Christmas 1958.
I'm six-and-a half. "Uncle Teddy" was the husband of an old friend of my mother's - "Auntie Eileen". In the way of such things, we were not related to them, it's just what I learned to call them. Uncle Teddy worked in some kind of research capacity for Decca, the electronics company which was also a record label.
He was way ahead of his time in terms of electronics. In 1953 he had had the first television I ever saw - a monstrous contraption which projected a grainy image onto a white wall - if you closed the curtains. I'm told I "saw" some of Queen Elizabeth's coronation that way, but it was on my first birthday and I slept through much of it. Some years later, Teddy gave us all a demonstration of stereo. I remember there were speakers hidden behind the armchairs and he played a record of train sounds. We heard the train pass right through the living room. Weird. I don't know when this was exactly, but mid-fifties, judging by the vagueness of my memory.
So it was nothing, I suppose, for Teddy to put together a real electric record player for me as a Christmas present. I came down on Christmas morning, like you do when you're six, and there it was, under the tree. Nobody had tried to wrap it. It just sat. Christmas was usually my parents and I, my three survivng grandparents and my great -aunt Jenny, who lived with my father's long-widowed mother. THIS morning, though, Teddy was there.too. He was also the only person we knew who had a car - a quite recent Ford Consul - so no problem for him to drive from the other side of Mitcham with my weighty gift on the seat.
I sat goggle-eyed but attentive, or so I'm told, while Teddy explained the complications of the new apparatus. "Be careful to select the right speed. Don't turn the volume up too high. Make sure you flip the "stylus" (my new word of the day) over if you change from a 78 to a 45 or 33 - or back - because the grooves are different sizes and so are the two styli. The stylus is made of "sapphire" (new word #2) and will last for 100 hours of playing if you're careful, but DON'T touch it. We'll get you a new one when you need it. Pull the arm back gently to start the motor then lower it very gently onto the record. It'll stop by itself when the record's finished."
Looking back, I realise he had bought or acquired the cabinet ("portable", meaning there was a handle on the side, but it would be years before I could lift it) and turntable - a maroon and cream "Collaro", very common at the time, though I'd never seen one before. He must have built the valve amplifier and installed all the guts himself. It looked just like a shop-bought one except there were no markings anywhere except on the turntable. The three-speed selector (33, 45, 78) was on the turntable and clearly labelled but the two knobs on the side of the cabinet were unmarked. The lower one was to turn it on and off and controlled the "volume". That's what you had to do instead of adding and removing rolled up socks to/from the sound-hole (yes, really - it's where we get the phrase "put a sock in it" from). The other knob was "tone". I'm sure Teddy explained this wonderfully but it went right over my head.
He also told me - and this was a tough one - that I shouldn't play some of my more scratched 78s on it or it would damage the stylus. I still had my gramophone, so I could play them on that if I wanted. We went through my whole pile, looked at each one, and sorted them into two piles - pass and fail.
Then he produced the piece-de-resistance. Musically, Teddy was something of a one-trick-pony. A HUGE fan of Ted Heath - an English band leader, still going strong some 20 years after his first hits covering American big-band tunes during the 30s.Teddy must have had just about everything "Ted Heath and his Music", as the record labels always billed him, had ever put out - and that was a lot. With him, that Christmas morning, Teddy had a 45rpm single: "Swingin' Shepherd Blues / Raunchy", by Ted Heath and his Music. He explained that he now had the LP that included the single (first time I'd heard THAT concept too), so he didn't need the 45. I could have it.
We played it - both sides, of course - carefully changing the speed and flipping the stylus over and all the other magical routines. It was SO CLEAR. Hardly any crackle and pop. It sounded like the orchestra was right there with us. And the record! So small, made of plastic, "unbreakable, but don't try too hard". So SLOW. I was used to 78s whizzing round like there was a race to be won. This just daudled.
Through all this, "Gramps" who had created the monster back in Chapter One, sat in his armchair and smiled whenever I looked at him. I have no idea what he was thinking, but he was thinking, that's for sure.
Everybody else, except for occasional visits from my father to see how we were doing, was in the kitchen, busy with the turkey which was, of course, now totally irrelevant to anything as far as I was concerned. My paternal grandmother, the widowed Scottish Baptist one, and her sister Jenny probably tutted up a storm at the music that was wafting their way. For my next birthday, they would give me a children's record - "Little White Duck" / "Old Macdonald Had Farm" by the "Red Raven Orchestra With Chorus" on an odd sized 78 with a huge label that made pretty patterns as it span. The next Christmas, "Mary's Boy Child / Eden was Just Like This" by Harry Belafonte, also on a 78, but at least a real one. They were trying, but they never did get it - or want to.
We played Lonnie Donegan, Tommy Steele and all my other good condition 78s, until I'd quite mastered the process and lunch was called.
There was still one more surprise to come. Teddy had with him the Decca Records catalogue for 1958. He could get a staff discount on anything in there and my parents had said they would buy me any LP I chose from it - but look carefully, get a good one. A few weeks later, although I don't really remember the selection process, I got my copy of "Olde Englyshe", another Ted Heath record. It made a sort of sense - I was familiar with a lot of the tunes on it, from "London Bridge Is Fallynge Downe" to "Cherry Ripe", but Tommy Steele was on Decca! Surely HE had an album out - I know he did, but I may have missed it in the book.
I still have all the records I've mentioned so far and that leads me to think there were other significant 78s at the time that have suffered the fate that befell so many of these fragile, brittle things. I came to know "Olde Englyshe" back to front but hadn't played it decades until, on a whim, I span it a few weeks ago. What a piece of nostalgia that was! So familiar and yet so strange. It's softer than I remember, but still easy to listen to, if a little corny in places. The "Swinging Shepherds Blues" / Raunchy" single is still a favourite and the "A" side was a contender in an "election" I held on Cove FM last Summer to choose a theme tune for my radio show. Up against various instrumentals, mostly from the rock era, it lost out to another Ted Heath single given to me by Teddy some months later - "Shish-Kebab". "Raunchy" is another of those covers of American hits which I did not recognise as such until much later. The Bill Justis original did not come to my attention until about 1973.
I called this chapter "The Inter-regnum" because it was my lot to enter the vinyl age right at the end of the rock 'n' roll and skiffle eras but five years before the "Merseybeat" marked the beginning of the 60s proper. Two months after that Christmas, Buddy Holly's death missed me completely. I knew about Elvis Presley, but didn't care particularly - I didn't have any of his records until "Return to Sender" several years later. I knew Bill Haley for his major hits and was aware of Eddie Cochran, I think, but that was about it.
In 1959, my first year able to play 45s, and the year I turned seven, I bought or was given singles by Russ Conway, a popular pianist who played tinkly little tunes at considerable speed, Tommy Steele, Lonnie Donegan, Michael Holliday and perhaps a couple more. More significantly, as it turns out, I came to know Mrs. Thorpe. She was the lady who ran the local record shop in Mitcham. She had originally operated from a room in the back of her husband's electrical goods store - where I had previously bought my 78s and gramophone needles, by the way. By now, she had her own little shop next door.
I guess there were not too many kids my age going in there in the late 50s and she took a shine to me. Whenever she found she had stock she did not expect to sell, she would put a few singles in a box and give them to me - just GIVE them to me - next time I was in. Of course, these were all records the populace of Mitcham did not want but, to me, they were a treasure trove. Some were, frankly, dire and as the years rolled on I have purged them. Many remain, though, and most of those are prized possessions.
My first Bill Haley record (and still my favourite, "Whoa Mabel / Chiquita Linda") came to me this way. Bill couldn't bribe people to buy his records by the time this came out in 1958, so it's no surprise it was in one of my boxes. I have never seen another copy, anywhere. Oddities by people such as Basil Kirchin's Rock-a-cha-cha Band, The Betty Smith Group, Lorrae Desmond (later a famous soap-opera star in Australia), The Goofers (The Dipsy Doodle / Take This Heart which once appeared in the UK "Record Collector" magazine in the list of "The 1000 most collectable singles of all time", but I have no idea why), The Southlanders, The Three Barry Sisters and others still crop up in my, admittedly rather odd, radio show quite regularly, all thanks to Mrs. Thorpe.
In retrospect, the music scene of those years was dire. "Clearing space for the Beatles" I once called it. Cliff Richard & The Shadows ruled the roost in the UK and were following the Elvis path from Rock 'n' Roll to movies. His films "The Young Ones" and "Summer Holiday" were both huge successes and inspired me to a luke-warm fandom for a time but it was only when the Shadows played instrumentals on their own that I really took notice. Adam faith was a cut above most and I bought his "Poor Me", still without realising how heavily Buddy Holly influenced he was.
Apart from Cliff and possibly Adam Faith. it was a time of genuinely second rate pop-stars in the UK. The Eden Kane's, the Craig Douglas's were of no interest to me. Michael Holliday had a few more interesting singles but was fading and died at his own hand in about 1963. Frank Ifield, once an Australian milkman, or so the story went, became a huge star with a gimmick. He yodelled! In the middle of otherwise sensible songs, for no apparent reason other than that he could, he yodelled. I loved it. I bought "I Remember You", "Lovesick Blues / She Taught Me How to Yodel", and his updated version of "Waltzing Matilda". I can't listen to them now. Rolf Harris, another Australian, made his first appearance around this time too. I bought "Sun Arise" and still think it's a classic waiting to be rediscovered. I met Rolf in Newcastle in the mid-70s and was glad I'd liked him - really nice man.
The two saving graces of this time were instrumentals and novelty songs. There were enough of both to keep a 7 to 10 year old happy. In 1960, I heard Johnny & the Hurricanes' "Rocking Goose" on the radio. I still had some Christmas money and went to Mrs. Thorpe for it without knowing the title or who it was by. I had to describe it by the "HONK HONK" sound that permeated it. It sat wonderfully in the middle ground - instrumental AND novelty. I picked up some Shadows singles; "Foot Tapper" and "Dance On", Then in 1962, the two big ones that crowned the instrumental craze appeared. Jet Harris & Tony Meehan had been bassist and drummer of the Shadows until leaving in a blaze of publicity. They soon came out with one of the big ear-worm singles of 1962, "Diamonds" - the lead played on bass and with a drum solo in the middle. Hot on its heels, The Tornados blockbuster, "Telstar", named for the first ever communications satellite came out and not only took over the UK number one spot seemingly permanently but also became the first single by a British group EVER to top the Billboard charts in the US - a sign of things to come. It's "B" side, "Jungle Fever" was even better - another entry in my theme election last year and I was secretly hoping it would win.
