A Salopian in Suffolk to paints and writes herself into existence …
 |
| ‘Purse Eye Woman’ image from Pixabay.com (Creative Commons) |
Inspired by a perusal of Café Nero’s near-empty cake cabinet.
Salted caramel.
Back soon.
Sicilian lemon-meringue cake.
Back soon.
Belgian-chocolate fudge cake.
Back soon.
Belgian-chocolate brownie – warm with cream.
A winter treat.
Empty purse.
Back soon.
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, September 2018
Inspired by a portrait on display in a Prado Lounge Café Bar.
 |
|
Portrait of ‘Ageing Gentleman’ in Prado Lounge Café Bar
(artist’s name unknown to poet)
|
Tufted up.
White-winged scalp
taking off.
Immortalised.
Chest puffed up,
brown waist-coated and jacketed.
Fingers clutching – perched
birds claws,
holding on
before the
shedding
of the bulk, the weight, the flesh,
made paint.
Framed,
sent on,
and situated.
Lounged and
looking out;
currant eyes
viewing the future …
The ladies
with greying, dried-split ends –
remnants of a youth
now lived.
The wet wipes
resting on leather
lounge chairs
waiting
whilst mothers laugh,
catching up with other
mothers
stressing.
Eyes, black, pipped –
seen by a poet and
pitted.
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, September 2018
Writing myself better.
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, Sept 2018
(Inspired by an early-morning stroll along Market Hill, in Sudbury, Suffolk).
‘Obesity Britain,’ reads the stand.
Obsequious Brits, sucked in,
changing pennies for
The Daily Mail.
A daily struggle – paper fat with stories.
Obstipated paper, stuffed full with
stories to shame, to stigmatise, to solidify, to pump up, to blow up, to fatten out a
starving
Britain.
Sanity seats itself on the pavement,
props up the news seller’s stand,
plucks a string and
strums,
struggling to find a tune,
to find a melody –
a song to
coax
his skinny form into
existence.
Sanity draws up its own headline.
‘Please donate generously!’
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, Weds 12th Sept. 2018
Obesity Epidemic article in Daily Mail
(Inspired by a portrait on display at ‘Prada Lounge Café Bar, Sudbury.)
Red on white.
Orange-red perched on
porcelain-white skin.
Smooth-ceramic ice. Skin sloping
down shoulders to
deep blue.
Translucent taffeta,
wrapped around, hugging,
enclosing. Bony elbows
made soft. Melted,
merged into blue
paint. Watery colours,
dark oceans,
waves enveloping a
cold, empty
portrait.
Head, neck, shoulders,
elbows, sinking
down
to sea bed.
Sleeping.
Thinking.
Nothing.
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, September 2018
Messy head.
Self-doubts prodding in.
Remnants of reason pushing
them out.
As they persist
with prodding.
Piercing.
Prying
and
twisting.
Distorting.
Keep walking.
Stop thinking.
Keep pacing.
Paced?
Pause.
Pencil.
Pad.
Coffee.
Pit it.
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, Sept 2018
 |
| A Beautiful Redhead Who is Not as Old as Jay Cool! |
It’s a good day for the gods who, judging by the downpour, appear to be emptying out their Portaloos all over Sudbury. This is a welcome relief for one such as I, Jay Cool, a once-was-ginger book obsessive. In a heatwave, those of us with high-quality-porcelain-white skin stay indoors to avoid cracking up. But, when the gods are favouring us, out we go, or out I go.
To be fair, then I have little choice about the going out bit. Sprog 1, old enough to work, but not rich enough to drive – needs a lift to her dish-washing shift. Suspecting that my own kitchen is none too crock-free, I feel a little aggrieved at playing chauffeur. So, feeling dramatic, I fling open the kitchen door to reveal all that is within to my pleading daughter. The surfaces are clear – spattered with crumbs, yes – but without an unwashed crock in sight.
This is amazing. I really do love Sprog 1, and I tell her so. She looks a touch embarrassed, so I reassure her that, yes, it is perfectly cool and okay to wash up the crocks in one’s own house, and not just at work.
Because I am a good mother, Sprog 1 gets her lift.
Because I am a self-motivated mother, Sprog 1 gets her lift because I need a booster. A book booster!
