Sogger’s Blog

Note from author: “If you are family member and come across this post, please remember that it is a nostalgic piece, not written to offend - we are a product of our times and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

Why am I pre-emptively placating a family member who may, or more likely, may not, read a description of our eating habits from 30 years ago? Mainly, I guess, because every time I have touched on the subject of eating habits, it seems to provoke a hostile, defensive reaction. Why? I suspect it’s because we know that the working-class stereotype of the family with dinner on the knees, watching television has some basis in fact and we feel a tad guilty about it. The Royle Family didn’t help matters either.

So, come with me on a journey through space and time: I am going to describe mealtimes in my family (as usual, in stereotypical terms), but it applies equally to most people I knew at the time. Remember the context: it’s the late 70s and early 80s in a northern, working class family. Let’s get the vocabulary right as well. Three meals a day: breakfast, dinner and tea (and porridge or Ovaltine for supper if you behaved yourself). None of this breakfast, lunch and dinner nonsense. There’s no such thing as a starter and a dessert is called a pudding. And brunch - what the hell is that!

It’s 1979, Monday, 5:35PM and the TV is on (“that’s what it’s for”), Blue Peter and John Craven’s Newsround have just finished and Rhubarb and Custard will be starting soon. Dad’s just got home from work; upstairs for a wash and back down he comes, flops into his chair and dinner is served immediately. All the family gathers round, plates on knees and cup of tea on the floor, between the feet. It’s by no means comfortable - the food is difficult to control as you push it around the plate with upper legs clamped together, lower legs akimbo, feet pointing inwards, heels off the ground and elbows clasped tightly to your sides. The result of this is that the stomach is naturally constricted - maybe that’s why we didn’t get overweight - you can’t get as much food in when you are eating bent over double…the ensemble looks like a group of cowering, plate-holding, mesmerised TV-worshippers. 6 o’clock, the pots are already washed and it’s all over for another day.

If you can’t picture it, perform the following experiment: take your laptop off the desk, move to the sofa, sit down on the edge of the sofa, put the laptop on your knees, take a look at your posture and re-read the previous paragraph and you will get it - what goes around comes around. I’m sure there’s some kind of irony in there.

It’s the same routine, Monday to Thursday, but Friday nights were best - my special treat is to be sent down to the chippie at 5:30PM to join the queue that snakes round the shop, out of the door and around the corner, “Fish and Chips, 4 times please, with a bag of scraps” (scraps are the bits of batter that are left over from the fish - they come for free for some reason). Heaven! But we weren’t one of those common families - we use plates, no eating directly from the newspaper for us. But who’d have thought that fish and chip shops would lead the way with paper recycling?

Years later, the town went all upmarket when the “Potato Parlour” opened- a baked potato shop. It didn’t last long - bad timing and market research I think - they opened at around the time when microwave ovens arrived; everybody felt they had to have one, but nobody knew what to do with them apart from making baked potatoes and reheating cups of tea that you had left lying on the floor while you ate your tea (at least, the cups of tea that you hadn’t kicked over as you stood up to take your plate back to the kitchen).

So mealtimes were purely functional with only one exception - Christmas Day. You could tell this was a special occasion: it was the only meal of the year that we ate at the table, and, instead of tea, we had a glass of Marsh’s Sass to drink with our meal. But sitting at the table just didn’t feel right. OK, you were comfortable and didn’t get cramp after 5 minutes, but it was unnatural to be looking at somebody rather than at the TV, so heads would crane round to watch the Wizard of Oz while waiting to get through the Christmas pudding and back in front of the TV in time for the Queen’s speech. Phew, Boxing Day, and normality is restored.

Well, there’s a little trip back in time to peek through our living room window. You want to go and have a little peek through the window today? Well, the plates are on the table now, you’ll have to look a little bit later in the evening or you won’t see anything, the kids are no longer there, dad isn’t tired out from painting walls all day and is more likely to be seen with a glass of wine in his hand rather than super-heated tea. The chippie has closed down, but the TV is still there, albeit with a flatter screen and is more likely to be showing Jamie Oliver cooking Rhubarb and Custard.

As a family, eating dinner in front of the TV is wrong in many ways, but hey, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. My wife is out tonight - she’s French and doesn’t understand. I can’t let life in France erode my children’s cultural heritage: “Put the TV on kids, sit down and I’ll bring you a plate of frites…”.

I mailed my uncle recently (not the one from one of my earlier posts) and one of my comments about hitting 40 was how, in my youth, it took me a long time to realise that I wouldn’t be a professional footballer, citing at one point, “it takes some people longer than others to come to terms with their mediocrity”. (I am not having a mid-life crisis by the way - at least, I don’t think so :-/).