In the novelty camp, I took to Bernard Cribbins, a well known comic actor who had hilarioius hits with "Right Said Fred" and "Hole in the Ground" during this time. Mike Sarne and the later MUCH more famous Wendy Richards ("Are You Being Served" and "Eastenders") had the, now corny but cute, then excellent "Come Outside". Joe Brown had me with "Jellied Eels`` too. Well I was only eight! There were still "concert" afternoons at school and "Jellied Eels" became my entry of choice for a time although that year's teacher, Mrs. Mills, criticized it - and my performances - for the exaggerated Cockney dialect it was sung in. "Bad speech", she called it, but actually, just our local dialect and much better than the fake American accents most other were songs were sung in.
Through all this, the old 78s kept coming in, from Gramps and, as word of my obsession spread, from other sources. I discovered the real American big-bands through donated 78s by Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton and others, had my first real intoductions to Rock 'n' Roll through the Everly Brothers, more Bill Haley (sadly broken in the later 60s) and Little Richard. The spring in the old gramophone broke in about 1961 and I had to push the turntable round with my finger to play the old scratchy 78s that were not good enough for the new machine. I bothered with this less and less and at some point (strangely, I don't remember the event), it went.
Late in 1962, there was a song on the radio called "Love Me Do" by a new group called "The Beatles". The world was about to change again.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Musical Time-line Chapter One: The Steel Needle Years
No apologies, water under the bridge and all that - lots has happened - maybe later.
For now, I have started writing something and it needs a home - this is it.
CoveFM is still going strong and a fellow volunteer there, much younger than my nearly 60 years, has been asking questions about my "musical history" as a record collector and fan. I wrote this as the first part of the answer as a private message to him on http://www.rateyourmusic.com/ but thought I should offer it to a "wider", more permanent audience.
Musical Time-line Chapter One: The Steel Needle Years
Summer 1956.
I've just turned four years old. My father has gone to a conference and my mother has taken me to stay with her parents in Clapham, London SW8.
On a Saturday afternoon, I am left with my grandfather (Gramps) while the ladies go shopping.
He goes to the attic and gets an old gramophone (phonograph) that my uncle had left behind when he got married about 6 years earlier. It's a table-top HMV model with the painting of the famous "His Master's Voice" dog "Nipper" listening to an external horn gramophone. There is a box of 100 steel needles and three 78rpm records. They are:-
The Darktown Poker Club / The Possum Song by Phil Harris.
Woodman Spare That Tree / The Preacher and the Bear - Phil Harris and
In the Mood / At the Woodchoppers' Ball - Joe Loss & His Orchestra.
I still have all three 56 years later.
Gramps shows me how to wind up the machine, change the needle, put the record on the turntable, start the clockwork motor and put the needle on the record.
I watch and listen, captivated, to all six sides. Life is changed, permanently.
The Phil Harris sides are all novelty songs from 1946/7, only about 10 years old at the time. One is about a man being cheated at cards; one is about a man trying to stop a woodman from cutting down the only tree his wife can't climb, his hiding place; one about a man trying to catch the possum that's been eating his chickens and one about a preacher who gets cornered by a bear while hunting and tries to escape by prayer. While many the of the (very American) lyrics were beyond my 4 year old English comprehension (Henry, if you'll break the seal on that new deck o' Bicycles, we'll go on from there, Yeah - yeah yeah yeah), I got the gist of the stories and quickly memorized them.
The Joe Loss record was of two English covers of American big band classics from 1939/40. They are almost note-for-note reproductions of the Glenn Miller and Woody Herman originals though, of course, I wouldn't know that for several years yet. Being instrumentals, I couldn't learn the lyrics but I could hum, sing and screech my way through all the parts (and still can, though an octave or two lower).
Gramps had created a monster! My parents and I always visited there on Saturdays and the gramophone HAD to come out and I wanted no part of any other activity.
This was the time in the UK when "early adopters" were switching to 45's and 33s, with the electric record players and sapphire or diamond styli that went with them. As a result, people were getting rid of 78s and gramophones. It wasn't long before Gramps had brought home a pile of 78s, maybe 30 or 40, that he got from a co-worker. I had more songs to learn - everything from Guy Mitchell's "She Wore Red Feathers" which was still almost new, back to "Come Into the Garden, Maud" from the early 20s, before the invention of the microphone.
You might say I was an indiscriminate listener. If it went round on the turntable and made a sound, I'd play it. I quickly developed favourites, though. The original three were always (and remain) popular, especially "The Possum Song" and "Woodchoppers' Ball". "Little Red Monkey" / Roundabouts and Swings" by Frank Chacksfield - another UK band leader, was a particular hit too.
I think it was early 1957 - definitely before June - that Gramps came home from work one Saturday with another gramophone. A portable Parlophone model with mock-alligator exterior. Magically, the winding handle screwed out and could be attached to clips inside the lid so it didn't stick out when the machine was carried. You could fit a dozen or so records inside the lid too - though it was a bit heavy for me like that.
"THIS one", Gramps told me, "you can take home with you. Take some of the records too, but leave a few here for Saturdays".
Of course, I did.
There was a popular singer in England at the time called Michael Holliday. He has been described since as an English Perry Como; a very laid back baritone voice, all woolly jumpers and niceness, although he did do some up tempo songs which, while not exactly rock 'n' roll, did at least acknowledge its existence. One such was "The Story of My Life", a cover of the US hit by Marty Robbins (although, again, it was years before I knew that) which I still think trumps the original.
In Arding & Hobbs department store at Clapham Junction one Saturday, we (Mum and I) went into the records department. I'd never seen such a thing. Being still not yet five, it hadn't occurred to me that these wonderful things came from SHOPS and could be bought NEW!!! They were old, by definition, and came from the sheet metal works where Gramps worked. Everybody knew that!
We (well, Mum) bought (WHAT a concept, still amazes me) the new Michael Holliday record and we took it home and played it. It was less scratchy than I was used to, but I could tolerate that because this was special, this was somebody I'd seen on TV singing this very song only last week! How did they DO that?
The old 78s kept on coming. By the time of my 5th birthday (June 1957) I had probably 100. There was a boy next door now, Clifford, and we had become friends. He had a gramophone too and we used to spend much of our indoor free time playing them.
His first NEW record had been his own choice and it blew me away. The Everly Brothers "Wake Up Little Suzie / Claudette. A rock 'n' roll classic.
Mostly, though, we liked skiffle. It was all the rage in 1957 and Lonnie Donegan was the KING. He was on TV quite a lot and his new record in mid '57 was a double "A" side - groundbreaking at the time - of "Putting on the Style / Gamblin' Man. On June 2nd. 1957, my Mum and I went next door to the Bawdens and Mrs. Bawden (Carol, as I came to know her years later) gave me a birthday present - that record, shiny and new in its perfect "Pye-Nixa" sleeve. I've still got it, and the Michael Holliday and the Frank Chacksfield, though a good many others have perished own the decades.
Over the next eighteen months, I got more old 78s, plus some more new ones, by Lonnie Donegan, Tommy Steele (at that time an English Rock 'n' Roller but later a big name in stage musicals like "Half a Sixpence"), Harry Belafonte, Johnny Duncan an the Bluegrass Boys (a skiffle standard called "Last Train to San Fernando) and maybe a few more.
Some time late in 1957, my father bought a record too, one of only two occasions I recall. He had been raised in Italy and when an Italian called Marino Marini and his Quartet had a UK hit with "Volare", sung in Italian, Dad had to have it. Of course, I learnt it off by heart, parrot fashion, no clue what I was saying. The "B" side too, "Come Prima". I'd just started school at that time and when the teacher said we were going to have a "concert" where anybody in the class could sing a song, tell a joke, recite a poem - anything, I got up and sang "Volare" full pelt, no holds barred, in parrot-Italian. It should have been horrible but it must have sounded OK on some level - the singing or the fake Italian, I doubt it could be both, because, Mrs. Davies proceeded to send me round the whole school, to all six other classrooms, with a note to the teachers who promptly stopped what they were doing and told their classes that "David, from Class "C", is going to sing for us"
"Oh, all right then" said I the first time, and launched into "Volare" again.
Seven times in an afternoon, in front of seven teachers, six of whom I didn't know, and about 220 kids, ages 5 to 11.
I've never had stage fright since.
I got my love of syncopated rhythms from skiffle and the early big band tunes; Imaginative, novel and story-like lyrics from Phil Harris, guitar sounds from Lonnie Donegan and Tommy Steele.
At Christmas 1958, I was finally made certain that Father Christmas (aka Santa Claus) was made up, not real, sure as sure can be. This was because Uncle Teddy, a family friend who worked for Decca, had MADE my Christmas present. A Record Player - or "electric gramophone" as I called it, and the Steel needle years were over.
So a new era begins
For now, I have started writing something and it needs a home - this is it.
CoveFM is still going strong and a fellow volunteer there, much younger than my nearly 60 years, has been asking questions about my "musical history" as a record collector and fan. I wrote this as the first part of the answer as a private message to him on http://www.rateyourmusic.com/ but thought I should offer it to a "wider", more permanent audience.
Musical Time-line Chapter One: The Steel Needle Years
Summer 1956.
I've just turned four years old. My father has gone to a conference and my mother has taken me to stay with her parents in Clapham, London SW8.
On a Saturday afternoon, I am left with my grandfather (Gramps) while the ladies go shopping.
He goes to the attic and gets an old gramophone (phonograph) that my uncle had left behind when he got married about 6 years earlier. It's a table-top HMV model with the painting of the famous "His Master's Voice" dog "Nipper" listening to an external horn gramophone. There is a box of 100 steel needles and three 78rpm records. They are:-
The Darktown Poker Club / The Possum Song by Phil Harris.
Woodman Spare That Tree / The Preacher and the Bear - Phil Harris and
In the Mood / At the Woodchoppers' Ball - Joe Loss & His Orchestra.
I still have all three 56 years later.
Gramps shows me how to wind up the machine, change the needle, put the record on the turntable, start the clockwork motor and put the needle on the record.
I watch and listen, captivated, to all six sides. Life is changed, permanently.
The Phil Harris sides are all novelty songs from 1946/7, only about 10 years old at the time. One is about a man being cheated at cards; one is about a man trying to stop a woodman from cutting down the only tree his wife can't climb, his hiding place; one about a man trying to catch the possum that's been eating his chickens and one about a preacher who gets cornered by a bear while hunting and tries to escape by prayer. While many the of the (very American) lyrics were beyond my 4 year old English comprehension (Henry, if you'll break the seal on that new deck o' Bicycles, we'll go on from there, Yeah - yeah yeah yeah), I got the gist of the stories and quickly memorized them.
The Joe Loss record was of two English covers of American big band classics from 1939/40. They are almost note-for-note reproductions of the Glenn Miller and Woody Herman originals though, of course, I wouldn't know that for several years yet. Being instrumentals, I couldn't learn the lyrics but I could hum, sing and screech my way through all the parts (and still can, though an octave or two lower).