“I know what you are up to, Mum. You’re not allowed to buy any more books! You know what Dad said about feeding the wood burner!”
My beloved Dacia delivers my firstborn to the awaiting dishwasher, the industrial-scale dishwasher that just loves to be fed and to feed.
And my beloved Dacia, who knows which way it’s own fuel is buttered, delivers me to an awaiting car parking space, a space very conveniently placed for quick access to every decent bookshop in town – the Sally Army, Oxfam and … all of the other charity shops. Why Fiona Bruce dissed Sudbury for it’s possession of such national treasures, I will never, as long as I live (even I live long enough to read every single book in my house), be able to fathom. Three hours of free parking and outstanding works of literature for as little as 20p a piece at the Sally Army. What has one got to complain about?
Oxfam.
Oxfam is a superb collection of collectable books, but it’s not so generous as to give them away to one such as I for a mere 20p.
I move on. Plenty of other venues to check out.
I’m only browsing, of course, and have absolutely no intention of purchasing.
A title-less and anonymous khaki green spine calls out to me to rescue it from its neighbours.
“I’ve been here for months, and no-one has even picked me up to look at me, just because I’m a bit green. Take me. Please take me now!”
I take the plunge.
The word-less green spine turns out to be a protective-cardboard-box sleeve, a mere Scotch pie-crust with a golden egg of a book within. The book’s cover is actually rather green (it happens if one leaves an egg to boil for too long!), and, etched into it is: a thatched cottage, a vintage car and an old man with cap and breeches smoking a pipe. A bosom-shaped hill and puffs of cotton clouds form the back-drop. Could that comely bosom be the Wrekin? Could this book be about my beloved Salopian paradise?
But, alas! The book has the title ‘In Search of England’, the author being H.V. Morton. Isn’t HV some kind of a virus? Do I have to chase this virus all around England, before I can eat the egg-yolk? I open the book to do a quick check of any risk factors. It was first published in 1927. But it’s pristine condition is due to its republication by The Folio Society in 2002. Twelve chapters to get through. And, most, not about Shropshire. I peruse the chapter summaries. Bingo!
Chapter 7. Uriconium and Shrewsbury. Didn’t cousin Wilfred Owen write a poem about Uriconium? Isn’t Uriconium the next location on my hitlist of hotspots I must visit before I reach my third age? Isn’t there a statue of my Uncle-or-Cousin-Something-or-other, Sir Robert Clive, bang in the middle of Shrewsbury’s town centre?
And the price tag?
Not 20p!
£5.00. A rip off!
I buy it.
Forget Café Nero and it’s lovely café latte! Don’t even think about Costa Coffee with it’s little-finger sized chocolate muffins!
Home.
Book.
Read.
Chapter 7.
‘My first impression of Gloucester ….’
What? I have to wait awhile before we get to Shrewsbury? Get with it, H.V.!
‘…was that of a city full of small, comely maidens between the fortunate ages of fifteen and twenty-five. In the evening they wear flowered voile – the material favoured by the taller maidens of Botticelli – and they walk up and down Northgate and Southgate Streets with the cathedral bells as a sweet accompaniment to their perambulations. Some of these small maidens are pretty; others, thanks to wise Nature’s law of compensation, have beautiful legs.’ (p.174)
Cracking up, I find that I can read no further. Who really authored this book? Was it Donald Trump? Boris Johnson? Or could people actually just say out loud the first thoughts that came into their heads back then, without fear of making headline news in the next day’s edition of ‘The Daily Mail’? Okay, so the language is sexist, and ridiculous, and not in the slightest bit P.C. But, this author was clearly ahead of his time. Like Trump the Twit, H.V. – Travel Writer Extraordinaire 1927 – was in no way limited by national boundaries. H.V. was the first viral globetrotter!
But before I take any seat on an aeroplane next to this charmer, I’m heading across the border from Gloucestershire into Shropshire …
… unaccompanied!
P.S. But, before, I do – take a look at this leg, ladies! And this whole calf was snapped up by my Motorola, right here – in Suffolk! Why travel, when one can go local?
 |
| Correctly identify the owner of this leg, and you will be rewarded with free entry to a Suffolk Punch Comedy Club gig. Best guesses can be tweeted to SuffolkPunchComedy@SuffolkComedy. Get tweeting! |
Bibliography
Morton, H.V., ‘In Search of England’ (Methuen, 127; The Folio Society, 2002).
