I had a soft spot for George Orwell when I was doing an A-level in English Literature.
I read many of his novels, his short stories, and his writings in general.
I admire much of his work, and there is no doubt that he has had much influence on our cultural ideas, if the measure of his influence might be judged by the number of words and phrases that he has introduced to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Perhaps his greatest and most influential novel has been 1984, and although we do not feel explicitly that we are as controlled as the social system described in this work, closer examination is worthwhile to assess the degree to which the State has become Big Brother.
I have been struck recently by the extent to which we are encouraged to experience emotion on a regular basis by the television schedule.
To this extent, clearly I am talking about the United Kingdom, although I am sure that someone with more local knowledge might be able to assess other cultures that share a similar set of control issues.
What has particularly struck me is for example the way in which Strictly Come Dancing has become as a ‘must watch’ programme within the BBC schedule.
Even from the perspective of its production values we are encouraged to perceive the success or failure of participants as an emotional journey, which we become excited about, and indeed feel as if we are participating directly in by way of public voting to determine the fate of our chosen favourites.
There is no doubting the quality of the professional dancers, and the skills of those that principally guide our thoughts about what we are seeing.
And the judges that guide our thinking also appear in many other televised contexts, often engaging additional emotional aspects of our lives, such as memories of holidays from times past, or as recently demonstrated, the way in which dance as an artform links to its expression in films from as far back as the 1930s.
There is a subtle link here with other aspects of our culture, and through such films as The Hunger Games, adapted from the book written by an author, Michael Morepogo, questioning the same territory that I am here touching upon.
Wednesday, 19 November 2014
Monday, 10 November 2014
The Poet, a Marchioness, and the Wardrobe
In the mid-1990s, I had reason to attend with my then wife the residence of the Earl of March and Wemyss, just south of Edinburgh.
It was not given to dropping in on members of the Scottish aristocracy, but my wife had good reason for this particular visit.
As a director of Opera, with her own company, she had been asked to put together a short tour of the Opera Venus and Adonis by John Blow, which would be performed by a small company in stately homes across Scotland.
The Earl was to be visited because of his role in being the founder of the National Trust for Scotland, and it was his wife, the Marchioness, that we were to meet on that day in order to look at the venue for one of the performances, his own house at Gosford, to which he intended to invite his own personal invitation list for what amounted to a private performance of the work.
The Marchioness was more than happy to show us the venue for the performance, and to help us to perhaps find an item of costume that we could use for one of the characters.
And thus we found ourselves having tea with the Marchioness, and rummaging through a most extraordinary series of wardrobes in which the Earl kept several generations of clothing appropriate to his position as the most senior noble in Scotland.
We had been looking for something specific form one of the cast members, and it had been the Earl himself that had suggested we may find something suitable in this storehouse.
As we soon discovered, the wardrobes at Gosford House contained a vast quantity of historic items, much of which the National Museum of Scotland was anxious to become the curator of.
But the family resisted this, preferring to keep the items close at hand, although acquiescing to the need to keep much of the contents wrapped in archival quality tissue paper to ensure its protection.
After much searching through the contents of much by way of would be worn at the house of lords in London, we eventually found what we had been looking for, by way of a bright red cavalry officers uniform from the 19th century.
Though it was quite heavy in weight, thanks to solid silver epaulettes, it fitted perfectly with the costumes scheme for the performers, who would in effect dress themselves from a trunk that they would bring with them as they entered for the performance.
Which was to take place in the hallway of one wing of the house, which makes it sound like a small place.
But over 100 people were to attend this performance, as the hallway was like no other I had ever seen.
For a start, it was white marble, with an open area at its summit that could hold about 100 people quite easily in an open space.
Gosford House is a substantial stately home in its own rigt and one whole wing had been destroyed by fire during the second world war when it has been used as the barracks for soldiers, and they had accidentally literally set fire to one part of it, which had never been restored.
And so the hallway with its magnificent staircase was in a whole wing to itself, constituting one half of what remains of the original house.
Appropriately to the position of its owner, it was furnished with extraordinary things, and one such item we were able to use as the principal image in advertising the opera and its tour.
This was a 16th century painting of Venus and Adonis, a beautiful Renaissance oil painting, which we were able to have propped on an easel at the bottom of the stairs as people came to this particular performance.
Interestingly, a couple of years after the performance had taken place, this painting was sold at Christie’s in London for just under £20 million. Quite some set decoration.
It was a wonderfully informal performance at Gosford House, very much made up of people invited by the Earl and his wife the Marchioness.
People were encouraged to attend in fancy dress, and I remember that the Earl attended wearing nothing more than a simple toga, then I do not remember how the Marchioness dressed.
It was not given to dropping in on members of the Scottish aristocracy, but my wife had good reason for this particular visit.
As a director of Opera, with her own company, she had been asked to put together a short tour of the Opera Venus and Adonis by John Blow, which would be performed by a small company in stately homes across Scotland.
The Earl was to be visited because of his role in being the founder of the National Trust for Scotland, and it was his wife, the Marchioness, that we were to meet on that day in order to look at the venue for one of the performances, his own house at Gosford, to which he intended to invite his own personal invitation list for what amounted to a private performance of the work.
The Marchioness was more than happy to show us the venue for the performance, and to help us to perhaps find an item of costume that we could use for one of the characters.
