A loss of businesses

Posted on 8th September 2018 by Ian

It seemed odd to think that Mrs Spearing had only been born in 1909, that meant she was only fifty-eight when we moved to the village in 1967, the age that I am this year. Mr & Mrs Spearing always seemed a venerable age, they seemed to be people who had always been at the heart of the commercial life of the village

The day began with the visit of the milkman who was called “Nipper” Knowles, I never knew his real name. He called six, if not seven, days of the week; the rattling of the crates of gold and silver topped milk bottles from Cricket Malherbie Dairies announced his progress along the road.  By mid-morning Alan White, a newsagent from Langport,  three miles from our village, called with that day’s paper.  Den Legg, who drove the bakery van from Maisey’s of Othery, called three times a week with fresh baked bread; loaves that came with thick crusts and which were cut in thick slices with a breadsaw.  On a Monday, David Macey’s mobile shop came from Curry Rivel at teatime; there were neighbours who would have bought shopping, but for children the attraction was the selection of sweets he carried.  On a Monday evening Mr Bryant, the hardware merchant from Somerton did a round;  we bought paraffin for the heaters from him, though he presumably carried a stock of other items.   On a Friday lunchtime, there was a fishmonger who had a regular business in those days when people still ate fish.  By Friday teatime, there was the sound of the Reema ice cream van from Yeovil, though he never seemed to get the level of custom enjoyed by the Wall’s ice cream van that came down the road on a Sunday teatime – Wall’s ice cream brought with it the sinking feeling that there would be school in the morning.

Then along with the travelling merchants, there was Spearing’s, where you went to the counter and asked for those things that you wanted, and, around the corner, there was the post office, where Miss Hunt at one time kept sweets and lemonade, as well as stamps and postal orders.

There were the informal merchants as well, Cliff who called on a Saturday with vegetables; Harry, who sold vegetables along with scrumpy; and various other people at various times.

The supermarket changed the entire rural economy, but let’s not pretend it was anyone but ourselves that made it possible.  Like the people who complain at the closure of railways, when they drive their cars everywhere, the triumph of the supermarket over local businesses was a matter of popular choice.  If the Spearings were the last people to keep a village shop, it was because we decided that would be so.

Posted in Unreliable memories | 3 Comments

Dead at no age

Posted on 6th September 2018 by Ian

A memorable figure, all in black. His thick black hair was Brylcreemed to one side, his glasses had thick black frames, his old suit was a black jacket and trousers, his pushbike had a heavy black frame and dynamo-powered lights. Working on a local farm, he was a familiar sight around the village. He seemed of an indeterminate age, if asked, it would have been difficult to guess. It was hard to imagine that he had not always been in the village, that there was not a period during the previous decades when he had not pedalled from the farm to home and from home to the pub. Everyone knew him, a gentle and quiet man. The only clue to the fact that he was not as old as might have been imagined was that his mother was still alive, a quick tempered woman who was easily irritated by small boys.

News of his death must have passed me by. Had I been asked, I would have thought that he must have reached a ripe old age, that his farming days must have come to an end and that he must have reached the days of austere leisure offered by the government old age pension. A tough man, a strong man, a man who never drove, a man for whom a bicycle seemed an extension of himself, his fitness alone must have brought him to the three score years and ten, the par score by which country life was assessed. 

Walking along a row of graves in the village cemetery, there seemed a sequence of names for which it was possible to close the eyes and imagine their faces. There was the gently timid man who had been the village shopkeeper and even gentler wife. Nearby there was a farmer renowned for the quality of the vegetables he grew, and the strength of the cider he made, and generously shared with callers. Then there was the grave of the black-suited man on the black bicycle.

Reading the dates inscribed on the headstone of the grave was a surprise, 1934-1986. Surely, that cannot have been correct? Surely, he had been far older? Imagination would have given him at least twenty years more. Dead at fifty-two years of age. 

It was strange to imagine that he was six years younger than I am now, strange to imagine that my first memories of him were of a man who in his mid-thirties. Strange to think that he was dead at no age.

Posted in Out and about | 5 Comments

Things to like at school

Posted on 4th September 2018 by Ian

Walking through the school grounds, a group of Year 7 boys approached (first formers, in the old way of counting). “Sir, are we late for our class?”

Knowing nothing of their timetable and having little idea of where their classroom might be, I did know that the bells had gone ten minutes previously. “What time is it now?”

“Twenty-five to one, sir.”

“What time did your class begin?

“Twenty-five past twelve, sir.”

“Do you think you are late? I think you should go there as quickly as possible and apologize to your teacher.”

“Yes, sir.”

Perhaps the subject was one for which they had formed a dislike, even in the opening days. Perhaps there were subjects for which they would develop a love. At their age, I had come from primary school with a love of reading.

My primary school teacher’s only comment on my reading was, “You go through books like a knife through butter.” There was a temptation to say that butter kept in the refrigerator might go very hard and the progress of the knife might be very slow, but it was a time when one did not question schoolteachers.

Perhaps the syllabus had been completed,  (was there even a syllabus to complete?), the final weeks in primary school were spent reading book after book after book. Initially, there would have been questions about the plot and the characters and what was liked and disliked, but eventually he gave up on even the most peremptory questions. It was a simple matter to ask permission to exchange the book finished for another from the shelf near his desk, thus his comment on the speed of their completion.He did not appreciate that our perceptions of what was taking place were very different. He seemed to imagine that reading so many books enabled learning and improvement; the eleven year old doing the reading saw them as a matter of entertainment and escape.