Gramps had created a monster! My parents and I always visited there on Saturdays and the gramophone HAD to come out and I wanted no part of any other activity.
This was the time in the UK when "early adopters" were switching to 45's and 33s, with the electric record players and sapphire or diamond styli that went with them. As a result, people were getting rid of 78s and gramophones. It wasn't long before Gramps had brought home a pile of 78s, maybe 30 or 40, that he got from a co-worker. I had more songs to learn - everything from Guy Mitchell's "She Wore Red Feathers" which was still almost new, back to "Come Into the Garden, Maud" from the early 20s, before the invention of the microphone.
You might say I was an indiscriminate listener. If it went round on the turntable and made a sound, I'd play it. I quickly developed favourites, though. The original three were always (and remain) popular, especially "The Possum Song" and "Woodchoppers' Ball". "Little Red Monkey" / Roundabouts and Swings" by Frank Chacksfield - another UK band leader, was a particular hit too.
I think it was early 1957 - definitely before June - that Gramps came home from work one Saturday with another gramophone. A portable Parlophone model with mock-alligator exterior. Magically, the winding handle screwed out and could be attached to clips inside the lid so it didn't stick out when the machine was carried. You could fit a dozen or so records inside the lid too - though it was a bit heavy for me like that.
"THIS one", Gramps told me, "you can take home with you. Take some of the records too, but leave a few here for Saturdays".
Of course, I did.
There was a popular singer in England at the time called Michael Holliday. He has been described since as an English Perry Como; a very laid back baritone voice, all woolly jumpers and niceness, although he did do some up tempo songs which, while not exactly rock 'n' roll, did at least acknowledge its existence. One such was "The Story of My Life", a cover of the US hit by Marty Robbins (although, again, it was years before I knew that) which I still think trumps the original.
In Arding & Hobbs department store at Clapham Junction one Saturday, we (Mum and I) went into the records department. I'd never seen such a thing. Being still not yet five, it hadn't occurred to me that these wonderful things came from SHOPS and could be bought NEW!!! They were old, by definition, and came from the sheet metal works where Gramps worked. Everybody knew that!
We (well, Mum) bought (WHAT a concept, still amazes me) the new Michael Holliday record and we took it home and played it. It was less scratchy than I was used to, but I could tolerate that because this was special, this was somebody I'd seen on TV singing this very song only last week! How did they DO that?
The old 78s kept on coming. By the time of my 5th birthday (June 1957) I had probably 100. There was a boy next door now, Clifford, and we had become friends. He had a gramophone too and we used to spend much of our indoor free time playing them.
His first NEW record had been his own choice and it blew me away. The Everly Brothers "Wake Up Little Suzie / Claudette. A rock 'n' roll classic.
Mostly, though, we liked skiffle. It was all the rage in 1957 and Lonnie Donegan was the KING. He was on TV quite a lot and his new record in mid '57 was a double "A" side - groundbreaking at the time - of "Putting on the Style / Gamblin' Man. On June 2nd. 1957, my Mum and I went next door to the Bawdens and Mrs. Bawden (Carol, as I came to know her years later) gave me a birthday present - that record, shiny and new in its perfect "Pye-Nixa" sleeve. I've still got it, and the Michael Holliday and the Frank Chacksfield, though a good many others have perished own the decades.
Over the next eighteen months, I got more old 78s, plus some more new ones, by Lonnie Donegan, Tommy Steele (at that time an English Rock 'n' Roller but later a big name in stage musicals like "Half a Sixpence"), Harry Belafonte, Johnny Duncan an the Bluegrass Boys (a skiffle standard called "Last Train to San Fernando) and maybe a few more.
Some time late in 1957, my father bought a record too, one of only two occasions I recall. He had been raised in Italy and when an Italian called Marino Marini and his Quartet had a UK hit with "Volare", sung in Italian, Dad had to have it. Of course, I learnt it off by heart, parrot fashion, no clue what I was saying. The "B" side too, "Come Prima". I'd just started school at that time and when the teacher said we were going to have a "concert" where anybody in the class could sing a song, tell a joke, recite a poem - anything, I got up and sang "Volare" full pelt, no holds barred, in parrot-Italian. It should have been horrible but it must have sounded OK on some level - the singing or the fake Italian, I doubt it could be both, because, Mrs. Davies proceeded to send me round the whole school, to all six other classrooms, with a note to the teachers who promptly stopped what they were doing and told their classes that "David, from Class "C", is going to sing for us"
"Oh, all right then" said I the first time, and launched into "Volare" again.
Seven times in an afternoon, in front of seven teachers, six of whom I didn't know, and about 220 kids, ages 5 to 11.
I've never had stage fright since.
I got my love of syncopated rhythms from skiffle and the early big band tunes; Imaginative, novel and story-like lyrics from Phil Harris, guitar sounds from Lonnie Donegan and Tommy Steele.
At Christmas 1958, I was finally made certain that Father Christmas (aka Santa Claus) was made up, not real, sure as sure can be. This was because Uncle Teddy, a family friend who worked for Decca, had MADE my Christmas present. A Record Player - or "electric gramophone" as I called it, and the Steel needle years were over.
So a new era begins
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Cove FM 94.3, The Voice Of St. Margaret's Bay
I suppose I should have posted about this 8 weeks ago when the station went on the air but at least now I have an experience to report.
Cove FM is the brainchild and passion of JD, a friend here, and is a community radio station project.
For the months of July and August, it had "Special Event Licenses", allowing it to broadcast over a low power transmitter - 50 watts. That's all the technical stuff you'll see here 'cos I'd only get it wrong. If you want more, see http://www.covefm.com/ . (Go there anyway, there's pictures and all sorts).
For eight weeks, we've had a truly local radio station here. Mostly music, with sponsorship spots (NOT commercials, that's a no no), information on local events and happenings, weather, interviews with local folks of interest including musicians, vendors and customers at the farmers' market and sundry interesting people and, uniquely in my experience, tide information (thanks Kevin).
Now, many years ago (from 1978 to 1991) I was involved in another radio station - Radio Netherne. It was not really radio at all - no broadcasting involved. It was based in a psychiatric hospital in Surrey, England, and was hardwired to speakers in the day-rooms of the hospital's wards.
For 13 years, I had a Sunday afternoon music show there and enjoyed it immensely most of the time. Apart from the constant scrapping for money to run it (it was a registered charity but try raising money for a psychiatric hospital while competing with those working for sick kids, animals, what have you - it's not easy), the biggest drawback was audience response. We were constantly told that we were, in some never quite explained way, therapeutic, but mostly, all we got were the same handful of requests from the same small group of the "better" patients.
Many will have heard my stories down the years of "Dickie" who kept asking us to play "Fleetwood Mac" by Albert Ross, when what he wanted was "Albatross", by Fleetwood Mac; of Peggy insisting that I play Frankie Laine's "Gunfight At OK Corral" every week for years, until the track on the old vinyl album was visibly worn; of Arthur, who carried around the plastic casing of a miniature transistor radio (no radio, just the casing), holding it up to his ear and repeating "I wish somebody'd mend my radio. When our station engineer DID fix it (by putting a complete new radio in the case), the next week it was just a casing again and the mantra went on.
Maybe all this played into my thoughts as I contemplated my "return" to radio on Cove FM, maybe it didn't, but I certainly didn't expect what actually happened. I was on the air on the first morning of Cove FM - just playing music offered up by the computer system and some CD's by local artists, chatting in between, pressing buttons and sliding sliders that didn't need to pressed or slid while, simultaneously NOT pressing or sliding those that did (this is actually surprisingly easy). There was a party atmosphere, food and drink outside our superb little studio in the mall in "downtown" Hubbards, sundry folks dropping by and all the volunteers meeting up, many for the first time.
There was a great sense of occasion but, even then, I think I thought, "yeah, but really, who's gonna change the car radio? Who's gonna be listening from 9 to 11pm on a Wednesday night, in Hubbards, in Summer?"
Well, they listened. Lots of them - and not just in St. Margaret's Bay. My first scheduled show went out the following Wednesday at 9pm, entitled "Aardvark Archives Presents....A Transport Of Delight".
"Aardvark Archives" is a name I, rather pompously I suppose, gave to my record collection sometime in the late 60s, and it stuck. "A Transport Of Delight" is the title of a song about a London Transport bus and is the opening number in Michael Flanders and Donald Swann's musical review "At The Drop Of A Hat", from about 1960. The show was an assortment of songs about moving around; walking, driving, flying, sailing, orbiting, you name it. It was, as were the 7 shows that followed, a deliberately silly couple of hours. If I can remember them all, I'll list the themes at the end so I'll have somewhere to look when I', in danger of repeating myself.
I bungled and fluffed my way through it, blissfully unaware until the end that the connection to the transmitter had failed about half way through - I talked and played music to myself for an hour, just like at Radio Netherne all those years before.
Even so, at work the next day (remember the liquor store?) I found out people HAD been listening. Some, naturally I suppose, had done so because they knew me but a good few others had been listening anyway and had recognised my voice (I'm one of few in town without an accent!). They were gracious and complimentary. I was encouraged.
I had been listening to the station while driving - mostly to and from work, 5 minutes at a time, 4 times a day, but found myself going out of my way to hear the "manned" shows (much of the output was computer generated, as, I am told, much modern radio is) and getting wrapped up in it.
The presenters are an eclectic bunch. A school age lad with a fascination with (and extensive knowledge of) 60s music, two older gents with a very warm, homey feeling country/bluegrass show, a Celtic Woman and Korn fan, a local rock musician who bantered and jammed with other local musicians in between recorded tracks, a master of outside-broadcast co-ordination who seemlessly linked back and forth between the studio and (variously) the farmers' market, the World Tuna Flat Races and Chester Race Week from which other unflappable volunteers reported, interviewed and quipped.
It was darned good radio.
Being available on the internet, the audience quickly widened. There were, I'm told, listeners in Australia that first morning. I know of friends of mine who listened in Toronto, Vancouver, England (where my show ran from 1 to 3AM!, on a week-night!) and Texas. The positive feedback was relentless, varied, surprising and, most of all welcome (thank you, all).
Then suddenly, due to the vaguaries of the licensing process, last Saturday, at midnight, once again with JD and I at the switch, it all stopped. We have to wait now and apply for a permanent license for a community station - next spring if we're lucky.
As I type, our fabulous little studio (which I just felt I'd got the hang of - the technology's changed a bit since 1991) is being dismantled, the premises vacated. We've had our "last night cast party" and there's now't but a gap . It was evident at the great party we had (thanks again G & J) on Sunday and it's been evident in the conversations I've had with customers the last two days. We all, volunteers and listeners alike, miss our little radio station. We want it back. I want to be on it, yes, but mostly, I want to HEAR it.
