An Unexpected Audience

Yet again, I find it is about a week since I wrote my blog. Looking at the statistics regarding the countries where my blog is being read, I note that Russia has scored highly this month.

This makes me unashamedly wish to speak to those that live in that country, one that I have never visited, though one that has played a constant presence in my life. Perhaps never as a major player, but there in the background nevertheless.

The first time Russia came in to my experience was when I was at university, at University College London. I was reading to a blind Iranian student, simply as a volunteer, and the kind of blindness that she suffered might have been improved by an operation that could have taken place in what was then of course the Soviet Union.

Iran and Russia clearly had closer ties at that time, and I remember making a visit to the Russian Embassy in London, to assist my friend attend a meeting with the Science Attache.

It seems strange to think of it now, but it felt like an extraordinary journey into another world. The thing I have an abiding memory of is the telephones within the embassy, which were smaller than a typical British telephone, and much rounder in shape or design.

This would have been in about 1980, at the height of the Cold War, and may well have been sufficient for me to have been noticed by our own security services as someone with sympathies towards the East.

In my late 20s, I visited Czechoslovakia, in about 1986. The organization for which I worked hosted an East-West workcamp through International Voluntary Service, in which young people from across the Soviet Bloc attended.

Apparently, this was the first time that Russian citizens had been granted permission to attend an IVS workcamp in the United Kingdom, and as well as a group of five members of a Ukrainian Construction Brigade, we had attendees from Poland, Yugoslavia as it was then, East Germany and from Czechoslovakia.

The project I worked for occupied a substantial house and grounds on the edge of Leeds in Yorkshire, part of which included a walled garden extending to about one acre in size.

The workcamp was a means by which we could develop this overgrown garden which we wished to turn into an organic herb garden.

The house could accommodate 40 people for residential weekends and conferences, mainly in shared rooms. We operated as a co-operative, and in fact the origins of the house as a centre for the promotion of co-operative working linked what we were doing directly to the concepts behind communism. But certainly with a peculiarly English slant.

The house had been built in the early 19th century, and was built from wealth generated through the manufacture of fine carriage cloth. In fact, works from the Company that being exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851.

The current owner was a direct descendant of those capitalist entrepreneurs, but he was an architect by profession, and certainly not a capitalist in the traditional sense. He was wealthy, no doubt, but he had chosen to make his capital available to the development of employee owned businesses structured as cooperatives.

The original vision for the house that we had use of literally for the payment of a peppercorn each year was that it should be used as a College for the teaching of the skills needed to run such ventures.

The English Parliament had passed in 1976 an Act Of Parliament that gave three years of funding to an organisation called the Industrial Common Ownership Movement, which was concerned with the promotion and development of legal constitutions that could be used as the legal basis for such business ventures.

In effect, this was giving practical meaning to clause 4 of the Labour Party manifesto, which was concerned with the common ownership of the means of production.

This was of course famously removed from the Labour Party manifesto by Tony Blair as part of his modernization of the Labour Party. Some would say his dismantling of it.

So in effect we ran a small but successful co-operative business from premises that had been built from the product of capitalist wealth. The house itself was in immediate grounds of about 15 acres, surrounded by 150 acres of farmland. This was rented permanently to a local farmer.

Thus I lived for almost 10 years as if part of the landed gentry, just on the edge of one of the great industrial towns of England, but to all intents and purposes living in a rural location.

There were about seven of us in our co-operative, not all of whom lived on site. We were all paid the same minimal weekly salary, and in effect shared in the profits of our labour. which were not substantial.

Our customers were exclusively not for profit organisations, most of whom were concerned with positive social issues. In other words, the kind of conferences that we hosted in this fine location were concerned with people rather than making money.

The owner of the property, Tom Lupton, was closely connected through his friends to a peculiarly English brand of Christian Socialism, and in some respects, this made an East-West work camp of particular poignancy to us.

When I travelled to Czechoslovakia, it was to attend a workcamp hosted on a co-operative farm and led by the two Czech doctors that had attended our workcamp. Thus, two years before the major upheavals in that country, I had the opportunity to see for myself how communism had shaped that country.