The books chosen were almost invariably adventure stories, tales of derring-do by war heroes who always returned to tell the tale. (Our art teacher, a retired man who came on Wednesday afternoons, had been in the crew of a Lancaster bomber, reassuring us that some heroes returned). Or there were stories of explorers going to exotic locations to defy danger and death. (Were Willard Price’s ‘Adventure’ novels among those on the school bookshelf, or did they have to come from the library? It’s hard now to remember).In those years when the 1940s were still fresh in people’s memories and veterans of the Great War were still plentiful, the exploits of young men who had fought in the World Wars were recorded in many books. The biography which left the deepest  impression was short, perhaps no more than twenty or so pages with a soft cover – the tale of Jack Cornwell VC, Boy Cornwell, who, seriously wounded, had remained at his gunnery post on HMS Chester at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, the sole survivor of the gun crew, standing awaiting orders. Perhaps it was his age that gave the story impact – he was just 16 years old, the age of some of the boys in the village, not so much older than those who sat in the primary school classroom.

Two generations later, the school teacher would probably be more inclined to criticism than commendation. The war and adventure stories have been replaced by a penchant for detective fiction and magical realism, not a great leap forward.

Perhaps, sometime later this century, the boys will look back on things that they liked.

Posted in The stuff of daily life | 3 Comments

Do teachers jump puddles?

Posted on 2nd September 2018 by Ian

I just walked across the road to look, the puddle is no longer there, just a neatly cut grass verge. This evening is the puddle-jumping anniversary. There used to be a puddle straight across the road that passes our house, cars and tractors would swing wide to turn into or out of the lane that ran beside our garden and, as they did so, would cut into the verge opposite the house. The big agricultural tyres would cut deep into the soil, leaving a hard packed rut. When heavy rain came, as it always did, there would be a deep puddle, the width of a tractor tyre and stretching for two or three yards.

It was a puddle sufficiently deep to command the interest of small boys. Jumping from one side of the puddle to the other on that eve of the first Monday in September, I remember  pausing and staring into nothingness, feeling sick in the pit of my stomach. The school summer holidays, that had promised to last forever, were over; how could six weeks pass so quickly? If just a couple of days could be recovered, just enough time to put a distance between myself and the looming shadow of the classroom. The puddle could not work its usual magic. No matter how many times I jumped it, there was no changing the fact that the new school year began in the morning; even if it had still been only Sunday afternoon, it would have been different. Nothing could pull me from the slough of despond in which I stood, facing the bleakness of returning to school. There would be desperate childish hopes that perhaps the school would burn down, or that a mysterious illness would force its closure; they never materialised.

Sometimes I imagined what a paradise life must have been before reaching school age; the problem was that there were not many memories from those days, and, not having been to school, I did not realize I was living in paradise. Adults used to say that schooldays should be enjoyed, that they were the happiest days of their lives, but when questioned they could rarely remember what it was that made the days so happy; chiefly, it seemed that being at school meant they had not reached the age of having to work.

The change this week is that tomorrow I begin the year as a prospective teacher rather than a timid pupil. I must ask colleagues if teachers have an activity comparable to jumping puddles.

 
Posted in The stuff of daily life | 4 Comments

Sacred spaces

Posted on 31st August 2018 by Ian

“Neil Oliver says we need sacred places and that if we want to find a sacred place, then Glastonbury is hard to beat.”

“Which bit of Glastonbury does he mean, up on the Tor where you can see the roofs of the industrial estates and Hinckley Point on the horizon or down amongst the wacko shops?”

“You know what I mean, there is something different about Glastonbury.”

“There is, and I love going there and enjoying the atmosphere, but I’m not sure that makes it sacred.”

Arriving early for a funeral and slipping into a pew near the back, there was an opportunity to ponder what might be meant by “sacred.” Were churches sacred places?

Looking up at peeling paint and cobwebs, there didn’t seem much sense of sacredness in the building. It would have cost nothing to have put a long-handled feather duster around the place, and not much more to have put some white paint on the worst parts of the walls. Perhaps the worshippers would regard the sense of the sacred as something within and would have been less concerned with its outward appearance, but if the place is to be sacred, then surely a modicum of care is in order? A bit of care would ensure that some of the accumulated clutter was removed, that out of date notices were removed, that furniture was not left lying around, that wilted flowers were thrown out, that tidiness was thought a virtue. It wouldn’t take much effort to make many places more presentable, if they are thought “sacred,” wouldn’t that be desirable?

Worse than medieval churches with peeling paint and cobwebs are medieval churches that have been reshaped according to the tastes of a vicar whose name will be “Steve, or Dave, or Spike” and who wears a pale blue shirt and chinos. Shiny floors have been laid over centuries old flag stones, wooden pews have been replaced by chairs in garish colours, electronic monitors have been installed so everyone can follow what the leader tells them. The empowerment of common prayer has been replaced by the power of the worship leader and the praise group, the liturgy of the people has been superseded by the cult of the pastor. 

A sense of the sacred has become such a rarity in ecclesiastical settings that it is no surprise that a television presenter chooses Glastonbury as embodying his idea of sacredness. Churches might take note.

Posted in Out and about | 5 Comments