My uncle was a journalist for many years and has had a novel published, and I really appreciated the wisdom and sentiment in his reply, so put it on the web because there are some words that I thought might be interesting to others (you never know!). Here is the abridged version of his reply. I hope it isn’t too cloying :

Glad you got the birthday card. With the Post Office strike (then) entering its second week we were wondering if it would ever be received.

…

Come to terms with mediocrity….it’s a feeling often felt as you grow older. I was sure I was going to be the youngest editor of a national newspaper in Fleet St, believing that I was the best reporter that ever walked the hallowed streets of London;
…

Alas it never was to be but I have still lived (and hope to extend it) an incredible life full of excitement, tragedy and stacks and stacks of fun and enjoyment.

Now in retirement it doesn’t move at the same pace but is still there to be lived and four grandchildren have opened up a new vista. Life does go on.

…

I thought of writing on and started another book but a voice was constantly saying to me that there’s much to do; you spent your life writing to earn a living; why spend days indoors pounding away on the typewriter (ooops! word processor) get out and enjoy life.

…

Take care and whatever happens be happy and be lucky. You don’t need anything else.

I really liked his reply and I hope you did too.

Some people say you make your own luck, but luck, by its very nature, is uncontrollable.

Being happy though, is something we should be able to have some control on. That’s the premise I’m working on in any case, but I’m lucky (sic) that this hasn’t really been put to the test as of yet.

When I was young, a convoluted set of events led my uncle from the far north-west of England to the far south-east. My uncle was a tough guy and apparently an excellent footballer. In fact he was so good, that Manchester City invited him to go for a trial with them. Unfortunately, he was a big Manchester United fan, so decided against it (I suspect that, with hindsight, he regrets that decision).

I should say that my dad and I never really got on with my uncle. I remember it coming to a head many years later just as my parents announced proudly to him that I would be going to university. He started off on a self-righteous “Students, waste of taxpayer’s money…” etc. rants. My dad’s reply stopped him dead in his tracks: “We can’t all be bus drivers you know”. If you know my dad (and you will if you read another of my posts), you will know that this was completely out-of-character, and, as far as I am concerned, the put down of the year - I don’t think they have spoken to each other since (I am assuming that you realise from this that my uncle was a bus driver).

Anyway, a couple of times before this incident, we went down to the deepest south-east to stay with him and his family for our holidays: “Drive towards Skipton, turn right at Scotch Corner and keep going south” were all the directions you needed. So off we went in my dad’s mini-van, kitted out with cushions in the back for me and my sister to sit on. Seat belts, pah, who needs them? On arriving in the south, the differences for a young boy from deepest Cumbria were striking:

1. It was flat
2. The people spoke with a strange accent
3. The bricks were a different colour
4. There was sunshine!
5. The roads were not paved with gold; rather, they were large slabs of concrete joined by tarmac that melted in the said sun.

Like most young kids, I was a big football fan. It was during one of these holidays that I went to see the “local” team play; at the time they were one of the best teams in Europe. I saw them beat Anderlecht in a pre-season friendly and then Newcastle 3-0 on the first day of the season (I still have the pre-match programme and can remember where I stood (under the ‘M’ on the large “Portman Road” that was displayed on the stand roof).

The team had a player called Kevin. He was a young player breaking into the England team and was described as having the potential to become one of the best ever English players since, erm, the last one who would become the next best English player.

The most amazing thing though (for me), was that Kevin was my uncle’s friend. Imagine saying that your uncle’s best mate is David Beckham or Tiger Woods and you are not quite there, but you get the idea. “Why don’t you come with me round to his house?” my uncle asked me one day. I was completely flabbergasted - my uncle taking me to one of the country’s best footballer’s house! Just like that. I grabbed my autograph book and off we went.

I imagined driving up a long drive to a huge house, indoor swimming pool etc - you get the picture…but your picture, like mine, would be wrong: this was well before the days of big, big money in sport. In fact, we didn’t drive there, he lived just round the corner in a semi-detached house, not dissimilar to the one in the picture. Kevin himself answered the door and invited us in for a cup of tea after my uncle explained that I wanted his autograph (I didn’t really, but it would have been churlish to say so). I was too overwhelmed to speak: I just held out my autograph book (i.e. and old exercise book) for him to sign. On the walls were pennants and his England caps - yes, they really are caps. I put one on, and had my picture taken with him (sadly, it’s been lost).

Now, as far as I know, it may have been a top-of-the-range semi-detached house. However, when you see pictures of the houses of the likes of David Beckham, it doesn’t really match up.