I'm not alone. Signatures on our letter of support that goes (I understand) with the license application are still rolling in and the momentum is not lost. I have a few months to boost and organise the music database so that, when we start up again, there'll be less mucking about with CD's and, therefore, less manual logging of content. A big job, but right up my alley and I'm looking forward to getting started.
So, to the other CoveFMers, I say, thanks for the opportunity, the effort, the support, the fun. To the listeners I say, thank you, for listening, for the kind and morale boosting words. To everybody else who reads this - thank you too and "stay tuned", we'll be back.
Aardvark Archives Presents...
A Transport Of Delight - anything and everything to do with getting around.
Let's Sing The Beatles - all and sundry covering Beatles Songs.
Food For Thought - songs about food, eating and (occasionally) drinking.
Music By Numbers - songs with numbers in the titles.
Let's Dance (Or Not) - songs about dancing, dances, wanting to dance (or not), being able to dance (or not) etc.
Career Guidance For Dummies - songs about jobs and working (or not)
Favourite Odds And Ends - the 2 part finale, all my favourite thises and thats.
(There's one I've forgotten - I'll add it when it comes back to me).
UPDATE:
It's now October and it HAS come back to me. It was one of my favourites.
AARDVARK ARCHIVES PRESENTS - Before They Were Famous.
Two hours of music by people who didn't know that, weeks or years after recording, they would be famous. Thanks are due to Mr. Reg Dwight who provided much of the content back in 1969 by singing anonymous covers of the pop hits of the day for cheap party albums.
The interest in still keen in bringing back Cove FM next year. I did a couple hours behind the bar at an "Oktoberfest" fundraising event last weekend and it's clear this place wants its radio station back.
Cove FM is the brainchild and passion of JD, a friend here, and is a community radio station project.
For the months of July and August, it had "Special Event Licenses", allowing it to broadcast over a low power transmitter - 50 watts. That's all the technical stuff you'll see here 'cos I'd only get it wrong. If you want more, see http://www.covefm.com/ . (Go there anyway, there's pictures and all sorts).
For eight weeks, we've had a truly local radio station here. Mostly music, with sponsorship spots (NOT commercials, that's a no no), information on local events and happenings, weather, interviews with local folks of interest including musicians, vendors and customers at the farmers' market and sundry interesting people and, uniquely in my experience, tide information (thanks Kevin).
Now, many years ago (from 1978 to 1991) I was involved in another radio station - Radio Netherne. It was not really radio at all - no broadcasting involved. It was based in a psychiatric hospital in Surrey, England, and was hardwired to speakers in the day-rooms of the hospital's wards.
For 13 years, I had a Sunday afternoon music show there and enjoyed it immensely most of the time. Apart from the constant scrapping for money to run it (it was a registered charity but try raising money for a psychiatric hospital while competing with those working for sick kids, animals, what have you - it's not easy), the biggest drawback was audience response. We were constantly told that we were, in some never quite explained way, therapeutic, but mostly, all we got were the same handful of requests from the same small group of the "better" patients.
Many will have heard my stories down the years of "Dickie" who kept asking us to play "Fleetwood Mac" by Albert Ross, when what he wanted was "Albatross", by Fleetwood Mac; of Peggy insisting that I play Frankie Laine's "Gunfight At OK Corral" every week for years, until the track on the old vinyl album was visibly worn; of Arthur, who carried around the plastic casing of a miniature transistor radio (no radio, just the casing), holding it up to his ear and repeating "I wish somebody'd mend my radio. When our station engineer DID fix it (by putting a complete new radio in the case), the next week it was just a casing again and the mantra went on.
Maybe all this played into my thoughts as I contemplated my "return" to radio on Cove FM, maybe it didn't, but I certainly didn't expect what actually happened. I was on the air on the first morning of Cove FM - just playing music offered up by the computer system and some CD's by local artists, chatting in between, pressing buttons and sliding sliders that didn't need to pressed or slid while, simultaneously NOT pressing or sliding those that did (this is actually surprisingly easy). There was a party atmosphere, food and drink outside our superb little studio in the mall in "downtown" Hubbards, sundry folks dropping by and all the volunteers meeting up, many for the first time.
There was a great sense of occasion but, even then, I think I thought, "yeah, but really, who's gonna change the car radio? Who's gonna be listening from 9 to 11pm on a Wednesday night, in Hubbards, in Summer?"
Well, they listened. Lots of them - and not just in St. Margaret's Bay. My first scheduled show went out the following Wednesday at 9pm, entitled "Aardvark Archives Presents....A Transport Of Delight".
"Aardvark Archives" is a name I, rather pompously I suppose, gave to my record collection sometime in the late 60s, and it stuck. "A Transport Of Delight" is the title of a song about a London Transport bus and is the opening number in Michael Flanders and Donald Swann's musical review "At The Drop Of A Hat", from about 1960. The show was an assortment of songs about moving around; walking, driving, flying, sailing, orbiting, you name it. It was, as were the 7 shows that followed, a deliberately silly couple of hours. If I can remember them all, I'll list the themes at the end so I'll have somewhere to look when I', in danger of repeating myself.
I bungled and fluffed my way through it, blissfully unaware until the end that the connection to the transmitter had failed about half way through - I talked and played music to myself for an hour, just like at Radio Netherne all those years before.
Even so, at work the next day (remember the liquor store?) I found out people HAD been listening. Some, naturally I suppose, had done so because they knew me but a good few others had been listening anyway and had recognised my voice (I'm one of few in town without an accent!). They were gracious and complimentary. I was encouraged.
I had been listening to the station while driving - mostly to and from work, 5 minutes at a time, 4 times a day, but found myself going out of my way to hear the "manned" shows (much of the output was computer generated, as, I am told, much modern radio is) and getting wrapped up in it.
The presenters are an eclectic bunch. A school age lad with a fascination with (and extensive knowledge of) 60s music, two older gents with a very warm, homey feeling country/bluegrass show, a Celtic Woman and Korn fan, a local rock musician who bantered and jammed with other local musicians in between recorded tracks, a master of outside-broadcast co-ordination who seemlessly linked back and forth between the studio and (variously) the farmers' market, the World Tuna Flat Races and Chester Race Week from which other unflappable volunteers reported, interviewed and quipped.
It was darned good radio.
Being available on the internet, the audience quickly widened. There were, I'm told, listeners in Australia that first morning. I know of friends of mine who listened in Toronto, Vancouver, England (where my show ran from 1 to 3AM!, on a week-night!) and Texas. The positive feedback was relentless, varied, surprising and, most of all welcome (thank you, all).
Then suddenly, due to the vaguaries of the licensing process, last Saturday, at midnight, once again with JD and I at the switch, it all stopped. We have to wait now and apply for a permanent license for a community station - next spring if we're lucky.
As I type, our fabulous little studio (which I just felt I'd got the hang of - the technology's changed a bit since 1991) is being dismantled, the premises vacated. We've had our "last night cast party" and there's now't but a gap . It was evident at the great party we had (thanks again G & J) on Sunday and it's been evident in the conversations I've had with customers the last two days. We all, volunteers and listeners alike, miss our little radio station. We want it back. I want to be on it, yes, but mostly, I want to HEAR it.
I'm not alone. Signatures on our letter of support that goes (I understand) with the license application are still rolling in and the momentum is not lost. I have a few months to boost and organise the music database so that, when we start up again, there'll be less mucking about with CD's and, therefore, less manual logging of content. A big job, but right up my alley and I'm looking forward to getting started.
So, to the other CoveFMers, I say, thanks for the opportunity, the effort, the support, the fun. To the listeners I say, thank you, for listening, for the kind and morale boosting words. To everybody else who reads this - thank you too and "stay tuned", we'll be back.
Aardvark Archives Presents...
A Transport Of Delight - anything and everything to do with getting around.
Let's Sing The Beatles - all and sundry covering Beatles Songs.
Food For Thought - songs about food, eating and (occasionally) drinking.
Music By Numbers - songs with numbers in the titles.
Let's Dance (Or Not) - songs about dancing, dances, wanting to dance (or not), being able to dance (or not) etc.
Career Guidance For Dummies - songs about jobs and working (or not)
Favourite Odds And Ends - the 2 part finale, all my favourite thises and thats.
(There's one I've forgotten - I'll add it when it comes back to me).
UPDATE:
It's now October and it HAS come back to me. It was one of my favourites.
AARDVARK ARCHIVES PRESENTS - Before They Were Famous.
Two hours of music by people who didn't know that, weeks or years after recording, they would be famous. Thanks are due to Mr. Reg Dwight who provided much of the content back in 1969 by singing anonymous covers of the pop hits of the day for cheap party albums.
The interest in still keen in bringing back Cove FM next year. I did a couple hours behind the bar at an "Oktoberfest" fundraising event last weekend and it's clear this place wants its radio station back.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Matthew's Question
So, if you've read the last post, you'll know that this one concerns an internet conversation I had in 2007 with a young man called (here, at least) Matthew. He did not take part in the debates and arguments I referred to, but was obviously following along closely.
The first I knew of him was a private Facebook message he sent me. Here is that message in its entirety, except for some personal info (removed or changed for privacy's sake) and some minor grammatical editing.
From: Matthew Young. August 8th. 2007 at 11:33am.
Hi Dave, I happen to be a Christian and have been following the posts about atheism. I was very impressed by what you have been saying. While I have been studying many religions and beliefs/non-beliefs, I am still in the dark about some things.
Am I reading it right? You are, for sure, an atheist? If so, then I have a question for you. As such, you are claiming that you know everything. To say that there is no God is to say that you know everything there is to know. So, my question is how many grains of sand are there on the beach nearest your home?
My point is that, as far as I know so far, there is no such thing as an atheist because it is impossible for a man to know everything there is to know. It is in those things that we don't know or accept that I believe we find God. Not just a God who sits up in the sky, looking down and judging us but a very real, present and intimate God who cares for the lives of every last person on Earth.
Deep inside, we all have the desire to know God. How else can you explain how and why the very IDEA of God exists? Everyone, at some time, wants to know just where they came from and how all this got started. I'm sure there is still more proof but without God; without a sense of knowing that what you do here on Earth matters eternally, then what's the point of life? Why do we have things that we consider wrong? Without God there can be no absolute truth when, in fact, absolute truth is all around us (2+2+4!). Absolute!
How is a watch made? A man assembles all these little parts. So what does a watch do then? It glorifies its creator by doing what it was created to do. So then, how do we glorify OUR creator? By living in the center of his will for our lives. That will is specific to each and every individual and you can find that will y studying God's Holy Word.
