The Railway Children

For a time in the early 2000s (at the point my children were the right age to make use of the fact), Loughborough Town Hall hosted a series of half-term and summer holiday performances for children of a very high quality and well worth the ticket price to go and see.  Which we did, generally – just the three of us, sometimes, but taking their friends along at others, thanks to the handy discounts Charnwood Council’s Wild Card scheme brought with it. 

Brian Patten reading from his ‘Gargling With Jelly’ poetry collection was one performance I remember, stand-up comedian-cum-poet James Cameron another, his catch phrase ‘with fish!’ one we adopted in our family for a while, along with the Monkees parody ‘then I saw that stick, now I’m a retriever!’

One of the plays we saw was an excellent production of The Railway Children and I was keen to see how they’d manage to recreate one of my favourite films on a stage, given the limitations of scene changes and unlikelihood they’d manage an actual steam train as part of the set.  It proved to be very little like the film, of course, more closely resembling the arc of Nesbit’s book. 

But it was a wonderful experience never-the-less, with sing-a-longs taught to us by cast members wearing plus-fours and smock dresses, children from the audience called on stage to overcome a shortfall between actors and minor story-characters and the absence of a real train so not a problem that I can’t recall, now, exactly how they got around it. 

We loved every minute – even my train-loving but fidgety young son sat still long enough to enjoy it, and again, snatches of the play’s songs have worked their way into family vocabulary.  Even now, I’ve only to hear the word ‘perks’ and I break into song about Mr Perk’s birthday and what a jolly nice chap he is.  A classic experience, literally.

AM

My Grandfather Lied to my Grandmother

My Grandfather lied to my grandmother when he told her that he would give their son’s girl friend a warm welcome to the family.

The young lady in question was later to become my mother, and so I received the story first-hand many years on.

It had taken my father some time to sum up the courage and introduce his intended

to his parents, but the time had come and the meeting had to be faced.  My Grandfather, a veteran of the First World War was, at the time, Chief Inspector for the G.P.O. in Loughborough.  He was both respected and feared by many people in equal amounts and could be very abrupt and acerbic on some occasions.

On arrival at his family home my father introduced Sylvia and waited for a suitable response to be forthcoming.

Apparently, my grandfather proceeded to look her up and down a couple of times and then said by way of acceptance “Aint she got big feet.”  He then continued to compare his daughter’s feet in a more favourable light remarking “our Muriel has nice dainty feet.”

Mortified my mother made the best of the situation at the time, but I know for certain that she never forgave him.  During my entire lifetime my mother never again put a foot near my grandfather’s house, but she always made my lovely grandmother very welcome in hers.

To my own parents’ credit, I was never restricted with visits to my grandparent’s home and was allowed to make my own assessment of all family members. Muriel never married but looked after both her parents until they passed away. For both of my sisters, and I, we could not have had a better aunt.

I never had any real problems with “Granddad” but I always detected an underling tension in the family, even at a very young age. Families are sometimes quite strange, but as they say “life has to go on.”

David Taylor
20th May 2021

COVID 19 Virus 2020

As soon as the virus known as CV left its country of origin (namely China) the entire world awoke to the possibility that many people were going to succumb to its attack, and probably die.

At the very start I remember saying to my wife “This will take a vaccine and a huge international effort to sort out.”  To the great credit of our Oxford team of scientists, a vaccine was constructed and made available in the U.K. courtesy of the N.H.S.

Being over 70 years of age, I was fortunate to receive my painless “1^st jab” fairly quickly.

After waiting for a period of 6 weeks a “2^nd Jab” was delivered into my left arm, and I am very hopeful of a successful result.  At the time of writing the remaining 25% of the U.K. population is lining up at hundreds of Vaccination Centres to receive their injections.

The big question now is; have we beaten it?  In this country I think it is safe to say that we probable have.  Most of Europe will also soon overcome the attacks, given a constant supply of vaccine. 

The Third World is another matter.  With its huge populations, widely spread, and almost inaccessible to hard-pressed medical teams, life will become almost unbearable for many.  It’s simply a race against time, being very dependant on international goodwill.

How will the writers of history view this period of time?  Take a look back at the Great Plague in 1660. Did we learn any lessons?

The world has become too small for us to say “Let the devil take the hindmost.”  We shall not be totally safe until all are safe.  That in my view: is a certainty.

DT

The cat sat on the track

The cat sat on the track,
but not for long.
The cat leapt off the track
when the track went ‘bong’.
The track wriggled and writhed
as the train arrived.

The cat sat near the track
as the train went by,
and wondered why the track
was content to lie
there, singing a low note song,
as engines and carriages roared along.

The cat sat on the track
with the train long past
and thought ‘perhaps the track
knows that train’s the last,
maybe the last for an hour or so.
I wish I was clever enough to know.
I wish it hadn’t started to snow,
so while it’s quiet, I think I’ll go.’

The cat jumped off the track
and hurried home.
Found it was dinner time there,
not the time to roam.

David Parkin
2^nd May 2021