The big money came into football in the early 90’s: this was the late 70’s. Kevin’s star shone brightly for a brief period, but too soon as far as sports super-stardom is concerned. He finally retired after injuries at 27. That’s life, but I bet there are a lot of 70’s and 80’s footballers who rue just missing out on the Sky Sports windfall!

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t seem to have ended too well (no gig as a TV football pundit unlike many others from his era for example). From what I can find out from Google, things haven’t changed too much, but articles from the web can’t give the full picture (this one being a perfect example), so let’s hope he’s happy with his lot.

Unfortunately, my dad’s put-down means that I don’t get to speak to my uncle too much these days, so, even if they are still friends, I’ll never get the real details…

This is not one of those numerous posts about genealogy. Actually, it is in a way, although I will try to put a different slant on it - even though you might want to skip to the end to see the slanty bit…

The photo that you see here was given to me by my grandmother just before she died (or “passed away after a long fight against illness” as they would say on the BBC if she was a celebrity). I have this picture on the wall at home and every day I look at it wishing I had more than a few scant details about it.

Like the words in “A Brian Dialogue“, the image comes from a different era. Apparently, in Victorian days, people were told not to smile while photographs were taken. I assume this is why they look so serious, otherwise, I wouldn’t fancy going round to their place for a beer and curry to watch the rugby world cup.

So here is what I do know about the faces behind the picture:

The lady to the bottom left is my grandmother’s aunty (who apparently looks like me), and her, I knew: she lived over the road from us. When I was young , my parents deemed me mature enough to leave me on my own while they went somewhere or other (the shops I think, rather than a 2 week holiday). My parents thought they had me fooled by hiding the “Breakaway” biscuits on the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard. Oh, the fools: a chair to stand on was all that was needed to reach up and sneak one. Unfortunately, my family are not known for their DIY skills (a tradition I uphold), and as I held onto the cupboard for balance, it came off the wall and landed on top of me. This, of course, as a small child, alone in the house, posed a bit of a problem - especially as the bottle of beetroot fell on top of me and smashed, giving the impression of me having been involved in a serious car crash. My solution was to cross the road to “Aunty Mary’s” house, covered in beetroot juice. After her initial panic (she was already an old lady) she helped me clean up the mess and explain it away to my parents. Problem solved. Great lady.

Mary never married, and lived all her adult life with her brother (one of the guys at the back). The other guy at the back is called Sam, and is recorded in the 1901 population census as a “coal porter”. Perhaps life would have been different if he had been Cole Porter rather than the guy who carried the sacks from the cart to the coal cellars (does anyone remember them? All the houses in my parents street have a (now filled in) space where the coal was poured when the coal-man delivered).

Here’s the slant; I hope it was worth waiting for:

The matriarch in the centre of the photo fascinates me and I look at her each time I pass. Frankly, she looks extremely austere and a bit scary. She is my great, great grandmother. However, the two fascinating details about her are:

1. She married twice (I don’t know how common this was at the end of the 19th century), outliving two husbands (maybe they died in a war, or maybe after a “long fight against illness”). What you see is therefore a re-constructed family.
   
2. She adopted one of the young boys in the photograph. All I know is that his nickname was Jub. What makes me sad is that I don’t know why she adopted him and I know that I never will.

However, it pleases me to think that it could have been an act of pure kindness on her part that is in direct contrast to the image that is presented in the photo.

As the title says: looks can be deceptive.

This little anecdote from my father made me laugh and I wanted to record it for posterity for my own amusement. It came from his 80-year-old neighbour (who, for the record, hasn’t lost his marbles).

I suspect you have to know a bit about the character to find it amusing, but if I ever write a novel, this little monologue will slip in. It’s language and style from another era (but firmly rooted in northern England). As an exercise in style, I tried to write it phonetically to capture the accent. Not sure it works, but here goes:

“Y’alright Dave?”
“If thez one thing ah carn’t bloody stand, it’s cheats”
“Ar’ve bin watching that program, “The Weakest Link” an’ y’know what? The strongest link always gets t’end and then t’others vote ‘em off and thee never win!”
“People t’day ave no scruples!”

“An another thing ah can’t bloody stand is liars”
“Ah bought these trousers las’ week and thee said thee were non-crease”
“Bloody creases everywhere, the lying buggers. Med in Britain too!”
“Y’know whats t’worst in all that Dave? Ah can’t bloody stand ironing”.

And off he went.

I hope it doesn’t come over as mockery, because I know and love the guy (I have known him all my life) and he’s never short of an off-the-wall comment. I hope he has many years left if only so I can get some more for the novel…