All that is just to say this; I believe that people choose (there we are again, Ed.) not to believe in God because they never get to know God. If you're up for a challenge, then, I want to challenge you to see if God is actually real. Read some Bible. If you like, I'd be happy to suggest some places to start. Just ask God to show himself to you.
I hope I haven't taken up too much of your time or caused you any grief but you seemed like one of the few who actually believed what they were saying as far as atheism is concerned. I appreciate you reading this if you get this far.
END QUOTE.
Much of this was the standard circular reasoning one gets used to on this subject; what boils down to "the Bible must be true because it says so in the Bible" and its close cousins, but there was one point - the futility argument - that I can never let pass and one other that I'd never heard before; the contention that an atheist, by definition it seems, claims knowledge of everything. Where did this come from?
Dyve: August 8th. 2008 at 2:18pm.
Thanks for that Matthew. I DID make it all the way to the end although the point, as far as I'm concerned, is right at the top.
The assumption that if I don't believe in God, I must know (or think I know) everything there is to know is completely unfounded.
There are knowable things, (Where is the beach nearest my home?) THEORETICALLY knowable things (like how many grains of sand are on the beach. That real number exists, it is a large positive integer, but it is not practical to count them and KNOW that number) and there are completely unknowable things (how many grains will there be in March 2012) but this says nothing whatsoever about God or whether or not "he" is a real being or a man-made concept.
Here's how I would use your analogy to express how I think about such things.
I do NOT know everything. Among the literally infinite number of things I do not know is the exact number of grains of sand on the beach. That does not mean I know NOTHING about the sand on the beach, though. I may not know the exact number of grains but I DO know that it's not 27. There are many other numbers I know it's not. This kind of thinking is (I presume) why atheists are often accused of being negative - because of all the things they know are NOT, without necessarily knowing what IS. There is no conflict in this, we all do it all the time. You do not know how much oranges cost in my local supermarket, but you know it's not $5,000 each. God or no God, these "knowables" are the same.
I could, if I cared enough, do some measuring of the beach, measure individual grains of sand, take depth samples and the like and come up with an estimate. It would not be the "right" number but, if I was careful and detailed, I should get the order of magnitude right. I'd be able to say something like "it's in the tens of billions, probably around 40 billion" or whatever. I do not need to do any of that to know the the answer is not 27.
So, by extension, I do not know the entire history of the universe. I cannot speak with any authority on the likelihood that, out there somewhere, there might be beings more knowledgeable than us, more advanced (whatever that might mean to them). Some of these hypothetical beings may have created life somewhere. They may be regarded, with some justification, as gods by the beings they created. But I CAN know (in the way that I KNOW 27 is the wrong answer to the beach question) that they did NOT create heaven and earth in a week, do NOT take an active role in the lives of humans, do not demand that we live a certain way with regards to birth control, Sundays, etc. They do not care who wins the World's Series or Superbowl, have no opinion about pork or head coverings and had nothing whatever to do with writing the Bible, Koran, Torah or anything else we've heard of because THOSE things (like 27 grains making a beach) are not possible.
The foregoing doesn't "prove" that, any more than I have "proved" that there are more than 27 grains on the beach (I haven't even BEEN to the beach today), but it's just as certain.
The "proof" is all around us - on Earth and off it.We can SEE how life developed, how stars were (and still are) formed, how the Earth came to be and even how gods were created. There are mysteries in the detail. Every time we learn something, new questions are raised. That's life in a huge universe. We don't know everything and we never will. That doesn't mean (or even suggest) that God does. I don't even see how you make that connection.
As for needing God to give us purpose, I read your reasoning as "I cannot believe that life has no ultimate purpose, that would be unbearable, so God must know what the purpose is". See the problem? Why are we so arrogant as to assume that, because we WANT a purpose, there must BE one? We have limited purposes made from our own intellects which are, in turn, the product of our long evolutionary history but ULTIMATE purpose is a nonce concept. Such a thing just cannot be. If we think God provides it, we are intellectually obliged to go on to ask what the purpose of God is? US? Surely not? If that's the answer, it's circular logic again, leads nowhere; certainly nothing "ultimate" about it. His own glorification? Seems a little shallow doesn't it? No, get used to the idea, no matter how unpalatable it may seem at first glance, ultimately, if you stretch the mind and the concept far enough, there is NO ultimate purpose. Wishing that there was does not make God spring spontaneously into existence, and it would not help if he did.
I've read some Bible, as you put it. Sorry, lots of history (and very bloody and "unchristian" much of it is too if I may say so - though that's not my point), a lot of fable, a lot of blatant historic and scientific inaccuracy, a lot of superstition, a few bits of wonderful mistranslation and some downright fabrications. In short, just what we would expect from a huge assortment of ancients from different cultures and centuries with different backgrounds, beliefs, agendas, perspectives and loyalties but NOT what we would expect from an omniscient creator. That's it, that's all, and YES there are atheists and I AM one. If I haven't convinced you of that, I don't know how to and I would have to refer you to an expert - Richard Dawkins would be my choice - try "The God Delusion".
Thanks for your interest, I hope at least some of this makes sense.
END QUOTE
Well, that's quite long - hope you're still with me. There's more. Matthew's reply next time. Stay tuned.
The first I knew of him was a private Facebook message he sent me. Here is that message in its entirety, except for some personal info (removed or changed for privacy's sake) and some minor grammatical editing.
From: Matthew Young. August 8th. 2007 at 11:33am.
Hi Dave, I happen to be a Christian and have been following the posts about atheism. I was very impressed by what you have been saying. While I have been studying many religions and beliefs/non-beliefs, I am still in the dark about some things.
Am I reading it right? You are, for sure, an atheist? If so, then I have a question for you. As such, you are claiming that you know everything. To say that there is no God is to say that you know everything there is to know. So, my question is how many grains of sand are there on the beach nearest your home?
My point is that, as far as I know so far, there is no such thing as an atheist because it is impossible for a man to know everything there is to know. It is in those things that we don't know or accept that I believe we find God. Not just a God who sits up in the sky, looking down and judging us but a very real, present and intimate God who cares for the lives of every last person on Earth.
Deep inside, we all have the desire to know God. How else can you explain how and why the very IDEA of God exists? Everyone, at some time, wants to know just where they came from and how all this got started. I'm sure there is still more proof but without God; without a sense of knowing that what you do here on Earth matters eternally, then what's the point of life? Why do we have things that we consider wrong? Without God there can be no absolute truth when, in fact, absolute truth is all around us (2+2+4!). Absolute!
How is a watch made? A man assembles all these little parts. So what does a watch do then? It glorifies its creator by doing what it was created to do. So then, how do we glorify OUR creator? By living in the center of his will for our lives. That will is specific to each and every individual and you can find that will y studying God's Holy Word.
All that is just to say this; I believe that people choose (there we are again, Ed.) not to believe in God because they never get to know God. If you're up for a challenge, then, I want to challenge you to see if God is actually real. Read some Bible. If you like, I'd be happy to suggest some places to start. Just ask God to show himself to you.
I hope I haven't taken up too much of your time or caused you any grief but you seemed like one of the few who actually believed what they were saying as far as atheism is concerned. I appreciate you reading this if you get this far.
END QUOTE.
Much of this was the standard circular reasoning one gets used to on this subject; what boils down to "the Bible must be true because it says so in the Bible" and its close cousins, but there was one point - the futility argument - that I can never let pass and one other that I'd never heard before; the contention that an atheist, by definition it seems, claims knowledge of everything. Where did this come from?
Dyve: August 8th. 2008 at 2:18pm.
Thanks for that Matthew. I DID make it all the way to the end although the point, as far as I'm concerned, is right at the top.
The assumption that if I don't believe in God, I must know (or think I know) everything there is to know is completely unfounded.
There are knowable things, (Where is the beach nearest my home?) THEORETICALLY knowable things (like how many grains of sand are on the beach. That real number exists, it is a large positive integer, but it is not practical to count them and KNOW that number) and there are completely unknowable things (how many grains will there be in March 2012) but this says nothing whatsoever about God or whether or not "he" is a real being or a man-made concept.
Here's how I would use your analogy to express how I think about such things.
I do NOT know everything. Among the literally infinite number of things I do not know is the exact number of grains of sand on the beach. That does not mean I know NOTHING about the sand on the beach, though. I may not know the exact number of grains but I DO know that it's not 27. There are many other numbers I know it's not. This kind of thinking is (I presume) why atheists are often accused of being negative - because of all the things they know are NOT, without necessarily knowing what IS. There is no conflict in this, we all do it all the time. You do not know how much oranges cost in my local supermarket, but you know it's not $5,000 each. God or no God, these "knowables" are the same.
I could, if I cared enough, do some measuring of the beach, measure individual grains of sand, take depth samples and the like and come up with an estimate. It would not be the "right" number but, if I was careful and detailed, I should get the order of magnitude right. I'd be able to say something like "it's in the tens of billions, probably around 40 billion" or whatever. I do not need to do any of that to know the the answer is not 27.
So, by extension, I do not know the entire history of the universe. I cannot speak with any authority on the likelihood that, out there somewhere, there might be beings more knowledgeable than us, more advanced (whatever that might mean to them). Some of these hypothetical beings may have created life somewhere. They may be regarded, with some justification, as gods by the beings they created. But I CAN know (in the way that I KNOW 27 is the wrong answer to the beach question) that they did NOT create heaven and earth in a week, do NOT take an active role in the lives of humans, do not demand that we live a certain way with regards to birth control, Sundays, etc. They do not care who wins the World's Series or Superbowl, have no opinion about pork or head coverings and had nothing whatever to do with writing the Bible, Koran, Torah or anything else we've heard of because THOSE things (like 27 grains making a beach) are not possible.
The foregoing doesn't "prove" that, any more than I have "proved" that there are more than 27 grains on the beach (I haven't even BEEN to the beach today), but it's just as certain.
The "proof" is all around us - on Earth and off it.We can SEE how life developed, how stars were (and still are) formed, how the Earth came to be and even how gods were created. There are mysteries in the detail. Every time we learn something, new questions are raised. That's life in a huge universe. We don't know everything and we never will. That doesn't mean (or even suggest) that God does. I don't even see how you make that connection.
As for needing God to give us purpose, I read your reasoning as "I cannot believe that life has no ultimate purpose, that would be unbearable, so God must know what the purpose is". See the problem? Why are we so arrogant as to assume that, because we WANT a purpose, there must BE one? We have limited purposes made from our own intellects which are, in turn, the product of our long evolutionary history but ULTIMATE purpose is a nonce concept. Such a thing just cannot be. If we think God provides it, we are intellectually obliged to go on to ask what the purpose of God is? US? Surely not? If that's the answer, it's circular logic again, leads nowhere; certainly nothing "ultimate" about it. His own glorification? Seems a little shallow doesn't it? No, get used to the idea, no matter how unpalatable it may seem at first glance, ultimately, if you stretch the mind and the concept far enough, there is NO ultimate purpose. Wishing that there was does not make God spring spontaneously into existence, and it would not help if he did.
