Mottram

Is it Laurence or Lawrence? How ever his first name was spelt, I have blogged about L.S.Lowry before - here and here. A week ago, before I reached my aunt's funeral in north Manchester, I tarried for a while in Mottram in Longdendale. It was in this overgrown village on the edge of the Pennines that Lowry lived out the last twenty eight years of his long life, still painting and still being an awkward so and so - loving humanity and yet hating it at the same time. He could never really fit in.

This was his house - "The Elms" on Stalybridge Road. When the new owners moved in a couple of years ago they peeled back the carpet  and found Lowry's paint splattered all over the floorboards of the front room:-

 And this blue plaque is on the front wall of the house:-

Fifty yards away at the crossroads, a bronze staue of Lowry sitts on a bench. He is watching the traffic on the A57 while he sketches 24/7, year in year out:-

 Here he is again. You can see Mottram's post office on the corner:-

And just to remind you, or in some cases to give you a first glimpse, of the unique style he developed, here's "Coming out of School" (1927):-

90%

Two boys and an old woman murdered by Israel.

Ninety per cent of Israelis are in favour of what their government has recently instructed its military machine to do. Ninety per cent are in favour of bombing schools, hospitals and most recently Gaza's only electricity power plant. Ninety per cent are in favour of killing innocent women and children. Ninety per cent are in favour of the unconscionable blaming of Hamas for Israeli attacks - turning the truth on its head. Ninety per cent are in favour of trundling out the same lame excuses about Hamas rocket launching sites in order to justify the outrageous mass murder of frightened Palestinians.

The Israelis have killed far more than a thousand now and injured many more people than that. In contrast, the small Israeli death toll mainly consists of forty five soldiers from their invasion force. What do they expect? You invade a desperate, overcrowded and beleaguered little country and you expect no angry response? Now their latest coverall lame excuse is to cite the alleged  intricate network of tunnels that Israel claims is a major threat to its security.

And what is America doing? What is the useless United Nations doing? Nothing. Nothing at all. They are letting innocent Palestinians die, silently condoning the brutality. History has taught us to be sorrowful for Jews and what they endured in World War II but their military onslaught upon Gaza is ironically like a mini-holocaust for Palestinians. Dying in a gas chamber at Auschwitz or dying under a pile of concrete in Gaza - what's the difference? 

Ninety per cent of onlookers from the rest of the world say to Israel - You are wrong! This is not the way! Ninety per cent shudder about the horror of it all. Ninety per cent say that the way to solve differences is through talking - no matter how difficult those negotiations might be. I have already sent £25 to Oxfam's Gaza Appeal. I should probably be sending more but we Yorkshiremen are as tight as they come and to get £25 out of me is like getting regrets for what is happening out of Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Blob

It's like a military campaign map. The red blob and the satellite red bits reveal where I have taken photographs in this region of England for the geograph project. I have red squares in other parts of the country too - from Cornwall to Fife and from Liverpool to Kent. I took up this hobby in 2009 since when my blob has grown like a pool of red wine on a laminate floor. The hobby involves several things apart from snapping pictures. There's miles and miles of walking, study of maps and map reading, internet research of the places I have been and the things I have seen. Through geograph I have learnt more than I knew before of England's beauty, its history and its incredible diversity.

Here's two pictures I snapped yesterday afternoon for geograph when Shirley and I were in our local park to attend the Folk Forest music festival - part of the annual Tramlines festival of music in Sheffield:-

Chewing the fat in Endcliffe Park

Songstress Laura James at Folk Forest 2014

Learning about my hobby you will probably think I am sad or mad or both. I don't care. These boots are made for walking and I shall not cease till my red blob has grown to cover all of northern England when I shall become The Regal Master of Up North  instructing my people to build a mighty wall - separating us from the evil excesses of Down South led by Snooty Cameron with his posh army of  Etonian Bankers. And there will be free beer and fish and chips and I'll re-open the coal mines and southern settlers will be given twenty four hours to leave and, and "If I Ruled the World"...

Cousins

Auntie Irene (1922-2014)

On Thursday, I travelled over The Pennines to what we Yorkshire folk often call "The Dark Side". Its real name is Lancashire. I was going to the funeral of a ninety two year old lady - my Auntie Irene. The funeral was held in the northern suburbs of Manchester in a place called Middleton. I had never been there before and I only ever met my Auntie Irene once - at my mother's funeral in 2007.

My mother only had one sibling - her brother Derek - who married Irene McGann shortly after World War II. Times must have been hard for them because when my own mum and dad returned from India - where they themselves had married in the last year of the war - Uncle Derek asked if he could borrow some money. By this time Irene had had a baby daughter - their first child. They needed to borrow £50 which was an enormous amount of money back then - equivalent to about two month's salary for an average worker.