Photographs
‘Tattoed Leg’ by Jay Cool
‘Redhead with Umbrella’ courtesy of flickr.com (licensed for non-commercial re-use)
Telford.
 |
| Telford Shopping Centre (1) |
Tesco at Telford.
Telford’s hotspot.
The coffee’s okay, I suppose, but all in all, being at Tesco in Telford, is pretty much the same experience as being at Tesco in Colchester, or Tesco in Bury St Edmunds, or Tesco in Ipswich.
 |
|
Okay, so this photo was taken at Tiverton by Martin Bodman but, like I said –
it’s pretty much the same as all the others!
|
Tesco is Tesco, whether it be in on of the Shires or in East Anglia. And the coffee is strangely reminiscent of Costa Coffee’s coffee. This, I conclude, is very likely because Tesco decided it didn’t like the ‘riff-raff’ previously drawn into its premises by its own catering service – with its nothing-wrong-with-cheap sausage and baked beans, complete with mug of tea, and even bread and butter meal deal – and decided to substitute the whole for one single insy-winsy cup of Costa’s choke-on-it-yourselves coffee.
Well, I will have you know, Lord and Lady Tesco, that I, Jay Cool, am far from being one of the hoi polloi. Myself and my entourage are all descendants of Lady Elizabeth Grey of Myddle Castle c. 1440-1501 (my 16th Great Grandmother), Sir Thomas Hopton c.1402-1445 of Hopton Castle (my 15th Great Grandfather), Lady Eleanor Cobham c.1400-1452 of the Palace of Placentia (my 18th Great Grandmother), and every other specimen of regality back to William the Conqueror c. 1027-1087 (my 28th Great Grandfather). And, if that’s of no significance to you, then I even have a few drops of Viking DNA thrown into the mix. I’m a ginger, I’m hot-headed, impulsive and I’m very, very angry! Plus, I have just a little bit of an axe to grind, on behalf of my Grandmother Eleanor, who was convicted of witchcraft.
 |
|
Eleanor Cobham and her husband, Humphrey Plantagenet
(wikipedia, Creative Commons Licensed).
|
Bring back the cheap stuff, Tesco, before I conjure up the sorceress within! This Costa stuff breaks the bank of lost inheritance and it tastes bitter!
On the positive side, though, Tesco does always have a good two for seven quid book deal – and it’s the same deal everywhere you go, that’s assuming that everywhere has a Tesco store, which everywhere does! I leave the sprogs hassling their grandmother for a extortionately-priced bag of teeny-tiny chocolate muffins, whilst I drift over to the book aisle, under the pretext of stocking up on Coco-Pops.
I return, complete with Coco-Pops, two boxes and a number of bargain paperbacks bagged up in between.
“Got the Coco-Pops!”
“And how many books?” asks Sprog 2.
“None – I wouldn’t waste my money!”
“Pass the bag over; I want to see the Coco Pops!”
I’m about to give in and let my cover be blown, when Mother Cool comes to the rescue.
“I’m tired. It’s been a long day! Think your Uncle Dan, and I, will head back to your cousin Ned’s place now!”
What? A long day? But we’ve only just got here. I’ve only bought four books, and Telford’s sure to have …
But, I don’t really say any of this, because the Mother is already up and on her way, and Uncle Dan, being her chauffeur for the week, has no other choice but to follow. They toddle off, with promises about meeting up on another day.
“What now?” I ask the Coco Pops.
“Shops!” proclaims Sprog 2.
But, it’s nearly five o’clock, far too late for any further retail therapy, and I’ve got my doubts about how much the new town of Telford will have to offer an obsessive book collector and grave digger.
“Back to Myddle?”
“But, I thought you wanted to visit Dawley?” queries Hubby.
“Yes, I do, but, it’s five o’clock and Dawley’s very likely miles away from here!”
“This is Dawley!”
“This is Tesco. And Tesco, this Tesco, is in Telford!”