I've read some Bible, as you put it. Sorry, lots of history (and very bloody and "unchristian" much of it is too if I may say so - though that's not my point), a lot of fable, a lot of blatant historic and scientific inaccuracy, a lot of superstition, a few bits of wonderful mistranslation and some downright fabrications. In short, just what we would expect from a huge assortment of ancients from different cultures and centuries with different backgrounds, beliefs, agendas, perspectives and loyalties but NOT what we would expect from an omniscient creator. That's it, that's all, and YES there are atheists and I AM one. If I haven't convinced you of that, I don't know how to and I would have to refer you to an expert - Richard Dawkins would be my choice - try "The God Delusion".
Thanks for your interest, I hope at least some of this makes sense.
END QUOTE
Well, that's quite long - hope you're still with me. There's more. Matthew's reply next time. Stay tuned.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Matthew's Question - The preamble.
As I start to type this, it's been germinating for a long time - at least three years - but a few recent events, minor of themselves, have given me the drive to try and write it. It comes in two parts, just for convenience; this preamble or prologue, then "Matthew's Question".
Way back when Facebook was but a pup and I had just signed up, I got involved in a "questions" board (I can't find it anymore, but it's probably there somewhere) where people could post any question they liked and others who thought they knew the answer could post it. Discussions ensued, debates, outright rows sometimes. It was interesting.
The first time I "played" was when someone asked "What is an atheist?".
I toyed with various tired, flippant answers like "Someone who believes in one less god than you do" but, before I had decided just how to reply, others had beaten me to it.
My first surprise was that whenever anyone gave a "straight" answer (like "it's someone who doesn't believe in God"), an argument broke out as to whether such a thing was possible. The theists in the mix argued along the lines that one could not "not believe" in the ultimate creator - it just was not an option, there's no box for that. What had happened, they claimed, was that the self-proclaimed atheists had (and this IS a quote from one, there were other ways expressing the same idea) "chosen to deny God". One theist answering even defined an atheist as one who "claims" not to believe in God.
This made my jaw drop. I weighed into the discussion and learned something interesting. Bear in mind, please, that many (though not all) of the most vocal theists in this forum were, by now, some stripe of Southern US fundamentalists. The something that I learned was this:-
"These people believe that one can choose what to believe."
Conversely, all the atheists on the board, me included, just accepted that belief is not a choice. They didn't even raise the issue - it just WAS that way. It's actually, I would say, a "linguistic fact"; that is, it's what the word MEANS. "Choosing to believe" is a nonce concept, by definition.
I was familiar, from previous reading, with "Pascal's Wager"; a philosophical argument that says it's a "good idea" to believe in God because you have nothing to lose by being wrong and everything to gain by being right. I had never taken this "reasoning" seriously - and hadn't really thought anyone else did (I gather even Pascal had his tongue firmly in his cheek) - for two reasons.
Firstly, and less relevantly here, surely, any deity worth praying to would KNOW if we were only "believing" so as to hedge our bets and wouldn't grant the benefits we were looking for (or our "Get Out Of Hell Free" card). Secondly, and more pertinently, the idea of a god - any god - either makes sense to an individual or it doesn't. Whether through indoctrination, cultural background, divine revelation or pure thought and reasoning, each of us, surely, believes what we do because, on some level, it makes sense to us, not because we somehow CHOOSE to?
Is Santa Claus real because a child believes he is? In some fiction maybe, but surely not in the real world?
Then another logical penny dropped in my head. What do they mean by "believe IN"?
I "believe IN" free education, no-pay health care, etc. But that means I SUPPORT these things, I think they are right and necessary. It has nothing to do with their existence or otherwise.
That's not what someone is saying when they say they "believe in" some deity, though, is it? They're not just saying "I think God is a good thing" are they?. It had never really bothered me before because the simple fact is that, whatever they mean, I think they're wrong. In just the same way that it doesn't matter to me which god, which religion, which denomination is under discussion. They are all, fundamentally (pun intended) and (almost) equally, wrong.
Now, it is not my purpose here to go into all the reasons why I "believe" what I do. I will do that on request but suffice it to say, for now, in case it's not already obvious, that I am an atheist. That word itself is problematic.
It comes firmly from the other camp. Completing a form that asks my religion, I can easily put "none", since this is, while perhaps unhelpful, undoubtedly true. But "atheist" does not work. A friend recently put this quote on his Facebook page - I don't know where he got it, but I've stolen, and paraphrased it:-
"Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby"
Perfect! I wish I'd thought of it. Thinking about it again, it has Douglas Adams's feel to it, perhaps it's his.
So, I am only an atheist in the context of a discussion on the existence or otherwise of deities. I am no more an atheist the rest of the time than a non-stamp collector is an "aphilatelist" while he's washing his car - though, were he to attend a stamp auction, he might well describe himself that way. This is, incidentally, the beginning of my standard response to comments like "But that's so negative", or "Then what DO you believe in?". I only "have" to be an atheist because "you" are superstitious, t'ain't negative, just real.
See where I'm going with this? LANGUAGE. The languages of the world have all evolved (yes, they did! Just like us) in an environment dominated by religious thinking. It is only necessary for the word "atheist" to exist because subscribing to ancient organized superstitions is still considered normal - it's even still expected, even demanded in many places.
Way back when Facebook was but a pup and I had just signed up, I got involved in a "questions" board (I can't find it anymore, but it's probably there somewhere) where people could post any question they liked and others who thought they knew the answer could post it. Discussions ensued, debates, outright rows sometimes. It was interesting.
The first time I "played" was when someone asked "What is an atheist?".
I toyed with various tired, flippant answers like "Someone who believes in one less god than you do" but, before I had decided just how to reply, others had beaten me to it.
My first surprise was that whenever anyone gave a "straight" answer (like "it's someone who doesn't believe in God"), an argument broke out as to whether such a thing was possible. The theists in the mix argued along the lines that one could not "not believe" in the ultimate creator - it just was not an option, there's no box for that. What had happened, they claimed, was that the self-proclaimed atheists had (and this IS a quote from one, there were other ways expressing the same idea) "chosen to deny God". One theist answering even defined an atheist as one who "claims" not to believe in God.
This made my jaw drop. I weighed into the discussion and learned something interesting. Bear in mind, please, that many (though not all) of the most vocal theists in this forum were, by now, some stripe of Southern US fundamentalists. The something that I learned was this:-
"These people believe that one can choose what to believe."
Conversely, all the atheists on the board, me included, just accepted that belief is not a choice. They didn't even raise the issue - it just WAS that way. It's actually, I would say, a "linguistic fact"; that is, it's what the word MEANS. "Choosing to believe" is a nonce concept, by definition.
I was familiar, from previous reading, with "Pascal's Wager"; a philosophical argument that says it's a "good idea" to believe in God because you have nothing to lose by being wrong and everything to gain by being right. I had never taken this "reasoning" seriously - and hadn't really thought anyone else did (I gather even Pascal had his tongue firmly in his cheek) - for two reasons.
Firstly, and less relevantly here, surely, any deity worth praying to would KNOW if we were only "believing" so as to hedge our bets and wouldn't grant the benefits we were looking for (or our "Get Out Of Hell Free" card). Secondly, and more pertinently, the idea of a god - any god - either makes sense to an individual or it doesn't. Whether through indoctrination, cultural background, divine revelation or pure thought and reasoning, each of us, surely, believes what we do because, on some level, it makes sense to us, not because we somehow CHOOSE to?
Is Santa Claus real because a child believes he is? In some fiction maybe, but surely not in the real world?
Then another logical penny dropped in my head. What do they mean by "believe IN"?
I "believe IN" free education, no-pay health care, etc. But that means I SUPPORT these things, I think they are right and necessary. It has nothing to do with their existence or otherwise.
That's not what someone is saying when they say they "believe in" some deity, though, is it? They're not just saying "I think God is a good thing" are they?. It had never really bothered me before because the simple fact is that, whatever they mean, I think they're wrong. In just the same way that it doesn't matter to me which god, which religion, which denomination is under discussion. They are all, fundamentally (pun intended) and (almost) equally, wrong.
Now, it is not my purpose here to go into all the reasons why I "believe" what I do. I will do that on request but suffice it to say, for now, in case it's not already obvious, that I am an atheist. That word itself is problematic.
It comes firmly from the other camp. Completing a form that asks my religion, I can easily put "none", since this is, while perhaps unhelpful, undoubtedly true. But "atheist" does not work. A friend recently put this quote on his Facebook page - I don't know where he got it, but I've stolen, and paraphrased it:-
"Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby"
Perfect! I wish I'd thought of it. Thinking about it again, it has Douglas Adams's feel to it, perhaps it's his.
So, I am only an atheist in the context of a discussion on the existence or otherwise of deities. I am no more an atheist the rest of the time than a non-stamp collector is an "aphilatelist" while he's washing his car - though, were he to attend a stamp auction, he might well describe himself that way. This is, incidentally, the beginning of my standard response to comments like "But that's so negative", or "Then what DO you believe in?". I only "have" to be an atheist because "you" are superstitious, t'ain't negative, just real.
See where I'm going with this? LANGUAGE. The languages of the world have all evolved (yes, they did! Just like us) in an environment dominated by religious thinking. It is only necessary for the word "atheist" to exist because subscribing to ancient organized superstitions is still considered normal - it's even still expected, even demanded in many places.
So before any discourse can lead to real understanding between these two camps, we have to get very picky about words and what we mean by them.
About 25 years ago, for about 6 weeks, I had a "pet Jehovah's Witness". He came to my door one Saturday morning and when, some three hours later, he left, he promised to come back the next week to continue our conversation because, he said, I was a seeker after truth. He came, week after week, until I told him that one reason I talked to him was that while he was with me, he was not finding more gullible people. He vanished. I enjoyed the mental exercise but only now do I realise how far apart we actually were. When he says "truth", he doesn't mean the same thing as me. I was looking (seeking, if you insist) for insight into the human mind, the social issues surrounding "belief", the rights and wrongs of indoctrination, and so on. He thinks he can open a book and long dead writers will save him from having to think at all. (That's unfair, I know, and deliberately provocative, but I think my point is made).
During the Facebook discussion I was referring to earlier, a young man (I'm calling him Matthew) sent me a private message. Our subsequent discussion was fascinating, enlightening and, in the end, to me anyway, quite sad. I plan to quote from that discussion at length in the next update (which I will start right after I post this one). For reasons that will become clear, I cannot ask Matthew's permission to do this. He may be watching. If so, he will recognise himself and hopefully tell me if he objects. I'm sure he won't/wouldn't and I will not reveal any personal details, but I want to give him what chance I can to comment.