It was an interesting experience.

To facilitate my journey to Czechoslovakia, I had tried to learn Russian, attending an evening class for six months or so before I travelled.

What I failed to realise was that although in theory Russian was spoken as the second language in Czechoslovakia, it was the language imposed by the oppressor.

So that when I tried to use my limited Russian, I was virtually ignored, and it was not helpful to me at all.

Perhaps I was fortunate in that I became friendly with an English teacher at the workcamp, so in fact for my three weeks in Czechoslovakia, two weeks working on the farm, and a week travelling in the country, I had the services of my own interpreter.

In fact I stayed at the home of my interpreter and her husband, and became good friends with them. I was given a privileged insight into the life they lead, and the impact of communism on them.

This was particularly fascinating because my interpreter was an English teacher in a Czechoslovakian School, but she was also a committed Christian, a fact that she had to keep private as it would have been inconceivable for a teacher in a Czech school to have been a Christian.

In the course of my three-week stay in Czechoslovakia, my interpreter was careful to introduce me to a wide range of people, from Communist officials to small local farmers. my most abiding memory is of the way in which the two young men that were spray-painting the enormous grain silo on the farm to which the workcamp was attached, work which in Czechoslovakia at the time would have been highly paid because it was dangerous manual labour, and they used their experience of mountain climbing and abseiling to move up and down the outside of the anonymous grain silo.

They were undertaking this work so that they could fund a project they were working on, and which they proudly showed me.

They were building a concrete hulled ocean going yacht, the plans for which they had obtained from Australia, and which was at the stage of being fitted out. The most expensive stage.

Czechoslovakia of course is a landlocked country, but they had the confidence that if they completed this project, the authorities could not fail to give them permission to sail it, which would mean permission to leave Czechoslovakia.

Given the events of 1989, I am sure that they managed to achieve their dream.

I was not impressed with the reality of communism in Czechoslovakia.

It placed into high relief the experiment that I had been engaged in for the best part of 10 years of my life. Co-operative development in Britain was simply my youthful zeal for political equality, but one in which few people could have experienced it within a commonest state.

Strangely, my abiding memory of the East-West workcamp was a day trip that we made to Blackpool, which I suppose I had the privilege of organizing. I will always remember how everyone from the workcamp experienced the extraordinary delights of Blackpool, a city in Britain that is perhaps like no other, and that compared to any Communist regime, must have seemed so unlike daily life. As it did to me, even though I was a resident of England.

Thus my abiding fascination with Russia, experienced only at one remove through my contact with a Ukrainian construction brigade. Perhaps I have been fortunate to have lived how I have lived, and to have met the people I have met.

Strangely, it is those experiences of people directly that have done most to make me feel as if I have understood something of the psyche of the eastern European. Films like Dr Zhivago, and the novels of Chekhov or Tolstoy have been my only other opportunity. But I have seen so much more than so many of my generation.

Film Evocation

This afternoon, I have just watched the film Billy Elliot. I haven't watched it for some time, and sometimes, like today, having a break from a film can result in a new appreciation of it. and a reawakening of the power of the film to both move and create deep responses.

I suppose at the moment I am in the fortunate position of seeing my old films in a new light. Part of the reason for this is simply that I have obtained via the Internet a new media player, VLC, which seems to play my DVDs with richer and sharper colours, a complete bonus because the reason why I discovered its existence in the first place was that it has enabled my Intel Macintosh computer to be able to play DVDs from all regions. Instead of having to change the region setting of my DVD player within my computer, which you can only do five times in total, this media player, available free from the Internet, plays DVDs differently. So that the region setting for the DVD is unimportant.

This is pretty helpful, since I have one or two American imports which up until now I have not been able to play on my computer. I have had to use the DVD player in my living room, which I suppose is no big deal since it is part of a surround sound system, which delivers quite amazing sound.

And let's face it, the quality of sound reproduction for a film does make a big difference to one's experience of that film.

Since I have been so technical already, I might as well carry on, and the simple fact is that I have recently purchased a new speaker system for my computer, the one that I can most easily access when I am in bed, that delivers in itself quite phenomenal sound reproduction.