“Correct. But, Dawley no longer exists. I looked it up on Google maps last night, and Dawley, or what was Dawley, has been subsumed by Telford. Dawley is but a blob of food and Telford is the Pacman who gobbled it up!”
 |
| A ClipArt image by Peter Brough, labelled Creative Commons. |
“But …”
Truly, I am gutted. I spent hours, days and weeks researching the surnames: Bailey, Watkiss, Morris, Dodd, Brown, Bailey and Webb, names on both sides of my family tree, names that all seem to have graced the streets of Dawley with their existence, and what for? Was it all for nothing? Have the haunts of my ancestors been literally wiped off the map, and bulldozed into oblivion by a gang of Dawley deniers?
“It’s okay. We can look out for any signs of it on our way back through the fringes of Telford!”
Slowly, I start to recover. Mother Cool has given up on us, but the day is still young. Dawley. Here comes your descendant, Jay Cool. And I’m on a mission. I’m going to put Dawley back on the map. I’m going to bring it back from the dead, before it suffers from the further expansion of Pacman Telford‘s stomach. A visit from one such as I, must surely be worth, at the minimum, a ‘Jay Cool, the Silly-Savvy Salopian, once walked on this pavement during a sodden wet day in April 2018!’ plaque! Mustn’t it?
“Seeing as the shops are closed, we are going back to The Lodge now, aren’t we Mum?”
“Yes, Sprogs! Yes, of course we’re heading in that direction! Jump in the Dacia!”
Start. Stutter. Stall. Start. Stutter. Stall. St ….
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, April 2018
Who is Jay Cool, the so called Silly-Savvy Salopian?
(1) It is unlikely to have escaped the reader’s notice, that the photograph of Telford Shopping Centre was taken by another. So, why didn’t I bother to go there myself, I ask you to ask? Well, 1) It was late afternoon by the time we reached Telford, and 2) My last visit to the very same shopping centre was traumatic. At the age of perhaps nine, or thereabouts, my parents, along with Uncle Dan and my late Auntie Petunia, treated me to a trip to Telford. Finding the shopping rather limited, when one had to wait outside Tesco (Yes, there is another Tesco in Telford – one of the four!), for a very long time waiting for Father Cool to finish deciding which packet of frozen peas to purchase, I entered another world. My world. Jay Cool’s world. On awakening from my other world, I figured that I had probably missed the parents and the add-on Cools, as they must have left Tesco some time ago. I trundled off to the car park to look for them, imagining them to be seated in their cars and being very angry. There was a barrier of ribbons in my way. I guessed it was there awaiting for me to break it, in the same way that any royal visitor would be invited to cut the red ribbon, at the opening of a new facility. I obliged. On barging through the ribbon, I ran pit-pat across the concrete to seek out my awaiting elders.
A loud shout cut through my brain membrane, “YOU LITTLE B*****!”
Being polite, I momentarily glanced back to see what all the fuss was about. Some poor kid was getting it bad from her parents! I was more than shocked to witness a large, burly workman shaking one fist at me, whilst pointing at the concrete with the other. I followed his point. And, then I got his point. I had left a rather beautiful Clark’s shoe-shaped footprint in his newly-laid wet concrete. I recognised the moment for what it was, and moved on. Quickly. On finding my parents’ car parentless, rather than seek them out, I hid behind it.
You will understand, now, the source of my trauma and forgive me for not revisiting the scene of my crime. One day, though, not so far in the future, if that footprint is still there – a plaque will be mounted next to it: ‘Jay Cool, Blogger Extraordinaire, once trod here!’
Until then, I’m staying clear.
Stall. Sigh. Stop. My carriage makes it back – just!
With the third sprog now delivered to her safe and snug school, it’s mum time. Time to chill.
A Lenovo laptop? Ancestry.com?
But, before I’ve even entered my sacred password, I recall that, although child-free, I am still on mum-duty. I have a sprog request to complete – a parcel to collect from the Sorting Office. Most likely you are thinking that’s not so bad, that it will involve a pleasant stroll into town, a five-minute nip into the Post Office, followed by some real me time shopping for charity-shop bargains (books, books and more books).
But … in today’s world of cost-saving impracticalities, it would be far too easy to locate the Sorting Office on the same premises, or even in the same locality, as the Post Office!
This unfortunate geographical situation, may be as well. When any kind of an expense is an expense too much for our national-wants-be-privatised Post Office, setting up any kind of an interaction with a PO staff member can be a full-on challenge.
