The Thames Path goes all the way from the Thames Barrier to way beyond Oxford. I am unlikely to walk all of that in the years left to me, but I am having a go at covering the London end. I do as much as I can in a day, then go back another day and set out from wherever I got to on the last trip.
Before I started the actual Thames Path, because I live in Walthamstow, I decided to walk from Higham Hill north Walthamstow, down the River Lea to the Thames at Limehouse Basin. You start by crossing Tottenham Marsh where birds of prey hover, then suddenly dive into the long grass and rise with a small creature whose life has been snatched away without warning. I am glad to be human and in England. There are large parts of the world where humans are similarly snatched into torture and oblivion without warning.
This route takes you past the Olympic Park and I believe they have developed the waterway so that some of the heavy building materials can arrive by barge. But none of that had started when I did the walk. Swans were nesting and nurturing cygnets on the accumulated debris which had grown thick and permanent due to to the lack of rivercraft causing the locks to be rarely opened and used.
Before Tottenham Marsh, I walked beside the Northern Relief Channel, which is a deep and wide concrete lined watercourse which takes all the storm water from the streets of north London down to the Thames. Sometimes it is full and a rushing torrent, but recently it has been empty, its dry concrete bottom baking in the hot sun, so that all the green algae has dried up and died. After heavy rain, when the channel becomes a river, there are coots and moorhens on it, diving and fishing and frolicking. How do the coots and moorhens know the channel is full of water? And how do they get there? You never see them flying.
Anyway, I've done Greenwich to Tower Bridge, past Boris's tilting glass lump of an office to the South Bank, Chelsea, as far as Battersea Park, where the Thames Path moves inland through depressing streets, which caused me to give up and have lunch in a tiny pub in a south London backstreet. Home made beef stew and dumplings, and cabbage and mash. Wonderful. The food was cheaper than the beer and a hundred times more nourishing. Sent me homeward snoozing on the bus and then the tube.
But next day back to Battersea Park, westward towards Putney. As you walk westward the aircraft heading for Heathrow get lower and lower, larger and larger, and more and more noisy. Chelsea Bridge to Hammersmith, miles of expensive blocks of flats overlooking the river, their names commemorating the industrial past they have replaced, Molasses House, Calico House, Ivory House, all parts of Plantation Wharf. Now there is a hotel with a helicopter landing pad on its roof. Battersea Reach is a construction site with a huge billboard with a picture of what they are building, and to tempt you to fork out astronomical sums, they tell you the site will be a new benchmark in sophisticated city living, defining riverside living with style.
And now we are in rowing country. A voice through a loud hailer jolts me upright. "Come on now. Chest out. Head up. Shoulder blades together." I strain my elderly bones then realise it is a coach in a motor launch following eight fit young men rowing. And there are joggers, dozens of them, male and female, all shapes and sizes, large and small, young and old, all races and religions; a young vicar in a dog collar and trainers and later a lady, presumably muslim, in a tracksuit and close fitting headscarf; then a very elderly lady, I think even older than me, shorts and tee shirt, walking at such a speed that she passed me and was out of sight in ten minutes.
I drink bottled water when I'm walking. There are no public toilets any more, but great joy, the Ship at Chiswick had a notice which said "Toilets open to the public" then in smaller letters "During business hours" then in large letters "CLOSED." It was eleven fifteen. Presumably they opened at twelve.
I enjoyed a heron standing tall and still, ignoring the world, watching the river at Wandle Creek. Wandle Creek must have been a busy waterway in fairly recent times. It has traffic lights where it joins the Thames, but now muddy, undredged, deserted except for the heron. He doesn't need traffic lights.
The Rocket at Putney Bridge was open and to my great relief has magnificent toilets. It was a while before I realised it is a Wetherspoons. They win awards for the quality of their toilets. The Rocket is a very posh Wetherspoons. It has dark wood panelling, quality wood furniture, deep pile carpetting, comfortable armchairs and free copies of the Guardian, the Times and the Daily Telegraph. Our nearest Wetherspoons at Chingford has the Sun and the Daily Mail.
Passed Harrods Furniture Depository and on to Kew, then Richmond where I came to rest at the White Cross, a riverside pub with real food, a real fire, and a notice outside which said "This is a football free pub." It was busy.