This is Harman Carden Sound Sticks, which have good looks as well as amazing sound reproduction. There is a separate bass speaker, and in each of the clear plastic sound sticks there are four small speakers. The net result is that I have an extraordinary sense of sound quality, making it a joy to watch films old and new all over again.

In this context, a film like Billy Elliot which has a fabulous soundtrack including T-Rex and The Clash comes across brilliantly.

Add to this the emotional journey of such a redemptive film, and it is an explosive experience.

Nostalgia plays its part as well, in that in the final scene of the film, Billy Elliot as an adult dancer plays one of the principal parts in the ballet performed by Adventures In Motion Pictures, Swan Lake. This is extraordinary because of the way in which the entire ballet is performed by men, even the whole of the chorus.

The fact that I have seen this production live is one thing, but I have had the privilege as well when I was working of having worked closely with the Dance Company, when they worked closely in partnership with the orchestra that I worked for. I remember meeting one of their senior managers backstage in Edinburgh at some point, and of course I have also seen them perform alongside Opera North when they created a unique production of The Nutcracker.

So my afternoon has been indulgent in every sense, I have seen a good film in good circumstances and been reminded of the professional life I once led before I became disabled with multiple cirrhosis.

It is a reminder, if one were needed, that I have plenty of reasons to go back through my large collection of DVDs, many of which have been recorded from films broadcast on television. I have been fortunate to be able to edit out the advertisements. So that I can see films as they were intended to be seen.

Anyway, one down, and just several hundred more to go. And that's before I go back to the DVDs I have purchased, which in themselves one might expect to have better quality of reproduction to them.

The simple fact is that film can be a transformative experience, especially with the benefits of modern technology at your disposal.

The World Of Film

It's been a little while since I posted a new blog, and I suppose as I sit in front of my computer to write a new one, I can't help but think about some of the things that have been important to me over the last week or so.

That's the thing about writing a blog, it is somehow different to writing a diary, in that I don't feel compelled to write a daily account of what is happening for me.

And the fact that it is a very public means of collecting my thoughts is another difference between this and a diary. None of the self indulgent diary writing that I have engaged in over the years, and in fact I still have a collection of notebooks which capture those attempts at keeping a diary.

I suppose since I consider myself to be a writer these days, I have progressed significantly from the introspective stuff of my teenage years. As indeed my poetry has progressed significantly, and I would like to think matured somewhat.

Now that we have almost reached double figures in February, I am reminded that my film will be exhibited in Canada at the International Festival, the first showing taking place on Valentine's Day. At least I won't forget.

I consider myself to be a filmmaker as well as a poet, and I would dearly like to increase traffic on my YouTube channel, worthingsp, which I tend to add films to fairly regularly. Mainly short films these days, my most recent called Good King Wenceslas. The reason will be obvious if you can be bothered to have a look.

I am especially stimulated these days in my short film making by what I see in movies, and this latest film came about because I watched In Which We Serve in which there are two moments in which this carol is performed. Once by sailors on board ship, and once by children on shore.

I have combined this with an extract from Love Actually, and with something I found showing Tom Jones during his Christmas show in 1975. He looks so young.

It's fascinating to see the way in which there are recurring links between films, in different periods perhaps, but elements which reflect something of the culture in which we live. The environment in which our lives take their meaning.

I have a collection of about 1000 films recorded to DVD, and so I suppose I am an armchair observer of the culture expressed through film, which is a fascinating subject. And one about which I could write a regular blog in itself.

I'd like to think that my use of extracts from films could be justified under the umbrella of fair use, which is the only excuse for copyright infringement. And I certainly would never try to make money from the work of other people, and always respect the integrity of it.

What next, I wonder. my film viewing has tended to be somewhat rooted in the past, in the sense that most of my film collection is based on films broadcast on TV. That makes most of them eight or ten years since they were released.

Recently, however, I have recently been given a free VIP membership to LoveFilm, which means I am suddenly being exposed to more recent films. This in itself is fascinating, and makes me feel as if I am a timetraveller.