Take the last time I needed some stamps.
********************************************************************************
Having a need for stamps is rare in itself, at a time when even our old folk (and some of us middlers), have got to grips with email. But, really, one would think that, on the basis of a long-standing cultural practice, the whole procedure of buying a book of stamps would be simple and pain-free.
Think again.
On arrival at my destination, I found, not a Post Office, but an abandoned building. Not only was it abandoned, but it was also forlorn. It’s only purpose seemingly being to hold up a badly-punctuated poster, redirecting it’s dejected customers to WHSmith. Again, not so bad – WHSmith sells books, doesn’t it?
Correction.
WHSmith did once did sell an unrestrictive, handle-me-as-much-as-you-like selection of books. But, not so any longer! I arrived at my new (never trust a walker’s SatNav!) destination to find that the History selection had been so seriously culled, that it was pretty much non-existent. Going for a change of tactic, I sought out my second-favourite section, the Travel category, only to find…
Queues of couldn’t-care-less-about-books people, standing with bums and tums, wedged up against the travel books and chatting about how slow the Post Office staff were (and still are) in dealing with the jam. Forget your grumbling, I wanted to grumble Just shift yourselves away from the shelves so that I can get a feel of my old pal, Bill Bryson. With the adventures he’s been on, within and beyond, I was guessing he was still pretty active in certain departments.
I didn’t, of course, say any of that. Instead, I joined in with the grumbling, before abandoning the queue challenge, giving up on old Bryson, and taking myself off to an alternative venue – the Card Shop – for my stamps.
*********************************************************************************
Collecting a parcel, then, is, by comparison, going be a doddle. So, get ready to chill!
How stupid am I?
It turns out that collecting a parcel is the kind of challenge that makes it onto reality TV, with shows such as ‘Total Wipeout’ and ‘Ninja Warrior’. To succeed on such a mission, a resident of Sudbury, has to, at first, tackle and overcome all of the eyesores, emissions and rumblings, that are part and parcel of a suburban-industrial estate.
To collect one’s gold medal, one has to, at first, tackle Chilton.
Resigned, I step out.
I exit my boxed-up and boxed-in suburban dwelling, playing dodgems as I tackle the five ways roundabout.
My feet take the second exit.
Arrival.
The view is grim in its greyness, the air (in spite of the deceptive wish-upon-a-dandelion-blue sky) is as foul as a dog’s rancid breath (possibly something to do with the proximity of Nestle’s pet food factory), and the road is …………………………………long.
On realising that my dimmed vision may have something to do with my grey-tinted bifocals, I remove the beasts. The experience is akin to removing the surface layer of a Gainsborough painting with industrial paint stripper. Grey-winter fog gives way to red-hot sun glare.
Wow!
I can see clearly now. Chilton. Sudbury’s industrial hotspot. Chilton is where it’s all happening. And to think that the visiting TV celebrity, Fiona Bruce ,made headlines with her unflattering descriptions of a ‘forlorn’ Sudbury’! In her perusals of the town centre, did she even bother to even look up from the valley floor? Did she scale the walls of the ravine to take a peek over the top?
Not only is this hot-sunny scene rich in Tate Modern colour, with royal blue, dove grey, crimson red, pearl white and moss green (and not only is it above and beyond the capabilities of Thomas Gainsborough, with his palettes of turgid-brown depression), but it also conjures up images of cool comforts and the hot bod of George Clarke. Imagine, setting up a small home inside one of these sturdy storage containers – far more solid than the built-in-a-day home, currently propped up by my Lenovo laptop!
Inspired, I journey on. The Sorting Office, knowing of my fondness for Monet’s ‘Field of Poppies’, tries to coax me in with its lucid-red paint. But, instead, my eyes, obedient as ever, follow in the direction of an arrow. ‘Public Footpath’ – this way!
And I’m immediately transported from bold cubist experiments and not-sure-if-I’m-in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time impressionistic blurs, to the climb-me-if-you-dare edges of Saint Mary’s Church.
Norman-arched windows in the West Tower, flanked by steep stairwells, force my gaze up and beyond into heaven. But, like Brucie, I’m absent of harness and helmet, and I’ve no head for heights.
The Motorola comes out (far, far cheaper than an iPhone!), and I snap away. I feel as happy and as alive as the souls that surround me are sullen.