And thus we found ourselves having tea with the Marchioness, and rummaging through a most extraordinary series of wardrobes in which the Earl kept several generations of clothing appropriate to his position as the most senior noble in Scotland.
We had been looking for something specific form one of the cast members, and it had been the Earl himself that had suggested we may find something suitable in this storehouse.
As we soon discovered, the wardrobes at Gosford House contained a vast quantity of historic items, much of which the National Museum of Scotland was anxious to become the curator of.
But the family resisted this, preferring to keep the items close at hand, although acquiescing to the need to keep much of the contents wrapped in archival quality tissue paper to ensure its protection.
After much searching through the contents of much by way of would be worn at the house of lords in London, we eventually found what we had been looking for, by way of a bright red cavalry officers uniform from the 19th century.
Though it was quite heavy in weight, thanks to solid silver epaulettes, it fitted perfectly with the costumes scheme for the performers, who would in effect dress themselves from a trunk that they would bring with them as they entered for the performance.
Which was to take place in the hallway of one wing of the house, which makes it sound like a small place.
But over 100 people were to attend this performance, as the hallway was like no other I had ever seen.
For a start, it was white marble, with an open area at its summit that could hold about 100 people quite easily in an open space.
Gosford House is a substantial stately home in its own rigt and one whole wing had been destroyed by fire during the second world war when it has been used as the barracks for soldiers, and they had accidentally literally set fire to one part of it, which had never been restored.
And so the hallway with its magnificent staircase was in a whole wing to itself, constituting one half of what remains of the original house.
Appropriately to the position of its owner, it was furnished with extraordinary things, and one such item we were able to use as the principal image in advertising the opera and its tour.
This was a 16th century painting of Venus and Adonis, a beautiful Renaissance oil painting, which we were able to have propped on an easel at the bottom of the stairs as people came to this particular performance.
Interestingly, a couple of years after the performance had taken place, this painting was sold at Christie’s in London for just under £20 million. Quite some set decoration.
It was a wonderfully informal performance at Gosford House, very much made up of people invited by the Earl and his wife the Marchioness.
People were encouraged to attend in fancy dress, and I remember that the Earl attended wearing nothing more than a simple toga, then I do not remember how the Marchioness dressed.
Sunday, 9 November 2014
On The Interpretation of Dreams
I rarely speak in my blog of my dreams. Quite simply, most people simply switch off if you were to relate to them the strange goings on in the world of your own dreams.
But this morning, I had the strangest of dreams, and I wanted to make a particular effort to remember this dream. And the only way of doing so is to make some notes about it immediately.
In this dream, the principal activity seemed to be some form of competition at the heart of which was to be the unlikely activity of moving meteorites around a physical course, meteorites of different shapes and weights, for no other reason than to see whom of the participants could do so most easily.
As an adjunct to this central component of the dream, an additional prize offered was something along the lines of entry into a competition that involved filming an activity also taking place on the same rural location.
In trying to identify what this might have been, the closest I have come is that activities were taking place which I have seen in the context of a program like Time Team. Something for participants in the principal activity won the opportunity to film or some ritual reenactment or some kind of ancient manufacturing process, but the most important aspect of this dream was that the choice of film material used was to be something fly blown, which I can only assume must meant timelapse photography.
But it is Interesting. here to think about other interpretations of this, so that the filming process involves watching something taking shape in the same way that for example you might watch the entire life-cycle of insects.
I can only think that having this dream may have been the result of having recently read the Dan Brown novel Deception Point, a principal part of which is concerned with the falsification of the origin of a meteorite discovered locked in Arctic ice.
This would account for an interest in passing with meteorites, although it says nothing about the other part of the dream.
Because I am severely disabled because of multiple sclerosis, I am always keen to appreciate that my brain is still functioning in some way, however strange. I am always reminded of the scene in the Matrix film, where near Neo is first told how the matrix works.
A battery is held up as an example of what the machine world is doing by exploiting the capacity of human development simply to produce electricity.
I take it for granted that the human nervous system is not fully understood, and that as long as I am still producing animal electricity, and because the brain has the capacity to find new ways of making connections in the body even if nerves of themselves cannot be repaired this plasticity of the overall system, giving me some hope that my brain might one day find those collections which are currently blocked by the sclerotic nature of the condition.
If nothing else, this is a demonstration of hope in the face of adversity. Never give up, never surrender.
But this morning, I had the strangest of dreams, and I wanted to make a particular effort to remember this dream. And the only way of doing so is to make some notes about it immediately.
In this dream, the principal activity seemed to be some form of competition at the heart of which was to be the unlikely activity of moving meteorites around a physical course, meteorites of different shapes and weights, for no other reason than to see whom of the participants could do so most easily.
As an adjunct to this central component of the dream, an additional prize offered was something along the lines of entry into a competition that involved filming an activity also taking place on the same rural location.
In trying to identify what this might have been, the closest I have come is that activities were taking place which I have seen in the context of a program like Time Team. Something for participants in the principal activity won the opportunity to film or some ritual reenactment or some kind of ancient manufacturing process, but the most important aspect of this dream was that the choice of film material used was to be something fly blown, which I can only assume must meant timelapse photography.
But it is Interesting. here to think about other interpretations of this, so that the filming process involves watching something taking shape in the same way that for example you might watch the entire life-cycle of insects.
I can only think that having this dream may have been the result of having recently read the Dan Brown novel Deception Point, a principal part of which is concerned with the falsification of the origin of a meteorite discovered locked in Arctic ice.