Another day I'll do Richmond to Kingston. I doubt I'll ever carry on to Oxford, beyond the reach of my trusty Freedom Pass, but who knows?
Thank you dear readers, see you soon.
Sunday 22 May 2011
Saturday 30 April 2011
Old Age
Old age, how boring! Well, it's not boring if you happen to be old. Writing a message in a birthday card for my father in law who is 90 years old, I was about to write congratulations. Then I thought why am I congratulating him? Is it an achievement? Has he done anything to get to this advanced age, or has it just happened in spite of anything he may have done, or not done? Should I say to him well done for surviving?
My friend Langford is older than me. Though I would probably have personally avoided the possibility, Langford splendidly fathered a child at the age of sixty-five and has allowed the boy to keep him fit ever since. But Langford's father died aged only forty and when Langford was thirty-nine we all had to emotionally support him and buy him reassuring pints of bitter and assure him that there was no significance in the fact that his father had died so young. He was not convinced and was in a state of high anxiety until well past his fortieth birthday. He desperately needed to be forty-one.
At the time I thought how silly, but recently, in the last few weeks of my seventy-fifth year I felt just as Langford had done. My father died at seventy-five. Would I survive? I am now seventy-six and can say "Cheers Langford! you are seventy-nine and I am still seventy-six, and we have both lived longer than our parents."
You hear people boasting, "Would you believe I'm 83 years old?" Of course I believe it if you say so, but I assure you it is no particular achievement. It just happens, and no, it does not depend on whether you have led an abstemious, frugal and pure life. I should know because I have survived after many many years of overindulgence in this, that and the other. If you are fortunate enough to reach an advanced age without dodderiness or illness, then all you can do is give thanks and carry on.
If unfortunately you are struck down with some debilitating physical condition or just illness and senility, well that's life and you have to live with it. No choice. And if you are lucky enough to survive and to grow old and live a full life into your seventies and eighties, please don't boast about it. Be assured you have probably done nothing to deserve it. Just enjoy it.
Having said all that I am sure you can increase your chances of survival by keeping your brain active. Don't give up and sit in front of the telly. Do stuff. I write poetry and this blog and novels. Some people garden and grow things. I am convinced that exercise not only keeps the body going, but by pumping oxygen around the bloodstream, keeps the brain alert as well. I abandoned my car ten years ago, easy for me of course because I have a Freedom Pass giving me free travel on any form of transport within Greater London. Whichever government thought of that one must have been mad. It means loads of us pensioners will carry on for years, certainly those of us who use the Freedom Pass to get us out on to the London Loop, a fantastic network of footpaths around the outskirts of London. Epping Forest. Walk in the forest which is just as you imagined it in your childhood, then stop and put your arms around the smooth bole of a venerable oak. Then have lunch at that pub near Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge. Their lamb cutlets are juicy and exquisite.
I wonder what I should do for my 77th birthday coming up soon? Suggestions on a postcard (as they used to say) but now a text, an email, or a message on Facebook.
My friend Langford is older than me. Though I would probably have personally avoided the possibility, Langford splendidly fathered a child at the age of sixty-five and has allowed the boy to keep him fit ever since. But Langford's father died aged only forty and when Langford was thirty-nine we all had to emotionally support him and buy him reassuring pints of bitter and assure him that there was no significance in the fact that his father had died so young. He was not convinced and was in a state of high anxiety until well past his fortieth birthday. He desperately needed to be forty-one.
At the time I thought how silly, but recently, in the last few weeks of my seventy-fifth year I felt just as Langford had done. My father died at seventy-five. Would I survive? I am now seventy-six and can say "Cheers Langford! you are seventy-nine and I am still seventy-six, and we have both lived longer than our parents."
You hear people boasting, "Would you believe I'm 83 years old?" Of course I believe it if you say so, but I assure you it is no particular achievement. It just happens, and no, it does not depend on whether you have led an abstemious, frugal and pure life. I should know because I have survived after many many years of overindulgence in this, that and the other. If you are fortunate enough to reach an advanced age without dodderiness or illness, then all you can do is give thanks and carry on.
If unfortunately you are struck down with some debilitating physical condition or just illness and senility, well that's life and you have to live with it. No choice. And if you are lucky enough to survive and to grow old and live a full life into your seventies and eighties, please don't boast about it. Be assured you have probably done nothing to deserve it. Just enjoy it.