I’m chilled and I’m in Chilton and I’m all ….
Well, I figure that I’ve failed on that first point, so I consider the other tips: ‘Concentrate on the scenery, history and THE CHARACTERS you meet.’ I reckon that I’ve got a combined brownie point for the scenery and the history, with my graveyard explorations. Hence, I’m going upmarket with the characters. Time to check out the locals …
No threat to a middle-aged genie.
I kneel down at his side, rub my arthritic feet, and I make my silent wish. (First prize in the Writer’s Forum Flash comp?)
This is Jay Cool, Tourist Trail extraordinaire, chilled out in Chilton.
Do I ‘ramble’?
Copyright of text and photographs owned by Jay Cool, July 2018
Postscript: Needless to say, I did not win the Writer’s Forum Flash comp with my masterpiece. But, such a loss, is my gain, as on the plus side, it meant that I could put back in all the words I deleted in the futile attempt I made to put the stoppers on my ramblings. And it also means that I can share with you, my valued readers (lots of ‘view’ clicks made by myself on Google’s Blogger), the rest of my photo album.
As you can see, my new guy has a fine set of toes to match his beautiful Norman nose. And I would like to say that they’re not as stinky as men’s toes are generally, probably because he has a beast at his feet for the purpose of licking them clean – an ancient practice that most likely died a death at the advent of the power shower.
And of some of the most eye-catching valuables to be found on my journey back to my Lenovo laptop:
Who needs a second run through an industrial estate, when one can take a short-cut across the fields of Chilton’s farmland?
Chill time in Chilton.
Time alone with my lover – Ancestry.com, here I am!
At this point, I realise my error. I have failed to make my mark with the easiest of mum-duties possible.
I still have a parcel to collect …..
Copyright of text and photographs owned by Jay Cool, July 2018
The Gods are urinating (1) this morning, and the sprogs are engrossed in YouTube. A day indoors at The Red Lion’s Lodge?
This isn’t really so bad.
The luxury leather sofas are more comfortable, by far, than my cheap and many-year’s old Homebase efforts back in Suffolk. I pick up some reading material, force the sprogs to shuffle along, and attempt to zone out from the excitable voices of Pokémon gamers and Barbie doll house builders.
I flick through a tourist pack containing details of local walks, and consider pulling over the cow-skin pouffe, to rest my weary feet a while – but the voice of Richard Gough destroys the moment:
Prise yourself off that sofa! It might be a bit wet outside, but I didn’t painstakingly detail every single cottage, grand hall and farm in Myddle, for bits of my DNA to live on and then to do nothing! Get your genes on out of there!
Gough does have point, I guess, but I did the Gough walk experience on my last visit, and there’s no way Sprog 2 will be up for a tramp through a load of squelchy quagmires! Memories flood back of a slightly smaller and younger Sprog 2, objecting to the feel of scratchy long grass on his bare legs, and settling himself down for the duration in the middle of one of Farmer Evans’ (2) fields.
Any normal mother might at that point have attempted to shift their child. But, it’s no easy feat to offer an almost-teenage lump a piggy back through miles of farmland, so I considered my options:
1) Give him a piggy back anyway and put up with the ensuing back pains and knee strain on the basis that the short-term gain in tonnage would be a quick win for shedding my belly flab.
2) Leave him in the middle of the field and report to Farmer Evans to claim payment for my Sprog’s usefulness as a thunder-farting scarecrow.
3) Go for a compromise, move on with Sprog 2, and park our own butts, out of sight in the next field.
After opting for 3, our rest was short-lived. No sooner had we placed ourselves in situ to do a study of the Salopian field mice, than Sprog 3 decided to make a reappearance.
No, there’s no way I’ll ever persuade him to …
‘Right, off your bums, everyone! We’re going out!’
‘In minute, when I’ve …’
‘And we’re going out NOW!’
Two hours later, we exit The Lodge. None of us can face a trek across boggy fields, so we take to the road. On foot.
Hence, I’m more than put out to find that Scoggan’s hole, the cave I trekked across fields and high-jumped over electric fences to find, on my last visit to Myddle (3), is only just up the road a bit and round the corner! Little did Sprog 2 realise that he faced his worst fears – of an itchy grass attack – needlessly. All the time, Scoggan was just …
‘Mum?’