This would account for an interest in passing with meteorites, although it says nothing about the other part of the dream.
Because I am severely disabled because of multiple sclerosis, I am always keen to appreciate that my brain is still functioning in some way, however strange. I am always reminded of the scene in the Matrix film, where near Neo is first told how the matrix works.
A battery is held up as an example of what the machine world is doing by exploiting the capacity of human development simply to produce electricity.
I take it for granted that the human nervous system is not fully understood, and that as long as I am still producing animal electricity, and because the brain has the capacity to find new ways of making connections in the body even if nerves of themselves cannot be repaired this plasticity of the overall system, giving me some hope that my brain might one day find those collections which are currently blocked by the sclerotic nature of the condition.
If nothing else, this is a demonstration of hope in the face of adversity. Never give up, never surrender.
Saturday, 8 November 2014
Annonymity Even in The Information Age
We have become so accustomed to having information at our fingertips.
It is sobering sometimes to come across something elusive, and one such elusive thing has come to my attention recently.
We are of course that a critical point in remembering those that have fallen in conflicts across the 20th century.
There has been much moving coverage across the BBC capturing perhaps before lost in the mists of time first-hand accounts of those that have exhibited extraordinary bravery during the second world war, a conflict which is so nearly slipping into obscurity as those with personal experience begin to reach an age that prevents them from participation in person, Leaving only recollections for future generations.
It is important to remember, and although it is quite possible for the argument to be put forward that it is wrong to glamorise that sense of sacrifice. It is equally the case that we must never forget the importance of taking a stand against what is both brutal and at times offensive.
Although my father died many years ago, the fact that he served in the Armed Forces remains with me as a memory even though only second-hand. At one remove from personal experience.
I have on the wall of my bedroom, visible from my electric bed, the recruiting poster that remains perhaps one of the most iconic images of the 20th century.
I Cannot imagine that anyone the world over will not at some point have seen this image, that of Lord Kitchener facing straight to the onlooker and exclaiming that Your Country Needs You.
There are few images which can claim to have been so successful, if that is the term to use, in capturing the spirit of a time.
The poster that I have framed was given to me by one of my carers recently, having been a special giveaway with a Sunday newspaper at some point in the recent past.
It is a striking image, and I have it framed in front of me for several reasons.
One of them is simply as a reminder of so much of what is being remembered at the moment, but there is another very personal reason why it is important to me at the moment.
This is simply that Lord Kitchener possesses a stupendous moustache, very much a reminder of the kind of facial hair that was common at the time.
I have recently grown moustache of my own, which I use moustache wax for, and of which I am particularly proud.
Perhaps it is simply that when you have a red car, you see red cars everywhere.
I have begun to notice that there is an increasing fashion for extravagant facial hair such as was more common in the early part of the 20th century.
I was recently delighted to discover that thanks to the Internet, it was quite straightforward for me to find the source of moustache wax, a product which might be considered to be of interest only to a very small minority.
One interesting consequence of having this poster regularly in my vision is that I have noted the name of the artist that creates is the original poster image.
His name is Alfred Leete, and what I was surprised to discover was the fact that it seemed impossible to discover anything meaningful about this artists work.
Beyond the fact that the first appearance of the image came about in an obscure local newspaper, I have discovered nothing about the artist whatsoever.
This is something that I find so surprising given the times in which we live that I have felt it worthwhile to raise it.
It is strangely satisfying to discover something unknowable.
We are so used to being able to access information instantly, that it is quite remarkable that something so iconic should be so shrouded in anonymity.
It is sobering sometimes to come across something elusive, and one such elusive thing has come to my attention recently.
We are of course that a critical point in remembering those that have fallen in conflicts across the 20th century.
There has been much moving coverage across the BBC capturing perhaps before lost in the mists of time first-hand accounts of those that have exhibited extraordinary bravery during the second world war, a conflict which is so nearly slipping into obscurity as those with personal experience begin to reach an age that prevents them from participation in person, Leaving only recollections for future generations.
It is important to remember, and although it is quite possible for the argument to be put forward that it is wrong to glamorise that sense of sacrifice. It is equally the case that we must never forget the importance of taking a stand against what is both brutal and at times offensive.
Although my father died many years ago, the fact that he served in the Armed Forces remains with me as a memory even though only second-hand. At one remove from personal experience.
I have on the wall of my bedroom, visible from my electric bed, the recruiting poster that remains perhaps one of the most iconic images of the 20th century.
I Cannot imagine that anyone the world over will not at some point have seen this image, that of Lord Kitchener facing straight to the onlooker and exclaiming that Your Country Needs You.
There are few images which can claim to have been so successful, if that is the term to use, in capturing the spirit of a time.
The poster that I have framed was given to me by one of my carers recently, having been a special giveaway with a Sunday newspaper at some point in the recent past.
It is a striking image, and I have it framed in front of me for several reasons.
One of them is simply as a reminder of so much of what is being remembered at the moment, but there is another very personal reason why it is important to me at the moment.
This is simply that Lord Kitchener possesses a stupendous moustache, very much a reminder of the kind of facial hair that was common at the time.
I have recently grown moustache of my own, which I use moustache wax for, and of which I am particularly proud.
Perhaps it is simply that when you have a red car, you see red cars everywhere.
I have begun to notice that there is an increasing fashion for extravagant facial hair such as was more common in the early part of the 20th century.