Having said all that I am sure you can increase your chances of survival by keeping your brain active. Don't give up and sit in front of the telly. Do stuff. I write poetry and this blog and novels. Some people garden and grow things. I am convinced that exercise not only keeps the body going, but by pumping oxygen around the bloodstream, keeps the brain alert as well. I abandoned my car ten years ago, easy for me of course because I have a Freedom Pass giving me free travel on any form of transport within Greater London. Whichever government thought of that one must have been mad. It means loads of us pensioners will carry on for years, certainly those of us who use the Freedom Pass to get us out on to the London Loop, a fantastic network of footpaths around the outskirts of London. Epping Forest. Walk in the forest which is just as you imagined it in your childhood, then stop and put your arms around the smooth bole of a venerable oak. Then have lunch at that pub near Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge. Their lamb cutlets are juicy and exquisite.
I wonder what I should do for my 77th birthday coming up soon? Suggestions on a postcard (as they used to say) but now a text, an email, or a message on Facebook.
Tuesday 25 January 2011
My Notice Board
I have a room in our house which I call my den. It used to be my office when I worked from home. As I got nearer and nearer to retirement it became less and less an office and more a little cocoon where I curl up and listen to music and write my novels and poems, and occasionally this blog.
I always had a notice board. It had pins on which I would hang reminders of whose VAT Return had to be done by the end of the month, lists of jobs to do, even charts of this year's tax allowances. Gradually it began to have vacant space which I filled with photos and cards and reminders of happiness. Even though I have still not quite managed to retire, still sorting out a few tax returns which have to be done before January 31st, I can now look at my noticeboard and see that it is no longer a business aid. It is now a personal reminiscence prompter.
Top left a buff certificate. "Eyam Carnival 1985. Third Prize." Eyam is the plague village in Derbyshire, famous because in 1666 the rector William Mompesson persuaded all the inhabitants to cut themselves off from the rest of Derbyshire when the Black Death arrived in a bolt of cloth from London. Two thirds of them died. Their deaths are recorded to this day in the village church and on little plaques by the front doors of cottages, and on graves in fields. When the gravediggers were dead, people buried their loved ones close to home, so there are now graves in cottage gardens, unconsecrated but likely to bring a tear to your eye. There are still people in the village with the same surnames as those recorded on the graves.
We were honoured to live there for five years. Every August there is a carnival. You will find it difficult to get served in the pub on Carnival Day unless you are in fancy dress. Wearing a cape made from embroidered velvet curtains and a hat made of same, I was an Archbishop and got third prize. A drunken lady begged me to hear her confession. Naturally I said yes. Obviously you understand I cannot divulge what she confessed, even if I could remember.
Then there is a photo of me in Fifteen to One on Channel Four. I was eliminated by not knowing the name of Socrates's shrewish wife. Does anyone know her name, except Socrates? A photo of the late George Melly who gave me one of his hats (another story), photos of my children and grandchildren, a photo of me with giant figures of Wallace and Grommit when I was Finance Director of the International Animation Festival, three one pound notes from Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man, all places very dear to me. An invitation to the Queen's Collection of paintings at Buckingham Palace (see my blog of 03/12/2009), a ticket for the Queen Elizabeth Hall "Celebration of Adrian Mitchell." Why is he dead and me not? We both failed Latin in our prelims while reading English at Oxford, so we did Remedial Latin together. As everyone knows Adrian hated exams and decreed that none of his poems should ever be the subject of an examination question. He was making a film called "Dumb Crambo." Does anyone know whether it still exists? I had a part in it.
There is a poster of an event at the Rose and Crown Theatre pub in Walthamstow with my name, well down below the leading lights, but reminding me that people actually paid £5 to hear me reading my own poems. Wow!
Then there is a grey and white photo of my mother holding me, showing me a flower in the garden, long, long, long ago; a bookmark from "The Tass" the best pub in Edinburgh, a One Goiler note, only given to honorary citizens of the Independent State of Lochgoilhead in Argyll. How did I earn that? Another blog?
I get quite a lot of happiness from listening to music in the solitude of my den, looking at my noticeboard.
Good night to all my readers.