Add to this, that I have just discovered a way in which I can view films free of region restriction on my Macintosh, by virtue of a new media viewer. Which means that I can watch American imports directly on the machine that I have over my bed, and suddenly my viewing experience has been enormously enhanced.

Strange to think that there is such a difference between films released in America and released over here in the UK, but there does seem to be. And of course, DVDs can be purchased so cheaply these days via Amazon, even imports.

Dependence

My e-mail server has been hacked recently, meaning that somebody has been sending e-mails appearing to come from me to many of the people in my e-mail address book.

No particular harm has come to me, and the worst that seems to have happened to anyone that has opened one of the e-mails purporting to come from me and clicking on the link inside has been making themselves the possible victim of an e-mail virus.

On balance, I suppose a great many worse things could happen to anybody, and since I use a Macintosh computer, I don't seem to have suffered from any virus intrusion into my computer. I have checked carefully, much more carefully than perhaps I have done before.

And I suppose it has been a wake-up call to make me find some kind of software that will check for viruses on my own computer, about which perhaps I had been too complacent in the past.

It has taken me a while to suddenly realize what has potentially happened, which is likely that somebody has discovered the password that gives me access to my online e-mail account, and is being able to send e-mails as if they have originated from myself.

I haven't lost anything, although perhaps some of my friends may have experienced more problems than I have, by virtue of the simple fact of running a PC as opposed to a Macintosh.

What I have recently done is to strengthen the nature of my password access to my e-mail account, and hopefully this will make future access for whomsoever has done this less easy.

The e-mails that have been sent in my name might have done some damage to my reputation, as they give the impression that I have just recovered from bankruptcy, and offer the opportunity to share in my good fortune by discovering the same get rich quick scheme that I have.

All of this of course is totally bogus, and I suppose whatever the virus will achieve for anyone not protected by appropriate virus protection software may be far worse than anything I have suffered.

But certainly, what has happened in my case, is that I have become far more wary about my use of this technology. And of course I am reminded that there are people that will go to extraordinary ends in the search for probably financial gain.

It is a reminder, long overdue in my case, that we can take nothing for granted in our use of a technology that is as useful as we make it. And as dangerous as we allow it to be.

I am hopeful that anyone that knows me will have seen that these spurious e-mails are totally out of character for me, and will have seen them for what they were, and not gone any further than simply opening them, which seems to have been harmless.

How I have suffered, rather invisibly, is in the confidence that I have previously placed in my computer, which has been totally shaken.

Let's hope that nothing worse than this transpires, and that I can rebuild that confidence, over time, since what a computer gives me over everything else is a means of keeping in touch with the world. As a severely disabled person, this is important to me perhaps more than for many.

I shall certainly be more careful in future, and be far more cautious in setting passwords that enable me to access the things that I take for granted.

An Interestng Poetry Competition

It isn't often these days that I discover something exciting locally that I can get involved with.

I have just discovered one such thing. For a couple of months now, I have been attending a fabulous open Art class at a local community centre, really just across the road from me in Worthing.

It has been quite inspirational to me, from a writing point of view, to attend this art class, run by a professional artist, and for modest fees open to simply drop in and do some painting or drawing.

My tactile ability is quite limited these days, but I've been doing some watercolour painting, not exactly the kind of paintings I might once want to have achieved, but simply working in these magical materials, and having a small amount of input to guide me, has been quite inspiring. A number of my poems have been published on the website of the art group, and I have just discovered that this rather wonderful local community venue is very close to where SWAG (the Sunny Worthing Arts Group) are going to host a writing competition, poetry and prose, linked with the forthcoming Queen's Jubilee.

The event is to be held on June 16, at the Heene Gallery, but the deadline for entries is February 29th. It is being organised by SWAG, a local voluntary arts group, and prose should be up to 1500 words, and poetry no longer than 40 lines. The cost per entry is just £3 , and I know from my previous experience of the Worthing Arts group that they are well worth supporting.

The theme of any entries is Jubilee, unsurprisingly, and entrants are encouraged to be creative in their interpretation of this theme. anything goes!

There will be a cabaret event at which poems will be read by those selected as winners, and full details can be obtained from enquiries at swagonline.org.