I was recently delighted to discover that thanks to the Internet, it was quite straightforward for me to find the source of moustache wax, a product which might be considered to be of interest only to a very small minority.
One interesting consequence of having this poster regularly in my vision is that I have noted the name of the artist that creates is the original poster image.
His name is Alfred Leete, and what I was surprised to discover was the fact that it seemed impossible to discover anything meaningful about this artists work.
Beyond the fact that the first appearance of the image came about in an obscure local newspaper, I have discovered nothing about the artist whatsoever.
This is something that I find so surprising given the times in which we live that I have felt it worthwhile to raise it.
It is strangely satisfying to discover something unknowable.
We are so used to being able to access information instantly, that it is quite remarkable that something so iconic should be so shrouded in anonymity.
Saturday, 4 October 2014
The Warp and Weft of History
It’s not so much that I am obsessed with celebrity, and I have no illusions about my own sense of impact on history.
But I am fascinated at observing the way in which I can perceive the threads of connection between people and places.
There is great comfort to be had from a sense that I have been wrapped in these threads, and though it is clearly the case that we are all in some way connected to these threads and by these threads to everything, it is not necessarily the case that we are aware of those threads that bind us.
I suppose this particular blog is partly my reminiscing about the way in which I have been fortunate to have uncovered and become aware of some of these threads, and partly a means of finding some sense of meaning that I have gained from the whole process.
If I ever try to name drop about some of the people that I have met or worked with, more often than not other people do not know who I am talking about.
This only amuses me is, and perhaps underlines the fact that I have spent my life in a rarefied not to say mysterious world.
But it has been a world nevertheless connected to so many things.
This morning, as I was beginning to contemplate what I might write about, one of my starting points was to think of a title, such as why Les Miserables is such a favourite of mine.
Most recently, I am meaning the 25th anniversary film that Cameron Mackintosh commissioned to celebrate this important anniversary of his stage adaptation.
I did once see the staged adaptation, and it may have been in the 1980s, since I remember attending with my wife. Or at least the woman that was to become my wife.
I saw it at the Prince Edward Theatre on Drury Lane in theatre land.
When I was at university I lived only 30 minutes walk or so from Drury Lane, when I lived in Gower Street as a student. I was a student at University College London, the godless college in Gower Street.
Strangely enough, it was from an old-fashioned theatrical costumier close to here that I first obtained moustache wax, when in my early 20s I first attempted to grow a relaxed moustache.
I have only one photograph from that time, the identity photograph from my London tube ticket.
I am currently attempting my second waxed moustache, and after much stress about whether or not I would be able to find another supplier for moustache wax, I searched on Amazon and was amazed at how many suppliers there were to be found.
This is an extraordinary reminder of how times have changed. It would have been unfixable in the early 1980s to use the Internet to shop for this kind of product, and yet today we can almost take it for granted.
I was even able to get some tips on how to wax my moustache from YouTube. Another unthinkable thing.
And of course having thought of Les Miserables, I made the connection with syndicalism.
Perhaps not everyone might have made this collection, but since my first working years were spent building a cooperative business, for me the link from those last scenes in the film where idealistic young men are talking about the blood of angry men and black, the colour of ages past.
Black and red are the colours of the anarchist flag.
Although I would not consider myself an anarchist, I would consider myself a syndicalist. And the two have a great deal in common.
Much of the Basque region in Spain has been the focus of significant industrial co-operatives, and I once owned a washing machine manufactured in one such business.
Working in eight co-operatives context has been an important part of my early experience, and indeed made me aware of some significant historical threads.
So for example the premises within which we operated a conference centre providing residential facilities for up to 40 people were provided to us at a peppercorn rent by a Christian socialist named Tom Lupton whose family had owned the Beechwood estate since Victorian times.
They had been manufacturers of fine woollen carriage cloth, and this substantial estate on the edge of Leeds was where they lived, in fairly grand style.
Examples of their cloth had been exhibited at the great exhibition in 1851.
Tom Lupton trained as an architect, and became a manufacturer of furniture. He eventually sold his furniture business to Terence Conran when that entrepreneur was building the Habitat empire, and since he lived in Oxfordshire he had no use for the Beechwood estate that he inherited from two spinster aunts in 1972.
As a Christian socialist, Tom Lupton was motivated to ensure that this resource was made available to pursue objectives that he had some belief in.
And so I became aware of the way in which Christian Socialists like him have had an important influence in the UK.
For example, the Scott Bader Commonwealth, located I believe somewhere close to Middlesbrough, is a chemical factory making injection moulding chemicals. The owner of the factory, Scott Bader, gave the entire factory to his workforce, in perpetuity, in the 1950s.
It is one of few examples of industrial cooperation in the UK, where co-operatives have tended to be consumer co-operatives.
Later, when I was working as the education officer for Opera North in Leeds, I became involved in a project to help the co-operative movement celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Rochdale Pioneers.
This took place at a national centre owned by the co-operative movement nationally, located in Staffordshire.
Strange how threads can link up on themselves, and I found myself in a unique position to appreciate what I was helping to celebrate by virtue of my own history.
It was whilst working at Opera North that I had the opportunity to meet and work with an extraordinary range of creative people, broadening my own horizons substantially.
Opera was not an art form that I had ever previously experienced, but for five years, I had the opportunity to see as many shows as I could, and never had to pay a thing.
I even had the opportunity to see work at other opera houses, including Glyndebourne and English National Opera, since the education officers at all of these institutions formed a small but unique network.