I always had a notice board. It had pins on which I would hang reminders of whose VAT Return had to be done by the end of the month, lists of jobs to do, even charts of this year's tax allowances. Gradually it began to have vacant space which I filled with photos and cards and reminders of happiness. Even though I have still not quite managed to retire, still sorting out a few tax returns which have to be done before January 31st, I can now look at my noticeboard and see that it is no longer a business aid. It is now a personal reminiscence prompter.
Top left a buff certificate. "Eyam Carnival 1985. Third Prize." Eyam is the plague village in Derbyshire, famous because in 1666 the rector William Mompesson persuaded all the inhabitants to cut themselves off from the rest of Derbyshire when the Black Death arrived in a bolt of cloth from London. Two thirds of them died. Their deaths are recorded to this day in the village church and on little plaques by the front doors of cottages, and on graves in fields. When the gravediggers were dead, people buried their loved ones close to home, so there are now graves in cottage gardens, unconsecrated but likely to bring a tear to your eye. There are still people in the village with the same surnames as those recorded on the graves.
We were honoured to live there for five years. Every August there is a carnival. You will find it difficult to get served in the pub on Carnival Day unless you are in fancy dress. Wearing a cape made from embroidered velvet curtains and a hat made of same, I was an Archbishop and got third prize. A drunken lady begged me to hear her confession. Naturally I said yes. Obviously you understand I cannot divulge what she confessed, even if I could remember.
Then there is a photo of me in Fifteen to One on Channel Four. I was eliminated by not knowing the name of Socrates's shrewish wife. Does anyone know her name, except Socrates? A photo of the late George Melly who gave me one of his hats (another story), photos of my children and grandchildren, a photo of me with giant figures of Wallace and Grommit when I was Finance Director of the International Animation Festival, three one pound notes from Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man, all places very dear to me. An invitation to the Queen's Collection of paintings at Buckingham Palace (see my blog of 03/12/2009), a ticket for the Queen Elizabeth Hall "Celebration of Adrian Mitchell." Why is he dead and me not? We both failed Latin in our prelims while reading English at Oxford, so we did Remedial Latin together. As everyone knows Adrian hated exams and decreed that none of his poems should ever be the subject of an examination question. He was making a film called "Dumb Crambo." Does anyone know whether it still exists? I had a part in it.
There is a poster of an event at the Rose and Crown Theatre pub in Walthamstow with my name, well down below the leading lights, but reminding me that people actually paid £5 to hear me reading my own poems. Wow!
Then there is a grey and white photo of my mother holding me, showing me a flower in the garden, long, long, long ago; a bookmark from "The Tass" the best pub in Edinburgh, a One Goiler note, only given to honorary citizens of the Independent State of Lochgoilhead in Argyll. How did I earn that? Another blog?
I get quite a lot of happiness from listening to music in the solitude of my den, looking at my noticeboard.
Good night to all my readers.
Tuesday 11 January 2011
Holding Hands at Midnight
My new novel "Holding Hands at Midnight" is resting, like a bottle of good wine. I have edited it and feel it is ready for publication. I have printed it out so can now read it on the page rather than the screen. However, I think that before it is let loose upon the world, I have to read the printed version as if I had just picked up a book from a bookshop and was browsing.
I tried to do just that, read it. It was impossible. All the characters have inhabited my head for the past three years, day and night, on my walks, in the pub, at my desk, in my dreams, wittering away, pulling my sleeve saying "Give me more lines. I would have said or done so and so."
"No you wouldn't. I decide what you do and what you say."
"That's what you think."
I could not read it. It was too close to home. So I have sent a synopsis to various publishers and am about to give a printed copy to a trusted friend to read and comment, hopefully honestly. It is a difficult book and I suspect some family and friends will not like it. It is set in the 1960's and has four main characters, all in love with each other in various combinations at different times, but all at the end of the day loyal and supportive of each other. Two are women who escape unfulfilled marriages by falling in love with each other. This leads to their outraged husbands casting them out, homeless. They survive by becoming prostitutes, helped by a sympathetic married couple. In time the relationships between the four of them develop in surprising ways, complicated by the two lesbian prostitutes having a child each, and the married couple having two children. So we have a household of four adults and four children. The children are very happy in this menage until questions are asked at school.
There is a sub plot concerning the daughter of one of the prostitutes. She writes stories for children and has one accepted by the BBC, who turn it into a series for children's television. BBC want to interview her. A ten year old would normally be accompanied by her Mum. But her Mum might be recognised by some of her punters. Tricky.