Mum and Dad had very little spare cash and lending this money was a big sacrifice as they themselves began to settle back into civilian life. As I understand it, Uncle Derek was unable to repay the debt by the promised time. A big argument ensued which resulted in my Dad wanting to cut off all contact with Uncle Derek and Auntie Irene. This must have happened in 1946 - just before Mum gave birth to my oldest brother - our late and much missed Paul.

Anyway - the years passed - with Uncle Derek and Auntie Irene living life and raising a family in Middleton while Mum and Dad lived a parallel life in East Yorkshire. Irene bore five daughters and Mum bore four sons. On Thursday I learnt that Irene had in fact had a son too but he had died before he was a week old. Co-incidentally my mother also  had a baby girl but she was stillborn.

So five daughters and four sons grew up. We were and are of course cousins but we didn't know each other. Having five girl cousins could and should have been something that enriched our lives. My peers in our East Yorkshire village all seemed to be in touch with their extended families and I remember feeling quite envious of this. Isn't that how life was meant to be? And isn't the true meaning of "family" something richer and more extensive than the modern core nuclear family which is too often developed in geographical  isolation.

Middleton Parish Church - its origins can be traced back to the ninth century

The funeral had three phases. First there was a well-attended memorial service in Middleton's surprisingly wonderful and ancient parish church. Irene had nine siblings and so the McGann side of her family was numerous. She was a much-loved matriarch and had many friends, living life to the full right up to the end.

Next the funeral moved to Boarshaw Cemetery for the interment - witnessed by a crowd of perhaps a hundred. And then we all went on to Middleton Cricket Club for food and drink and conversation - marking the passing of Auntie Irene. And it was there I managed to snap this picture of my five girl cousins - now mature women of course with children - and in three cases - grandchildren of their own. I wish I had known them with pigtails I could pull, hide and seek and picnics on beaches, ghost stories and giggles, sandcastles and caravan holidays - growing up together - part of the same big family. But sadly it never happened.

My cousins - from left to right - Rene, Karen, Gaynor, Pam and Sandra

Roche

Approaching Roche Abbey by Firbeck Dike

Close to the former South Yorkshire coal mining village of Maltby, in a green valley that is blessed by a sparkling stream, you will find the remains of Roche Abbey. It was founded in 1147 by the Cistercian monastic order and destroyed by Henry VIII's forces some four hundred years later during The Dissolution. And after that many local people viewed the site as a free salvage yard. They would turn up with horse and carts or wooden hand carts and take away dressed stones or pieces of lead and glass. And that pillaging went on well into the nineteenth century.

If you think that Cistercian monks were all about self-denial and the worship of God, you'd be wrong. The Cistercian movement was about political and economic control as much as religious worship. Like other abbeys in Yorkshire, Roche Abbey drew its wealth from the surrounding farmland and local people were subjugated - paying rents, delivering agricultural produce and undertaking work without payment in order to keep the latest abbot happy. No doubt they were warned that if they didn't do as they were told they wouldn't enter heaven.

Just to build a substantial religious campus like Roche Abbey would have been a mind-boggling task in the twelfth century. Suitable stone would need to be identified in the local area then quarried, dressed and brought in carts to the site. No electric drills, no trucks, no dynamite, no tubular scaffolding. It makes the construction of The Shard in London - or any other modern skyscraper - seem like child's play.

There were over fifty Cistercian monasteries in England and they were like the tentacles of a movement that had its central powerhouse in France. Cistercian leaders had great political sway with monarchs and popes for five hundred years. It would have been hard not to listen to an organisation that could boast such economic power and in everyday terms governed the lives of many thousands of people throughout western Europe.

Above and below. The monasteries were skilled in controlling
and utilising their vital water supplies

Roche Abbey has a fence around it these days and is overseen by an organisation called "English Heritage". It used to be that you could wander freely around the site at any time but now you can only go inside the fence on Wednesdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays, paying £3.60 for the privilege. I took my photographs and kept on walking on another gorgeously hot and sunny summer's day. If only Roche Abbey's stones could speak. I would love to listen to their stories.

Score

Gaza Palestinians 649         Israel 31

(includes 132 children)                      (includes 28 soldiers)

It's not a cricket match nor a meeting of two great baseball teams. We are not talking about rugby or athletics or snooker, we are talking death. The Grim Reaper. The end of life. Even as we speak, Israel is wreaking havoc in the Gaza Strip with its American tanks and state of the art weaponry while Palestinians fire pathetic "rockets" into Israel  that are not much more deadly than grenades on sticks. If these rockets are such a threat, how come more Israelis haven't died? How come the damage to buildings is so superficial?