Thus I got to go to Glyndebourne twice, and though I did not possess a dinner suit, working for Opera North meant that I was able to be kitted out with a very fine dinner suit thanks to the wardrobe department.
And so it is that I have met many of the most important composers working in the 20th century, often only at those kind of drinks parties that take place when a production opens.
But nevertheless, to someone like myself interested in those threads of history, I have had a field day.
I met Sir Michael Tippett during the opera lost production of his last opera, New Year.
He was in his 90s and almost blind, but still composing.
As a conscientious objector, he was imprisoned for his beliefs during the Second World War.
Later, working as the development director for the Scottish chamber Orchestra, I would work closely with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, master of the Queens music, organising his international young composers course on his island home of Orkney.
And so in the course of my work, I have had dinner with the likes of Arnold Wesker, at the Cheltenham Festival, and gave Sophie Dahl her acting debut in Goldilocks and the three Bears.
When I tell people that I have had dinner with Sophie Dahl I usually omit to mention that another dozen people were at the table with us, including her mother.
But that is the nature of personal experience, you can choose what you wish to include in any anecdotes.
Where I now live in Worthing in West Sussex is just across the road from the Queen Alexandra Hospital home for soldiers, and every year this important place has an open day.
I have met Dame Vera Lynn at the open day twice now, and because I included a short story about meeting with her at the hospital, in a special edition of my first collection of poems, a copy of this collection has been included in the local history collection of West Sussex county council, where it is rubbing shoulders with works by Shelley, Balzac, and Kipling.
I must have no illusions about the reason for my poems being included in this prestigious selection, it is the importance of the hospital and of its connection with Dame Vera Lynn, but it is nice to be thus included.
But I am fascinated at observing the way in which I can perceive the threads of connection between people and places.
There is great comfort to be had from a sense that I have been wrapped in these threads, and though it is clearly the case that we are all in some way connected to these threads and by these threads to everything, it is not necessarily the case that we are aware of those threads that bind us.
I suppose this particular blog is partly my reminiscing about the way in which I have been fortunate to have uncovered and become aware of some of these threads, and partly a means of finding some sense of meaning that I have gained from the whole process.
If I ever try to name drop about some of the people that I have met or worked with, more often than not other people do not know who I am talking about.
This only amuses me is, and perhaps underlines the fact that I have spent my life in a rarefied not to say mysterious world.
But it has been a world nevertheless connected to so many things.
This morning, as I was beginning to contemplate what I might write about, one of my starting points was to think of a title, such as why Les Miserables is such a favourite of mine.
Most recently, I am meaning the 25th anniversary film that Cameron Mackintosh commissioned to celebrate this important anniversary of his stage adaptation.
I did once see the staged adaptation, and it may have been in the 1980s, since I remember attending with my wife. Or at least the woman that was to become my wife.
I saw it at the Prince Edward Theatre on Drury Lane in theatre land.
When I was at university I lived only 30 minutes walk or so from Drury Lane, when I lived in Gower Street as a student. I was a student at University College London, the godless college in Gower Street.
Strangely enough, it was from an old-fashioned theatrical costumier close to here that I first obtained moustache wax, when in my early 20s I first attempted to grow a relaxed moustache.
I have only one photograph from that time, the identity photograph from my London tube ticket.
I am currently attempting my second waxed moustache, and after much stress about whether or not I would be able to find another supplier for moustache wax, I searched on Amazon and was amazed at how many suppliers there were to be found.
This is an extraordinary reminder of how times have changed. It would have been unfixable in the early 1980s to use the Internet to shop for this kind of product, and yet today we can almost take it for granted.
I was even able to get some tips on how to wax my moustache from YouTube. Another unthinkable thing.
And of course having thought of Les Miserables, I made the connection with syndicalism.
Perhaps not everyone might have made this collection, but since my first working years were spent building a cooperative business, for me the link from those last scenes in the film where idealistic young men are talking about the blood of angry men and black, the colour of ages past.
Black and red are the colours of the anarchist flag.
Although I would not consider myself an anarchist, I would consider myself a syndicalist. And the two have a great deal in common.
Much of the Basque region in Spain has been the focus of significant industrial co-operatives, and I once owned a washing machine manufactured in one such business.
Working in eight co-operatives context has been an important part of my early experience, and indeed made me aware of some significant historical threads.
So for example the premises within which we operated a conference centre providing residential facilities for up to 40 people were provided to us at a peppercorn rent by a Christian socialist named Tom Lupton whose family had owned the Beechwood estate since Victorian times.
They had been manufacturers of fine woollen carriage cloth, and this substantial estate on the edge of Leeds was where they lived, in fairly grand style.
Examples of their cloth had been exhibited at the great exhibition in 1851.
Tom Lupton trained as an architect, and became a manufacturer of furniture. He eventually sold his furniture business to Terence Conran when that entrepreneur was building the Habitat empire, and since he lived in Oxfordshire he had no use for the Beechwood estate that he inherited from two spinster aunts in 1972.
As a Christian socialist, Tom Lupton was motivated to ensure that this resource was made available to pursue objectives that he had some belief in.
And so I became aware of the way in which Christian Socialists like him have had an important influence in the UK.
For example, the Scott Bader Commonwealth, located I believe somewhere close to Middlesbrough, is a chemical factory making injection moulding chemicals. The owner of the factory, Scott Bader, gave the entire factory to his workforce, in perpetuity, in the 1950s.