Then one of the adults gets breast cancer, and the rather unorthodox household in which she lives, sustains her until she dies, and sustains her children after her death.
I will be asked what do I know about prostitutes and in particular lesbian prostitutes. In my twenties on my way home from the pub I came across a woman lying in the gutter with her face kicked in and her arm and ribs broken. I took her to hospital and looked after her and discovered that she was a prostitute living with her lesbian partner. It so happened that at that time I fell out with my landlord and became homeless and the two lesbian prostitues took me in and gave me a home, and I lived with them for nine months and that was a very happy time. So I do know enough to write about these subjects.
But I may well be accused of glamourising prostitution. All I can say is this. There have been, probably are still, happy and successful prostitutes. I knew two of them fifty years ago. I was not surprised to read "The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl" by Belle de Jour. Nor was I surprised last year when I met her at the Oxford Literary Festival to discover that the author was Dr Brooke Magnanti, a research scientist specialising in neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology. Very handsome is Dr Brooke. You could see why she was successful as a hooker. I was considerably hooked.
So that I can separate myself from the characters in my novel, and read it as a new reader, I have decided to divert my mind to other matters. I have made a start on the next book. In fact I am now on page 41. Without telling you what it is about, there are two possible titles at the moment.
1. "The Floors of Silent Seas." Quotation from T.S.Eliot. "I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas."
2. "Green in Judgement." I need to look that one up, but I'm sure it was Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra "My salad days, when I was green in judgement."
Votes please.
I tried to do just that, read it. It was impossible. All the characters have inhabited my head for the past three years, day and night, on my walks, in the pub, at my desk, in my dreams, wittering away, pulling my sleeve saying "Give me more lines. I would have said or done so and so."
"No you wouldn't. I decide what you do and what you say."
"That's what you think."
I could not read it. It was too close to home. So I have sent a synopsis to various publishers and am about to give a printed copy to a trusted friend to read and comment, hopefully honestly. It is a difficult book and I suspect some family and friends will not like it. It is set in the 1960's and has four main characters, all in love with each other in various combinations at different times, but all at the end of the day loyal and supportive of each other. Two are women who escape unfulfilled marriages by falling in love with each other. This leads to their outraged husbands casting them out, homeless. They survive by becoming prostitutes, helped by a sympathetic married couple. In time the relationships between the four of them develop in surprising ways, complicated by the two lesbian prostitutes having a child each, and the married couple having two children. So we have a household of four adults and four children. The children are very happy in this menage until questions are asked at school.
There is a sub plot concerning the daughter of one of the prostitutes. She writes stories for children and has one accepted by the BBC, who turn it into a series for children's television. BBC want to interview her. A ten year old would normally be accompanied by her Mum. But her Mum might be recognised by some of her punters. Tricky.
Then one of the adults gets breast cancer, and the rather unorthodox household in which she lives, sustains her until she dies, and sustains her children after her death.
I will be asked what do I know about prostitutes and in particular lesbian prostitutes. In my twenties on my way home from the pub I came across a woman lying in the gutter with her face kicked in and her arm and ribs broken. I took her to hospital and looked after her and discovered that she was a prostitute living with her lesbian partner. It so happened that at that time I fell out with my landlord and became homeless and the two lesbian prostitues took me in and gave me a home, and I lived with them for nine months and that was a very happy time. So I do know enough to write about these subjects.
But I may well be accused of glamourising prostitution. All I can say is this. There have been, probably are still, happy and successful prostitutes. I knew two of them fifty years ago. I was not surprised to read "The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl" by Belle de Jour. Nor was I surprised last year when I met her at the Oxford Literary Festival to discover that the author was Dr Brooke Magnanti, a research scientist specialising in neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology. Very handsome is Dr Brooke. You could see why she was successful as a hooker. I was considerably hooked.
So that I can separate myself from the characters in my novel, and read it as a new reader, I have decided to divert my mind to other matters. I have made a start on the next book. In fact I am now on page 41. Without telling you what it is about, there are two possible titles at the moment.
1. "The Floors of Silent Seas." Quotation from T.S.Eliot. "I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas."
2. "Green in Judgement." I need to look that one up, but I'm sure it was Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra "My salad days, when I was green in judgement."
Votes please.
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