That'll do for this chapter. Next: Matthew's question.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Happy New Year - and delayed posting.
A very Happy 2010 to all who pass through here. Once again, sorry about the lack of updates. I have had one buzzing in my head for a while now and will get it done early in the new year.
I don't seem to be able to paste text into a posting - and that's something of a problem because a large part of my planned update is a series of quotes from a discussion I had in another forum. It's a lot of typing if I can't find a way to do it so, if anyone has any ideas, please whistle.
Meanwhile, it's off to the NSLC!
I don't seem to be able to paste text into a posting - and that's something of a problem because a large part of my planned update is a series of quotes from a discussion I had in another forum. It's a lot of typing if I can't find a way to do it so, if anyone has any ideas, please whistle.
Meanwhile, it's off to the NSLC!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Story Of Mum
The story of my mother, now over 85 years long, has had some major plot turns recently and I thought it was time I shared some of them here.
First, a potted early history of, say, the first 80 of those years.
She was born in Clapham, London SW8, in 1924, second and last child in her family. Leaving school at 14, she took a job in the office of a local company that made precision optical lenses for cameras, telescopes and the like.
My father, recently returned with his mother from Italy, where he grew up, also worked there and they struck up some sort of friendship. This was 1938. War broke out in 1939. My father turned 18 in 1940, was called up for military service and was consequently absent for most of the next 5 years, ending up as one of a small group of a sort of informal POWs being marched around Greece by a lost platoon of german infantry.
On his return, he must have resumed his friendship with my mother because, in 1951, they married.
The following year, they bought a small house in Mitcham (then Surrey, now the London Borough Of Merton) and I popped out.
I grew up in that small house, my father died there in 1992 and my mother continued to live there until the events of 2004 overtook her.
Her parents were both dead by the early 1980s; her brother pre-deceased my father by a few months and his wife followed shortly thereafter. Her only relatives by this time were, therefore, me - by then 3000 miles away in Ontario and visiting once a year at best, and a recently married nephew with a small son. He lived a few miles away and visited from time to time but her most frequent visitor was my first wife who lived not far away and called in when able.
On one such occasiion, early in '04, she found my mother's state quite severely worsened. There were milk bottles, mostly opened and half consumed, all over the place. Her recently deceased, geriatric and oft-times incontinent cat could still be strongly smelled in the house. Her legs were full of ulcers; her hair long, lank and unwashed. She was, in short, going downhill fast.
We arranged to go over and see her as fast as we could and were horrified by the state of her and the house. My wife, youngest daughter "M" (qv) and I spent three weeks there and, in the end, brought her back to Ontario with us. We'd cleared out the house, sold it, packed up the salvage-worthy items and just "did" it. Sort out the details afterwards; no option.
We brought her to Canada as a visitor, 6 month visa, 6 months health insurance, and started immigration paperwork. Our family doctor went to work on her medical conditions, my wife, quitting work to look after her, went to work on her general well-being and we all went to work on adapting to a new reality.
Immigration, we were told by the lawyers, would take 18 months to 2 years so we would need to apply for an extended visitor permit so Mum could stay with us while we waited out the process. We did, and got it.
That Christmas, though, the world was shaken - quite literally - by the Tsunami in the Pacific that destroyed large chunks of the Philippines, Thailand and elsewhere. The Canadian government was urged to "do something" about the resulting refugee problem. It's name for what it did was "fast-tracking"; a process whereby those who fit the criteria effectively jump the queue and government resources are diverted to processing them. I make no complaint about that, they DID have to do something. I only resent lack of information given everone else and, particularly, the euphemism "fast tracking".
The guys who pushed in front of us while we were lining up in costume in the rain to get into the Shore Club Halloween party last Saturday were "fast-tracking" in exactly the same way but with much less justification and much milder consequences. Let's call queue jumping, officially sanctioned or not, justified or not, just that; QUEUE JUMPING". To call it "fast-tracking" is to tell only half the story. The other half is the bit my mother and whole family were stuck in; that's what we should call SLOW-TRACKING, I suppose, but you never hear that. Well, gradually, 18-24 months became 2-3 years. It's now over FIVE years, and we're still waiting, though I sincerely hope there are no Filipino families still sleeping on the beach waiting to be fast-tracked.
Meanwhile, we realised a few things in a rather unfortunate order.
First, our living arrangements were inadequate; too many stairs, not enough space - particularly for the girls, two of whom were at home full-time and being squeezed.
We moved. Found a huge bungalow with ample room for everybody on the main level but a full basement with a small apartment in it where the girls could get some privacy.
Would've been great, except for two things:-
1. It was a money pit. We were lied to. There's no getting away from that. The previous owner KNEW there were issues with the weeping tiles, at the very least but, long story short (for once!) this and all the other issues became our problem.
2. When the second 6 months' worth of health insurance ran out, we were told that, not only could we not renew it but, we should never have been sold the LAST one. The man who had sold it to us was "no longer with the company" (a euphemism I think we all understand) and, had we tried to claim on it, we would have been refused. The only way to get more insurance was for Mum to leave the country and re-enter as a "new" visitor. That way, she would qualify for travel insurance - good for another 6 months and, supposedly, the process could be repeated.
Oughta work, right? Nope. The extended visa that the government gives in these cases SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITS leaving the country and coming back in. It's a crime! Hmmmm, you'd almost think they knew, wooncha?
So we now had a very difficult situation in a number of ways. First, we had an 80 year old woman with no health insurance. One operation and we all go broke!
Now, of course, in 2009, we know that the solution to this is to move to the USA and join the Republican Party who have miraculously managed to work it so that millions of people living in fear of illness or injury that they can't pay for is a GOOD thing, representing "choice", "freedom" and "The American Way" while anyone trying to get "Big Insurance"* off the gravy train called "Health Insurance" (another one-side-only euphemism) like it is in any civilized country (as different from one that is merely "free" as in "free-to-get-shot", "free-to-die-on-the-hospital-steps, "free-to-vote-for-either-of-two-multimillionaires-as-long-as-I-don't-need-the-vote-counted) must be a "Socialist" which, as we know, is only one small step better than being a terrorist!
Having checked with the immigration lawyers that there was no sign of any useful progress and that relocating Mum back to the UK would not jeopardize the process (really, how could get any worse than completely stagnated, but we were understandably paranoid by this time), we set about fiding her somewhere to live.
I have to add at this point that my mother, while moody and erratic, still had most of her marbles at this stage. She knew what was going on and, although she didn't understand all of it (hell, WE didn't!), or like the bits she did understand, she did contribute to all these decisions. She was, in fact, much better, physically and mentally, than when we first brought her over.
My wife, always something of a "Google Wizard" started researching "Care Homes", refering to me on points of geography, what areas were like etc. but generally running with the project of finding Mum a nice place to live. She succeeded.
Early in 2006, 18 months after Mum came to Canada, we took her back. Disillusioned, upset and angry, we went to Dorking, Surrey. Mum's new home was to be (and was, for the next 3 and a half years), Nower Care, a small (55 residents when full) Care Home in two old houses, nicely refurbished and joined by a modern annex. She was happy there most of the time although, towards the end of her stay, it's hard to imagine her liking anything much. If any of you chance upon this epistle, Nower Care people, thank you. I've thanked you already but, here, I do it more publicly (well, a BIT more).
At the age of 84, while still at Nower, Mum developped breast cancer! Supposed to be to old for it. Should've picked a more age-appropriate illness. Got it, got treated, got a bit sore for a while, got fixed. No problem (so far, but that was 2 years ago) but it does highlight the wisdom of the decision we made in 2006 to take her back to the UK. I don't know what a foreign national with no insurance would have to pay to be treated for breast cancer in Ontario but I'm betting the number has lots of zeros on the end.
Fast forward to 2009.
Suddenly, Mum wants to take the stairs down to meals instead of the lift. She doesn't remember whether she's had visitors this week, what she had for lunch. Then, she falls. The doctor comes by, does some tests and discovers that, apart from the obvious, but not dangerous, injuries from the fall, she has other problems. Kidney function, liver function, cognitive ability, all severly impaired. Hospital. Tests.
For bout 12 weeks, I would phone the hospital to be told by a nurse that she was "comfortable" (find a new word please, ladies, it gets dull), that they were still waiting for test results, etc. When I could get a doctor, he told of concerns over liver function, urinary tract infections and unwillingness to co-operate with attempts to get her mobile again.
Eventually, "they" (they refer to themselves as the "care team") decided that a) there was no clinical reason to keep Mum in hospital any more and b) she couldn't go back to Nower because she wasn't mobile enough (which means "at all") so she would be assigned a Social Services Case Worker who would contact me to arrange and choose a nursing home.
The "Discharge Co-Ordinator" whose job it is to free up the hospital bed said this could all be done in two weeks. That was optimistic and probably driven more by budget-myopia (one main symptom being the inabilty to see anything that prevents others from doing what YOUR budget says they should do) than anything else but I have to say that things did move fairly quickly after that - about 5 weeks, I think it was. Once again, thanks are due to all involved in that process - if you stumble here you will know who you are and you all helped along a potentially nasty process (Special nod to "Sue", a League Of Friends volunteer at the information desk at the East Surrey Hospital)
We went over again. We moved her again. Less stuff, a LOT less marbles - three days after we left her, I wasn't sure she knew we'd even been, or even who we were - but, again, a nice place, still in Dorking, with a view of the Downs from her window. She's still immobile - being ably hoisted from chair to chair to bath to bed to chair by a procession of ever-smiling nurses, has consistently said she likes the food (although she often says she prepared it herself), still wonders why I'm (whoever the "I" refers to) playing football "outside" - something I've always done too much of, it seems. People who know me will tell you how funny that is - trust me, just laugh!
Immigration Canada are still doing whatever it is they do - 5.5 years on. The probably marginal 80 year old "Family Class" applicant whose file first landed in an in-tray late in 2004 is now a nowhere-near-marginal 85 year old applicant. If I told them, they'd just throw her application right out (probably only take a couple of years) but I'm inclined not to do that. Let's just see how long this takes; what the answer is. It's all paid for now anyway. Hell, they ignored us for long enough - boot's on the other foot now. Do government types realise how damaging stuff like this is? In my early years in Canada I had swallowed the CBC standard description of Canada and its government as caring, fair, a bit wacky sometimes, certainly slow, perhaps a bit dull (but hey, look who lives next door) but basically harmless. Now, I see it (the government) as arrogant, evasive, tricky, incompetent and to be avoided at all costs. You did that, Immigration Department, by doing nothing, very slowly. I would have felt much better about them (and, frankly, not too surprised) if they'd just laughed in our faces right at the beginning. "You want to bring WHO?" We could've saved my mother and ourselves a lot of grief, saved her, us and (ironically) the government a lot of money (because all the money they would have been able to tax has now been spent on very expensive care in a foreign country and NONE of us will ever see it again) and devoted all of our resources to something else, like the twilight years of my Mum's life, maybe.