It is one of few examples of industrial cooperation in the UK, where co-operatives have tended to be consumer co-operatives.
Later, when I was working as the education officer for Opera North in Leeds, I became involved in a project to help the co-operative movement celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Rochdale Pioneers.
This took place at a national centre owned by the co-operative movement nationally, located in Staffordshire.
Strange how threads can link up on themselves, and I found myself in a unique position to appreciate what I was helping to celebrate by virtue of my own history.
It was whilst working at Opera North that I had the opportunity to meet and work with an extraordinary range of creative people, broadening my own horizons substantially.
Opera was not an art form that I had ever previously experienced, but for five years, I had the opportunity to see as many shows as I could, and never had to pay a thing.
I even had the opportunity to see work at other opera houses, including Glyndebourne and English National Opera, since the education officers at all of these institutions formed a small but unique network.
Thus I got to go to Glyndebourne twice, and though I did not possess a dinner suit, working for Opera North meant that I was able to be kitted out with a very fine dinner suit thanks to the wardrobe department.
And so it is that I have met many of the most important composers working in the 20th century, often only at those kind of drinks parties that take place when a production opens.
But nevertheless, to someone like myself interested in those threads of history, I have had a field day.
I met Sir Michael Tippett during the opera lost production of his last opera, New Year.
He was in his 90s and almost blind, but still composing.
As a conscientious objector, he was imprisoned for his beliefs during the Second World War.
Later, working as the development director for the Scottish chamber Orchestra, I would work closely with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, master of the Queens music, organising his international young composers course on his island home of Orkney.
And so in the course of my work, I have had dinner with the likes of Arnold Wesker, at the Cheltenham Festival, and gave Sophie Dahl her acting debut in Goldilocks and the three Bears.
When I tell people that I have had dinner with Sophie Dahl I usually omit to mention that another dozen people were at the table with us, including her mother.
But that is the nature of personal experience, you can choose what you wish to include in any anecdotes.
Where I now live in Worthing in West Sussex is just across the road from the Queen Alexandra Hospital home for soldiers, and every year this important place has an open day.
I have met Dame Vera Lynn at the open day twice now, and because I included a short story about meeting with her at the hospital, in a special edition of my first collection of poems, a copy of this collection has been included in the local history collection of West Sussex county council, where it is rubbing shoulders with works by Shelley, Balzac, and Kipling.
I must have no illusions about the reason for my poems being included in this prestigious selection, it is the importance of the hospital and of its connection with Dame Vera Lynn, but it is nice to be thus included.
Wednesday, 3 September 2014
Keeping Back The Damp
I have lived in my own home in Worthing for just over 10 years. I live alone, although with a dog, you are never alone.
When I first moved in, I received a small settlement as a consequence of an accident in a public space. It was entirely not my fault, and as someone that was still walking but with crutches, my fall though not serious did much to damage my confidence.
This small settlement I spent almost entirely on the redecoration of my small apartment, just one bedroom, two or three streets back from the seafront.
It is a 1920s house, the ground floor or what we would in the UK call a garden flat.
I have access to the rear of my property over the adjoining property, which enables me to gain access in my wheelchair from the street.
When I bought the house, on a mortgage, I was aware that all of the internal walls had been dry lined with plasterboard.
After 10 years, what I might have suspected has proven to be the case, that the plasterboard walls hide a general problem of damp.
Not serious damp, but sufficient to require sorting out properly now.
When I first moved in, I was able to benefit from a disabled facilities Grant, which meant that the local council spent a considerable sum turning my bathroom into a wet room, and giving me a new ramped access at the rear, with new double glazed wider opening to the ramped access, as well as the installation of superior fire alarms.
In spite of these improvements, when it rains and the wind is from the south, I get water coming in and spoiling the decoration, which is simple and minimalist white throughout.
I had the notion that I would like to live in something that approached a gallery space, and so the ceilings throughout were skimmed to smooth out the stippled texture, and the overall feel is simple and perfect for the display of my numerous pictures and photographs.
One of my last means of earning money before I ceased working entirely because of my condition, multiple sclerosis, was as a freelance graphic designer.
To facilitate this, I purchased a large format printer, which can print in full colour up to A1 size. At very high quality.
This means that some of my picture frames contain images that I have printed myself, either from photographs I have taken myself, or of images that I like.
Thus I can change my environment to a great extent. And I can offer to print large images at photographic quality for friends.
This printer is a great luxury, and I still keep it in working order even though it is much less used them once it was.
It is a great pleasure to be able to print images in this such a large format, and at such a high resolution.
To complete the needed improvements to my small apartment will cost more than I can afford, and a good friend of mine has offered to help me with some fundraising that may be needed.
I have already had the assurance of a local council officer that I may be able to secure a small grant from the same council that helped me with the disabled facilities Grant, but the available money is small, and I may have to find some additional resources.
This is my project for the next season, it may be that work will not be able to commence until next spring, and I will need to be relocated for about six weeks whilst the work takes place.
But my independence depends upon having this island of my own in my sea of troubles, somewhere that is shaped to my needs, and from where I can survey the world.
I don’t know exactly how much will be needed, but the issues and problems have begun to be more closely identified.
So as experts are consulted, my dog has new people to bark at. And she barks so well.
Oscar is a girl, and we have been together for the whole of her life, since she was rescued at the age of just over a year.