I'm certainly going to be entering, and who knows, maybe even some prose as well as poetry.

SkyBlue art classes can easily be googled, and quite a few of my poems are still to be seen on their site, if you follow the links to the poetry page.

It will be interesting for me to hopefully take part in the event itself, if I am fortunate enough to be selected to be able to read my work on the night. There isn't so much a financial reward by way of prizes, more the possibility of an invitation to read one's work. This appeals to me, and I suppose it touches upon the subject of one of my previous blogs, the idea that finding an audience is far more important than riches.

The Coming Year

My Care Manager asked me the other day if I had any plans for regular commitments over the next couple of months.

In some respects, I am very lucky to have someone to ask me this kind of question, someone that will play a role in helping me to manage my life.

I suppose the reason for this is the fact that I am severely disabled, and as a consequence I have a team of carers that enable me to live independently. I can do this because of the way in which West Sussex County Council runs a pilot scheme entitled self directed support. What this means is that instead of receiving care support through agencies appointed and monitored by the County, I receive my care budget direct, and I am able to employ carers directly myself.

I currently have a staff of about seven people that between them manage all of the things about my day-to-day life that I would not be able to undertake myself, like washing and dressing, preparing meals, and the person that I have appointed to be my Care Manager has additional responsibilities concerning the co-ordination of timetables for who is working on which day, and helps me to ensure that I manage my team of carers effectively.

It is a new way of working, and gives me as a disabled person much greater continuity of care, and I believe gives my carers a better quality of working life. Because the alternative is to work for an agency, which usually means having to travel a great deal and visit numerous clients according to a schedule determined centrally. And the one thing that seems to be common to all agency workers, is that they don't have the luxury of sufficient time with individual clients.

Self-directed support it is a way of countering this, and in my case it really does work. The County has appointed an agency to support people like myself with things like a payroll service, so that wages and tax are properly accounted for. In some respects, the bar has been lowered so that I can employ almost anybody to work for me in delivering the care I need. In practice, of course, training is given so that things can work smoothly and effectively and of course safely. Two of my carers are what you might describe as professional carers, that have worked for agencies for many years, and have consequently had the kind of professional training you would expect in a professional carer.

I have to have employer's liability insurance, and in some respects I am the chief executive of a small business, not-for-profit of course, and with particular objectives partly set by myself, through my participation in the writing of my care plan. There is nothing different in this, than if I were to be in receipt of care provided by agencies approved by the County, except by having a care team that have been appointed to meet my needs as well as to meet the requirements necessary for the expenditure of any public money, I am empowered to a far greater extent to be able to set out the kind of life I wish still to achieve.

Just because I am severely disabled does not mean that I don't have aspirations and a will to achieve certain things. Of course, what those things can be may well be prescribed to a greater extent by the limitations of my physical capacity, but if this is an experiment in how care and support can be organised more effectively, then in my case it is certainly an effective one.

I am able to benefit from continuity of contact with my team of carers, and this in itself is a great advantage over receiving time-limited visits from overstretched carers who have to achieve an almost impossible schedule of visits. Which often fail to take into account the social needs of the person receiving care, and for the sake of limited budgets, provide simply the minimal level of support required for survival.

In some respects, it is easy to make the assumption that this is a better system, without having hard evidence to demonstrate as much. It just seems to make sense that instead of an external agency taking a profit from the delivery of care, that the individual making their own decisions (within clear boundaries laid down by the assessment procedures of local authorities) will plan for more effective outcomes for the same resources.

It is a very different way of working, and not without its own set of problems. There is still a need to ensure that carers have the right skills to be able to do their work effectively. I suppose one answer to this is that it is easier to train someone for the specific needs of one individual than it is to train a carer to meet with every possible need they might be required to fulfil.

I have certainly found it possible to plan my life more effectively as a consequence of receiving support from a focused team of carers. I suppose I have been fortunate to find a team with a range of experience that ensures I am more well cared for. The people that work for me have a wide experience, and in most cases some training has been provided to ensure that they can fulfil all of the requirements of my care. For example, the safe operation of the hoist that has been installed in my bedroom, to enable transfers to my electric wheelchair from my bed.