We are led to believe that the humane Israeli military machine messages Gaza civilians ahead of its missile strikes - warning them to evacuate their homes. Where are they meant to run to? How much time have they got? How do the Israeli generals know the messages have got through? Can Israeli bombings really be so pinpoint accurate that they always hit their targets and leave the people next door free to get on with their lives?

It is such an unequal conflict and personally I shudder when I hear the justifications and tissue thin apologies of Israeli spokesmen. Obviously, the issues surrounding Israel and the Palestinians are complex - like a tangled ball of wool. I would have no idea how it might be sorted out but killing women and children, bombing schools and hospitals, creating terror in the densely packed streets of Gaza is surely not the way. Talking, agreement and compromise are the only way forward. Ultimately, that's how it has always been.

Dumb Dubya Bush and Catholic Convert Blair promoted a war ON terror, but Philadepelphia-educated Benjamin Netanyahu is now conducting a war OF terror on a desperate people whose lives are not underwritten by America with its vast military arsenal and influential Jewish lobbyists. One things's for sure - the death and terror currently being meted out by Israel will not be the end of it all. It's no solution, no solution at all. If you kick a wounded dog it will bite back. If you put a lid on a bottle of soda water and shake it up it is liable to explode.

Bob

Surprisingly, Bob is not a woman's name - it is a man's name! It is not short for "bobbin" which is an item used in textile industries. No - Bob is short for Robert. Over here in England the most famous Bob is an animated children's TV character called Bob the Builder. Here he is! Hello Bob!

But a "bob" may also be a hairstyle:-

Or it could be a "bobsleigh":-

When walking in a cave or coal mine, you may need to bob down:-

And at Halloween you may find yourself bobbing for apples:-

The name "Bob" is favoured by owners of small dogs throughout the English speaking world. It is estimated that there are approximately 2.7 million canine"Bobs" worldwide. And on that happy note I do believe that I have exhausted all of my "Bob" knowledge. I hope that this post has been instructive to any Bobs who happen to have been visiting this humble blog.

Aldwark

Lydgate Farm in Aldwark - it offers B&B accommodation

Thursday was hot. Weather forecasters on the television were warning we Britons to stay indoors and avoid vigorous exercise so naturally  that inspired me to go on a ten mile walk in Derbyshire. My starting point was the tiny village of Aldwark which is west of Matlock. Once it was on the old stage coach route from Derby to Buxton but now it's a forgotten place and would be very peaceful if not for the sound of nearby limestone workings.

From Aldwark, I headed for Winster and then along Bonsall Lane, taking a cross country footpath south to another small and rather delightful  village called Ible. I had planned to continue strolling  southwards from there into Griffe Grange Valley but there was a bull in one of the fields through which the little used public footpath runs. He advanced in my direction as soon as he saw me approaching and wasn't coming over to exchange pleasantries or even to talk bull. His horns were lethal weapons and he was snorting pure testosterone so naturally I chose to take a detour. This involved me receiving a jolt from an electric fence and squelching through boggy ground. Thank you Bully!

Up to Griffe Grange, through the woods then along to The Limestone Way footpath where farmers were making hay while the sun shone and then west to Longcliffe with yet more limestone works. Then back in an arc to Aldwark - which means "old fortification".

I love to walk in shorts and a T-shirt. Usually I don't even bother with a backpack but on Thursday I took a couple of bottles of water, sunglasses, a hat, a full size map of the Peak District and a banana with me. I forgot my canister of "Adrian" bull repellent - but of course remembered my trusty camera to bring you these passable summery photographs. Please click to enlarge:-

Countryside north of Aldwark

Farm ruin by Stunstead Lane

Farm ruin near Bonsall Lane

Butterfly and thistles near Ible

Making hay on Limestone Way

In Longcliffe. How much longer will our characterful red phone boxes
survive? This one isn't even re-painted any more. Damn those mobile phones!

Crosby

On Crosby Beach north of Liverpool there are a hundred iron men. They all look seawards and do not say a word. At Crosby, the beach is wide and when the tide is out it seems more like an estuary than a beach for it is situated at the point where the River Mersey meets the Irish Sea. It was here where the British sculptor Sir Antony Gormley found a home for his visionary art installation - "Another Place". The figures are strategically positioned along two sweeping kilometres of beach. Some are at the low tide mark while others are higher up the beach close to the coastal path which sits atop concrete marine defences. The men were placed here in 2006 and though at first the figures were iron clones - identical to each other - now they are changing. Some are corroding more than others, some stand high above the sand while others are waist deep in it. Some are covered in  barnacles while others have been "dressed" by passers by. It is an amazing artwork to behold and I am so pleased that on Monday morning the weather was kind for my observations. It is possible to place different "meanings" on these iron men, to interpret them but all the while they remain silent, looking seawards - perhaps to "Another Place". Seven more pictures from the hundred I took:-