And so she is elderly, very protective, pays no attention to my commands, and yet remains my constant companion.
She is walked professionally by my most important carer daily, and so in spite of suffering arthritis for which she receives anti-inflammatories, she is happy and healthy for her age.
Any help the two of us, strays both, can keep back the waters will be most gratefully received.
No doubt this blog will regularly update any readers on the progress of my little scheme.
When I first moved in, I received a small settlement as a consequence of an accident in a public space. It was entirely not my fault, and as someone that was still walking but with crutches, my fall though not serious did much to damage my confidence.
This small settlement I spent almost entirely on the redecoration of my small apartment, just one bedroom, two or three streets back from the seafront.
It is a 1920s house, the ground floor or what we would in the UK call a garden flat.
I have access to the rear of my property over the adjoining property, which enables me to gain access in my wheelchair from the street.
When I bought the house, on a mortgage, I was aware that all of the internal walls had been dry lined with plasterboard.
After 10 years, what I might have suspected has proven to be the case, that the plasterboard walls hide a general problem of damp.
Not serious damp, but sufficient to require sorting out properly now.
When I first moved in, I was able to benefit from a disabled facilities Grant, which meant that the local council spent a considerable sum turning my bathroom into a wet room, and giving me a new ramped access at the rear, with new double glazed wider opening to the ramped access, as well as the installation of superior fire alarms.
In spite of these improvements, when it rains and the wind is from the south, I get water coming in and spoiling the decoration, which is simple and minimalist white throughout.
I had the notion that I would like to live in something that approached a gallery space, and so the ceilings throughout were skimmed to smooth out the stippled texture, and the overall feel is simple and perfect for the display of my numerous pictures and photographs.
One of my last means of earning money before I ceased working entirely because of my condition, multiple sclerosis, was as a freelance graphic designer.
To facilitate this, I purchased a large format printer, which can print in full colour up to A1 size. At very high quality.
This means that some of my picture frames contain images that I have printed myself, either from photographs I have taken myself, or of images that I like.
Thus I can change my environment to a great extent. And I can offer to print large images at photographic quality for friends.
This printer is a great luxury, and I still keep it in working order even though it is much less used them once it was.
It is a great pleasure to be able to print images in this such a large format, and at such a high resolution.
To complete the needed improvements to my small apartment will cost more than I can afford, and a good friend of mine has offered to help me with some fundraising that may be needed.
I have already had the assurance of a local council officer that I may be able to secure a small grant from the same council that helped me with the disabled facilities Grant, but the available money is small, and I may have to find some additional resources.
This is my project for the next season, it may be that work will not be able to commence until next spring, and I will need to be relocated for about six weeks whilst the work takes place.
But my independence depends upon having this island of my own in my sea of troubles, somewhere that is shaped to my needs, and from where I can survey the world.
I don’t know exactly how much will be needed, but the issues and problems have begun to be more closely identified.
So as experts are consulted, my dog has new people to bark at. And she barks so well.
Oscar is a girl, and we have been together for the whole of her life, since she was rescued at the age of just over a year.
And so she is elderly, very protective, pays no attention to my commands, and yet remains my constant companion.
She is walked professionally by my most important carer daily, and so in spite of suffering arthritis for which she receives anti-inflammatories, she is happy and healthy for her age.
Any help the two of us, strays both, can keep back the waters will be most gratefully received.
No doubt this blog will regularly update any readers on the progress of my little scheme.
Saturday, 23 August 2014
A Radical Idea Concerning The Socialisation Of People with Physical Disabilities
No lifts, no stairs, no steps and no barriers: an innovation in the care and long-term support and socialisation for people with physical disabilities
If at first this proposal sounds like it might begin as an architectural competition, then that is precisely my intention.
My proposal is multilayered in the suggests that there could be considerable savings of scale to be made in the way that people like myself with physical disabilities are supported and accommodated.
Further, and very much by way of improving opportunities for socialisation and integration, my early work experience as a member of a workers co-operative providing conference accommodation for person centred organisations with small budgets has proven to me that there is a substantial need for meeting and conference space that could generate substantial sums of money that could cover the running and operational costs of such an innovative type of building.
The early 1980s, from an overdraft of £3000 I was part of a team that grew a conference business with a turnover of £250,000 per annum during a five-year period.
Clearly, the circumstances in which the business operated were rather different. In our case, we’ve benefited from the provision of a substantial Victorian estate by the goodwill of its owner at a peppercorn rent, and located only 3 miles or so from Leeds city station, we were ideally placed to attract a national audience.
But the need still remains today for businesses of all kinds to find affordable conference and meeting space, on both a daily basis and on a residential basis.
For the purposes of an architectural competition, I have plucked out all my head the notion that the capacity to accommodate 30 to 40 people on a residential basis in single rooms would be initially adequate, with perhaps 10 additional twin rooms that were organised so that they were fully disabled access suited, perhaps in such a way that carers and cared for people of different sexes might have sufficient privacy within that accommodation.
In addition, on a more permanent basis, accommodation for between 10 and 20 people with a variety of needs would need to be created, and their accommodation might consist of the kind of space within which all of their living needs could take place - such as a small bedsit.
On-site catering would be an important component of servicing conference needs, and on a day-to-day basis should be able to accommodate meetings of up to 150 people plus the residential people and their carers.
A licensed bar could be included, although some innovation might look at the way in which this is an innovation in what it stocks.
