wide-eyed, eager excitement and ill-matched outfits. I saw two of them pouring vodka into a fruit juice carton outside a Spar shop. I walked past a block of flats and caught the eye of two girls sitting at an open window on the second floor. They waved and called out, “It’s Saturday night!” I did my best to look pleased for them.

          I was staying in a flat we own and rent out. The long-term tenants had moved out and I was there to fix the place up and organise a new let. I was there for a week. I went to bed early that night, overcome by a delayed feverish reaction to the vaccination(s) I’d had in the morning. When I woke, it was midnight and there was dance music leaking through the walls and the clamour of drunken disorderliness coming through the open window. I was feeling better, however, so I got up and pottered around for a while, making to-do lists and checking the inventory. Back in bed, I succeeded in nodding off by reading a boring novel. The last time I looked at the clock it was 05.00.

          I am back at home now and, having had an unbroken night’s sleep, feeling just a little younger. I enjoyed being in Manchester. It was good to see old friends again, to feel at home in the streets and to get great coffee in half a dozen favourite places. I might still be living there, but for the nightlife. But then it wouldn’t be Manchester, would it?