There is a substantial team beyond those that I directly employ that I can call upon for specific help and support Whether it be from my occupational therapist, who has been able to supply me with equipment like the hoist that makes lifting safe both for me and for my carers,or my local physio.

I suppose I am fortunate in that my condition, multiple sclerosis, is fairly stable and does not require the kind of medical interventions by way of medication that require specialist medical support. My GP provides all of the medical care that I require, and occasional visits to see consultants are something we are all fortunate to be able to receive in the context of a National Health Service.

Perhaps I am also fortunate in that I have always had plenty to say for myself, and at present my condition does not affect my capacity to speak. Hence my ability to write this blog with the aid of voice-activated software.

That I have had previous experience of managing my workplace has in no way prepared me to manage the situation in which I am cared for. Hence, a new (for me) need to have among my staff someone that can take on the role of my Care Manager, to ensure that where I need to be assisted with the day-to-day management of my care, there is someone I can depend upon to help me to think things through, and where necessary, to challenge my thinking.

It can't be an easy task, I was never very organised when I was totally independent, and in truth I am dependent now on other people for virtually everything.

That I can express myself is one thing, but no amount of life experience can prepare anybody to be able to live life to the full, when almost everything is a matter of negotiation and compromise.

Don't get me wrong, my life is still just as full as anybody's with the issues we must all deal with, not least of all clarifying what it is we wish to achieve. In my case, this is particularly necessary, because I need to organise someone to help me achieve those things I wish to achieve.

In Search Of An Audience

 I suppose this is everyone's concern.  Just like in a conversation, and we want to be heard, and sometimes we don't listen as well as we should. It's quite human really, this need and desire for communication.

I want to get more traffic for my YouTube site, so that I feel my efforts in making short films are not in vain. Strangely, one of my films seems to be getting an increasing number of hits from as far afield as Saudi Arabia and India and Bangladesh. It is the film I made for the training of social workers, commissioned by my local County Council, West Sussex.

The film I would most like to be seen, over and above my selected entry for the International Festival in Canada, The Chantry, is Uses For Lipstick. This uses as its soundtrack my reading of my poem of the same name, which gained for me my first ever literary prize. Okay, only a £20 Waterstones book token, but I am still incredibly proud of this. It was judged to be the best poem in a competition to write a poem inspired by the movies. Hard not to be inspired by the movies, really.

Perhaps my best chance of gaining a greater audience will be through my writing for a National magazine, one that most people won't ever have heard of, Care Talk. It's fairly new, and is targeted at professionals in they care sector, from carers of all kinds, right through to professionals working in the sector at the highest level.

My first article was published in the December issue, which can be seen online free of charge. Just search for Care Talk, and my article is on page 20 and 21. I am very proud of the photographs, taken by my friend Marc, which capture in a much more documentary style myself and the subject of the article, my favourite taxi driver Len.Taxis take on a totally different meaning when you are a wheelchair user like me. Read the article, and you will see what I mean.

I was able to get one of my poems published as part of the article, Bluebells In The Azured Wood,  an homage to A E  Houseman. Unsurprisingly it was inspired by a visit to a wood with the bluebells just beginning to blossom.

I've got another article being published in the March edition, and the editor has accepted an idea of mine for an article about technology that enables access. Such as the way in which I am writing this blog with the assistance of voice activated software. Now if that isn't an excuse for some of my writing to be published, I don't know what is.

I did have the opportunity of writing the article myself, but I'm glad that the article is to be written by another freelance, because believe it or not I don't want simply to grandstand my work. I would rather someone else had some perspective on it.

Using voice-activated software, once you are used to it, for someone who is most interested in poetry is a fantastic advantage. And the way in which the technology has really improved means that I can type so much faster than once I was able. And since the advice is nearly always to read your work  aloud, I suppose I have the advantage that my work is created using the natural rhythms of speech.

Recently I have discovered the way in which things like this blog entry can be linked to my Facebook page, as I have also discovered any films can be linked. So perhaps that long fabled moment when  technologies converge is almost upon us. All we have to do is to find interesting ways in which to make it interesting. That, as they say, is the rub.