So for an example, it might be much more like a cafe bar rather than simply an alcohol bar, and indeed could offer a wide range of alcohol free and healthy drinks as an alternative for everyone when socialising.
It is such a building used the most recent innovations in every aspect of its accommodation and the way in which it were designed to be fully accessible by people in wheelchairs, then it might also be attractive for use in respect of functions such as wedding receptions, and indeed it should be attractively presented with work commissioned by a range of artists in disciplines that would make it an attractive space in which to meet.
A multiplicity of breakout rooms could be used for all kinds of specialist small meetings, and should be equipped with a high level of technical equipment.
This level of technical equipment would of course be available outside of conference times for the use of residents, and it may be possible for residents to be able to contribute to some of the work supporting the conference business, such as graphic design for the creation of reports and follow-up for each event.
Any fees that might be generated could be made over to the social enterprise at the heart of this community business, because of the sensitive earning position of those people.
One of the principal benefits of such integrated living and working circumstances would be the way in which residents would be able to socialise with visiting conference and meeting attenders, and if more than one of these kind of facilities were to exist, as centres of excellence in their accessibility, it would make it possible for residents to be able to have a change of environment, typical hotel accommodation be out of the question for the majority of them.
It may be possible to have some additional services available to be rented out to commercial purposes, and so for example it may be advisable for someone like cooperative legal services to have a branch office within the premises. Preference should always be given to the type of business and how it is structured, so that other community businesses or cooperatives might be deemed more suitable.
If constructed on a brownfield site, there may be scope for substantial parking, for the use of residents, residents families and carers, and of course those attending meetings.
I stressed at the beginning of the concept of no barriers, and the use of technology for door opening and the ability of wheelchair users to access all areas with the minimum of assistance is critical.
Hence the idea of access to different levels being by way of gentle slopes rather than by lifts or by stairs.
If at first this proposal sounds like it might begin as an architectural competition, then that is precisely my intention.
My proposal is multilayered in the suggests that there could be considerable savings of scale to be made in the way that people like myself with physical disabilities are supported and accommodated.
Further, and very much by way of improving opportunities for socialisation and integration, my early work experience as a member of a workers co-operative providing conference accommodation for person centred organisations with small budgets has proven to me that there is a substantial need for meeting and conference space that could generate substantial sums of money that could cover the running and operational costs of such an innovative type of building.
The early 1980s, from an overdraft of £3000 I was part of a team that grew a conference business with a turnover of £250,000 per annum during a five-year period.
Clearly, the circumstances in which the business operated were rather different. In our case, we’ve benefited from the provision of a substantial Victorian estate by the goodwill of its owner at a peppercorn rent, and located only 3 miles or so from Leeds city station, we were ideally placed to attract a national audience.
But the need still remains today for businesses of all kinds to find affordable conference and meeting space, on both a daily basis and on a residential basis.
For the purposes of an architectural competition, I have plucked out all my head the notion that the capacity to accommodate 30 to 40 people on a residential basis in single rooms would be initially adequate, with perhaps 10 additional twin rooms that were organised so that they were fully disabled access suited, perhaps in such a way that carers and cared for people of different sexes might have sufficient privacy within that accommodation.
In addition, on a more permanent basis, accommodation for between 10 and 20 people with a variety of needs would need to be created, and their accommodation might consist of the kind of space within which all of their living needs could take place - such as a small bedsit.
On-site catering would be an important component of servicing conference needs, and on a day-to-day basis should be able to accommodate meetings of up to 150 people plus the residential people and their carers.
A licensed bar could be included, although some innovation might look at the way in which this is an innovation in what it stocks.
So for an example, it might be much more like a cafe bar rather than simply an alcohol bar, and indeed could offer a wide range of alcohol free and healthy drinks as an alternative for everyone when socialising.
It is such a building used the most recent innovations in every aspect of its accommodation and the way in which it were designed to be fully accessible by people in wheelchairs, then it might also be attractive for use in respect of functions such as wedding receptions, and indeed it should be attractively presented with work commissioned by a range of artists in disciplines that would make it an attractive space in which to meet.
A multiplicity of breakout rooms could be used for all kinds of specialist small meetings, and should be equipped with a high level of technical equipment.
This level of technical equipment would of course be available outside of conference times for the use of residents, and it may be possible for residents to be able to contribute to some of the work supporting the conference business, such as graphic design for the creation of reports and follow-up for each event.
Any fees that might be generated could be made over to the social enterprise at the heart of this community business, because of the sensitive earning position of those people.
One of the principal benefits of such integrated living and working circumstances would be the way in which residents would be able to socialise with visiting conference and meeting attenders, and if more than one of these kind of facilities were to exist, as centres of excellence in their accessibility, it would make it possible for residents to be able to have a change of environment, typical hotel accommodation be out of the question for the majority of them.
It may be possible to have some additional services available to be rented out to commercial purposes, and so for example it may be advisable for someone like cooperative legal services to have a branch office within the premises. Preference should always be given to the type of business and how it is structured, so that other community businesses or cooperatives might be deemed more suitable.
If constructed on a brownfield site, there may be scope for substantial parking, for the use of residents, residents families and carers, and of course those attending meetings.
I stressed at the beginning of the concept of no barriers, and the use of technology for door opening and the ability of wheelchair users to access all areas with the minimum of assistance is critical.
Hence the idea of access to different levels being by way of gentle slopes rather than by lifts or by stairs.
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