Young

Over the hills to Liverpool to see Neil Young and Crazy Horse at The Echo Arena. This was on Sunday and even though I am not fond of these cavernous new indoor arenas, it was a great concert - the first one I have seen in a long while and the first time I had ever seen Neil Young. He is sixty eight years old now and of course famous for his plaintive song writing back in the nineteen seventies. But there's another side to him. He is a consummate lead guitarist and when playing his whole being seems connected to his guitar - at one with the music. Quite rightly, he is not a performer who has ever wanted to rest on his laurels - forever replaying the songs of yesteryear. He has evolved. This was his set list for the night:-

Love and Only Love 

Goin' Home 

Days That Used to Be 

After the Gold Rush 

Love to Burn 

Separate Ways 

Don't Cry No Tears 

Blowin' in the Wind (Bob Dylan cover)

Heart of Gold 

Barstool Blues 

Psychedelic Pill 

Rockin' in the Free World 

Who's Gonna Stand Up and Save the Earth 

Encore:

Like A Hurricane

I stayed in the Travelodge by Brunswick Dock with a view across the Mersey to the Wirral Peninsula and in the morning I rose early to drive up to Crosby, specially to see Anthony Gormley's "Another Place" - but that's my next post... In the meantime here are more pictures I took at the Neil Young concert. It made me feel "young" again as I recalled the many concerts I would attend in my salad days...

Rambling

Out on the moors the other day, I followed a track which was defined by boundary stones. I believe they mark the western extremity of the metropolitan district of Sheffield though who would have sanctioned their placement I have no idea. I came across more than twenty of them in different states of repair - including the one below which was the only stone with letters carved upon it. Such lettering normally indicates ownership of moorland estates. Beyond this stone you can just make out Dale Dike Reservoir - source of The Great Sheffield Flood of 1864 and there's Boot's Folly to the right.

To the north, by a boggy area known as Running Moss, I noticed a gritstone outcrop so I made my way over there crossing several rivulets that cut through the peaty earth that blankets this landscape. The outcrop consists of several time-sculpted stones and as far as I can deduce it is unnamed. It is some distance from the nearest path or track and hard to reach - unless you happen to be a sheep.

I love places like this. To me these stones are better than manmade sculptures. They speak of the bedrock and of the centuries that have shaped them - wind and rain and frost - while empires rose and fell. These voiceless stones endure. Below, flimsy summery clouds try to imitate the solid rock shapes.

Back to the car which I had parked near Moscar House. I drove along Sugworth Road but stopped to take this shot of Boot's Folly - erected in 1927 simply to keep estate workers occupied during a time of economic depression:-

And then along Hoar Stones Road to this monument - built over a roadside spring in 1832 - in memory of a local child who drowned here. It is called the Edgefield Obelisk and it sits here in glorious isolation above Bradfield Dale.

Joni

Joni today - at seventy

One of the best albums I ever owned was "Blue" by Joni Mitchell. In fact I owned it three times over - as a vinyl disc, as a tape cassette and as a CD. And I saw Joni in concert when she was twenty five. She was more than the archetypal singer-songwriter for there was a unique and tender poignancy about her lyrics. She was a poet or maybe a poetess.

One of the tracks on "Blue" is a typically oblique song called "Little Green". Here's how the song begins:-

Joni in 1970

Born with the moon in Cancer
Choose her a name she will answer to
Call her green and the winters cannot fade her
Call her green for the children who've made her
Little green, be a gypsy dancer

He went to California
Hearing that everything's warmer there
So you write him a letter and say "Her eyes are blue"
He sends you a poem and she's lost to you
Little green he's a non-conformer

Just a little green
Like the colour when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the Northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there'll be sorrow

Only yesterday, thanks to a BBC Radio 4 programme, I discovered that this song was about a child that Joni gave up for adoption when she was nineteen and a destitute art student. She discovered she had become pregnant by her Calgary boyfriend. She said, "...he left me three months pregnant in an attic room with no money and winter coming on and only a fireplace for heat. The spindles of the banister were gap-toothed fuel for last winter's occupants.". That little girl - Kelly Dale Anderson - later to be renamed Kilauren Gibb - remained a secret throughout Joni's years of musical success but it seems that in the late nineties she finally re-established contact with this long lost daughter. And when they met in 1997, both women found their lives enriched as if discovering vital missing jigsaw pieces.

Joni Mitchell is seventy now. She has health issues - some are probably psychosomatic - and she is something of a recluse living in the Los Angeles hills in what has been described as a "Joni Mitchell museum". Always a gifted, original visual artist, she is surrounded by her art work into which she now applies most of her creative energy. Intellectually she lives on the edge, a highly strung chain smoker and combative too. It cannot be easy being Joni's daughter. It cannot be easy being the genius who is Joni Mitchell.