* How come it's "Big Tobacco", "Big Oil" etc. but not "Big Insurance", the biggest leeches yet invented - but wait!
First, a potted early history of, say, the first 80 of those years.
She was born in Clapham, London SW8, in 1924, second and last child in her family. Leaving school at 14, she took a job in the office of a local company that made precision optical lenses for cameras, telescopes and the like.
My father, recently returned with his mother from Italy, where he grew up, also worked there and they struck up some sort of friendship. This was 1938. War broke out in 1939. My father turned 18 in 1940, was called up for military service and was consequently absent for most of the next 5 years, ending up as one of a small group of a sort of informal POWs being marched around Greece by a lost platoon of german infantry.
On his return, he must have resumed his friendship with my mother because, in 1951, they married.
The following year, they bought a small house in Mitcham (then Surrey, now the London Borough Of Merton) and I popped out.
I grew up in that small house, my father died there in 1992 and my mother continued to live there until the events of 2004 overtook her.
Her parents were both dead by the early 1980s; her brother pre-deceased my father by a few months and his wife followed shortly thereafter. Her only relatives by this time were, therefore, me - by then 3000 miles away in Ontario and visiting once a year at best, and a recently married nephew with a small son. He lived a few miles away and visited from time to time but her most frequent visitor was my first wife who lived not far away and called in when able.
On one such occasiion, early in '04, she found my mother's state quite severely worsened. There were milk bottles, mostly opened and half consumed, all over the place. Her recently deceased, geriatric and oft-times incontinent cat could still be strongly smelled in the house. Her legs were full of ulcers; her hair long, lank and unwashed. She was, in short, going downhill fast.
We arranged to go over and see her as fast as we could and were horrified by the state of her and the house. My wife, youngest daughter "M" (qv) and I spent three weeks there and, in the end, brought her back to Ontario with us. We'd cleared out the house, sold it, packed up the salvage-worthy items and just "did" it. Sort out the details afterwards; no option.
We brought her to Canada as a visitor, 6 month visa, 6 months health insurance, and started immigration paperwork. Our family doctor went to work on her medical conditions, my wife, quitting work to look after her, went to work on her general well-being and we all went to work on adapting to a new reality.
Immigration, we were told by the lawyers, would take 18 months to 2 years so we would need to apply for an extended visitor permit so Mum could stay with us while we waited out the process. We did, and got it.
That Christmas, though, the world was shaken - quite literally - by the Tsunami in the Pacific that destroyed large chunks of the Philippines, Thailand and elsewhere. The Canadian government was urged to "do something" about the resulting refugee problem. It's name for what it did was "fast-tracking"; a process whereby those who fit the criteria effectively jump the queue and government resources are diverted to processing them. I make no complaint about that, they DID have to do something. I only resent lack of information given everone else and, particularly, the euphemism "fast tracking".
The guys who pushed in front of us while we were lining up in costume in the rain to get into the Shore Club Halloween party last Saturday were "fast-tracking" in exactly the same way but with much less justification and much milder consequences. Let's call queue jumping, officially sanctioned or not, justified or not, just that; QUEUE JUMPING". To call it "fast-tracking" is to tell only half the story. The other half is the bit my mother and whole family were stuck in; that's what we should call SLOW-TRACKING, I suppose, but you never hear that. Well, gradually, 18-24 months became 2-3 years. It's now over FIVE years, and we're still waiting, though I sincerely hope there are no Filipino families still sleeping on the beach waiting to be fast-tracked.
Meanwhile, we realised a few things in a rather unfortunate order.
First, our living arrangements were inadequate; too many stairs, not enough space - particularly for the girls, two of whom were at home full-time and being squeezed.
We moved. Found a huge bungalow with ample room for everybody on the main level but a full basement with a small apartment in it where the girls could get some privacy.
Would've been great, except for two things:-
1. It was a money pit. We were lied to. There's no getting away from that. The previous owner KNEW there were issues with the weeping tiles, at the very least but, long story short (for once!) this and all the other issues became our problem.
2. When the second 6 months' worth of health insurance ran out, we were told that, not only could we not renew it but, we should never have been sold the LAST one. The man who had sold it to us was "no longer with the company" (a euphemism I think we all understand) and, had we tried to claim on it, we would have been refused. The only way to get more insurance was for Mum to leave the country and re-enter as a "new" visitor. That way, she would qualify for travel insurance - good for another 6 months and, supposedly, the process could be repeated.
Oughta work, right? Nope. The extended visa that the government gives in these cases SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITS leaving the country and coming back in. It's a crime! Hmmmm, you'd almost think they knew, wooncha?
So we now had a very difficult situation in a number of ways. First, we had an 80 year old woman with no health insurance. One operation and we all go broke!
Now, of course, in 2009, we know that the solution to this is to move to the USA and join the Republican Party who have miraculously managed to work it so that millions of people living in fear of illness or injury that they can't pay for is a GOOD thing, representing "choice", "freedom" and "The American Way" while anyone trying to get "Big Insurance"* off the gravy train called "Health Insurance" (another one-side-only euphemism) like it is in any civilized country (as different from one that is merely "free" as in "free-to-get-shot", "free-to-die-on-the-hospital-steps, "free-to-vote-for-either-of-two-multimillionaires-as-long-as-I-don't-need-the-vote-counted) must be a "Socialist" which, as we know, is only one small step better than being a terrorist!
Having checked with the immigration lawyers that there was no sign of any useful progress and that relocating Mum back to the UK would not jeopardize the process (really, how could get any worse than completely stagnated, but we were understandably paranoid by this time), we set about fiding her somewhere to live.
I have to add at this point that my mother, while moody and erratic, still had most of her marbles at this stage. She knew what was going on and, although she didn't understand all of it (hell, WE didn't!), or like the bits she did understand, she did contribute to all these decisions. She was, in fact, much better, physically and mentally, than when we first brought her over.
My wife, always something of a "Google Wizard" started researching "Care Homes", refering to me on points of geography, what areas were like etc. but generally running with the project of finding Mum a nice place to live. She succeeded.
Early in 2006, 18 months after Mum came to Canada, we took her back. Disillusioned, upset and angry, we went to Dorking, Surrey. Mum's new home was to be (and was, for the next 3 and a half years), Nower Care, a small (55 residents when full) Care Home in two old houses, nicely refurbished and joined by a modern annex. She was happy there most of the time although, towards the end of her stay, it's hard to imagine her liking anything much. If any of you chance upon this epistle, Nower Care people, thank you. I've thanked you already but, here, I do it more publicly (well, a BIT more).
At the age of 84, while still at Nower, Mum developped breast cancer! Supposed to be to old for it. Should've picked a more age-appropriate illness. Got it, got treated, got a bit sore for a while, got fixed. No problem (so far, but that was 2 years ago) but it does highlight the wisdom of the decision we made in 2006 to take her back to the UK. I don't know what a foreign national with no insurance would have to pay to be treated for breast cancer in Ontario but I'm betting the number has lots of zeros on the end.
Fast forward to 2009.
Suddenly, Mum wants to take the stairs down to meals instead of the lift. She doesn't remember whether she's had visitors this week, what she had for lunch. Then, she falls. The doctor comes by, does some tests and discovers that, apart from the obvious, but not dangerous, injuries from the fall, she has other problems. Kidney function, liver function, cognitive ability, all severly impaired. Hospital. Tests.
For bout 12 weeks, I would phone the hospital to be told by a nurse that she was "comfortable" (find a new word please, ladies, it gets dull), that they were still waiting for test results, etc. When I could get a doctor, he told of concerns over liver function, urinary tract infections and unwillingness to co-operate with attempts to get her mobile again.
Eventually, "they" (they refer to themselves as the "care team") decided that a) there was no clinical reason to keep Mum in hospital any more and b) she couldn't go back to Nower because she wasn't mobile enough (which means "at all") so she would be assigned a Social Services Case Worker who would contact me to arrange and choose a nursing home.
The "Discharge Co-Ordinator" whose job it is to free up the hospital bed said this could all be done in two weeks. That was optimistic and probably driven more by budget-myopia (one main symptom being the inabilty to see anything that prevents others from doing what YOUR budget says they should do) than anything else but I have to say that things did move fairly quickly after that - about 5 weeks, I think it was. Once again, thanks are due to all involved in that process - if you stumble here you will know who you are and you all helped along a potentially nasty process (Special nod to "Sue", a League Of Friends volunteer at the information desk at the East Surrey Hospital)
We went over again. We moved her again. Less stuff, a LOT less marbles - three days after we left her, I wasn't sure she knew we'd even been, or even who we were - but, again, a nice place, still in Dorking, with a view of the Downs from her window. She's still immobile - being ably hoisted from chair to chair to bath to bed to chair by a procession of ever-smiling nurses, has consistently said she likes the food (although she often says she prepared it herself), still wonders why I'm (whoever the "I" refers to) playing football "outside" - something I've always done too much of, it seems. People who know me will tell you how funny that is - trust me, just laugh!
Immigration Canada are still doing whatever it is they do - 5.5 years on. The probably marginal 80 year old "Family Class" applicant whose file first landed in an in-tray late in 2004 is now a nowhere-near-marginal 85 year old applicant. If I told them, they'd just throw her application right out (probably only take a couple of years) but I'm inclined not to do that. Let's just see how long this takes; what the answer is. It's all paid for now anyway. Hell, they ignored us for long enough - boot's on the other foot now. Do government types realise how damaging stuff like this is? In my early years in Canada I had swallowed the CBC standard description of Canada and its government as caring, fair, a bit wacky sometimes, certainly slow, perhaps a bit dull (but hey, look who lives next door) but basically harmless. Now, I see it (the government) as arrogant, evasive, tricky, incompetent and to be avoided at all costs. You did that, Immigration Department, by doing nothing, very slowly. I would have felt much better about them (and, frankly, not too surprised) if they'd just laughed in our faces right at the beginning. "You want to bring WHO?" We could've saved my mother and ourselves a lot of grief, saved her, us and (ironically) the government a lot of money (because all the money they would have been able to tax has now been spent on very expensive care in a foreign country and NONE of us will ever see it again) and devoted all of our resources to something else, like the twilight years of my Mum's life, maybe.
* How come it's "Big Tobacco", "Big Oil" etc. but not "Big Insurance", the biggest leeches yet invented - but wait!
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