Spurred on by a sudden loss of hearing, I march on up the tarmacked road.
‘MUM?’
‘Er …. yes?’
‘Isn’t that that cave we saw last time, the one that we …’
Hearing loss.
‘MUM, MUM, MUM!!!???’
Complete hearing loss.
Oh.
‘So, where’s this Scoggan’s cave that you kept going on about?’
Advice. If you decide to go on holiday without your other half on the one occasion, but take him with you on a return visit, prime him first. Make sure that he knows what is and what is not an acceptable question to ask, when you revisit the old haunts.
‘That’s it!’ shouts Sprog 2. ‘It’s right there, fenced in at the back of that garden next to us! And, last time, she made us walk for miles to get here! MUM?’
I leave Hubby to investigate Scoggan’s hole, and make a run for it ……..
The strain across the back of my middle-aged knees is horrendous. When making a run for it, it’s probably best to keep on the flat, rather than to go jogging on uphill past a sign that very clearly states ‘Danger – steep drops ahead!’ Still, there’s no chance of a quick disappearance by descent over a cliff edge because, I only advance about five metres before I have to pause for a long pit-stop. I regain my balance and posture by bracing my hands behind my back and lurching forward, before making a further advance. Slowly does it. Stop. Reposition. Advance. Stop. Reposition. Advance. Stop.
I reach the top and look back. Was my journey by foot any better than a trip out via my Dacia Sandero? For the first time, I start to feel some empathy with my poor wee car. It can hardly help it if it starts, stutters and stalls all of the time. Really, it can lay all of the blame for it’s feeble state of physical fitness at the foot of it’s mistress.
Hoping that my brakes are in sound working order, I peer over the precipice. Something clicks into place and it’s not either of my knees. I’m overlooking the vast pit of an old quarry. In my head, I click through the Censuses, on Ancestry.com, until I’m back in Myddle in 1851. Didn’t Great-Great Grandfather, Joe Cool, live at some number-or-other ‘Near the Quarry’? And wasn’t he a stonemason and quarry man? Is this where he lived and worked? In a pit, widowed, responsible for five children and a niece, and for bringing in enough money to keep everyone alive? How did he get by from day to day? Did he actually live in a house, or just some kind of make-shift shack nestled up against the quarry walls? Fired up by my profound, Am I standing in the very spot he lived in? thought, I turn detective.
Forgetting all about the warning sign, I edge my way down into the quarry.
Turns out, the descent is a more than dodgy for one such as I, with my arthritic toes and gammy knees (nothing to do with my doomed-to-failure childhood ballerina ambitions), so I make use of my derriere and slide down the refreshingly soggy carpets of leaves on my padded parts.
Plonk down, prise up, phut, phut, phut. Plonk down, prise up, phut, phut, phut. Plonk down, prise up, phut, phut, phut. Final phut. Peruse.
It’s all very orange, brown and kind of dead down here. But, pushing such thoughts aside, instead I see:
Unfortunately, I haven’t inherited my maternal Great-Something-Grandmother’s gifts for spiritualism, and none of the ghosts I attempt to conjure up actually materialise. Instead, I hunt around for some evidence to support my hallucinations.
I find several holes in the quarry walls, that look like they once held the beams of wooden structures, the beams that held up the draughty shells of quarry worker’s make-do abodes – holes that sucked up the smile of my Great-Something-Aunt Cool, as she found herself tending her flock of four young siblings and a niece, following the early death of my Great-Great-Grandmother Cool.
“Mum! Mum! MUM! Where are you?”
“Down here!”
“Down where?”
“Here!”
“You mean, up there?”
I look down from a room-sized platform, dug into the quarry wall, which sucked me up via it’s beam holes.
The sprogs are standing down below, looking up at me. At last, I have a stage of my own, complete with audience for trying out one of my gags on. I launch into my ‘Ancient Teacher’s’ song (5).
“SHUT UP! You’ve got poo all over your trousers and we want to back to The Lodge!”
“But, this is a lodge. This is where Great-Great ….”
“SHUT UP!”
“The thing is – that I’m not sure how to get back down from here. Any ideas?”
“Jump!”
I jump. My toes protest.
“And the other thing is, how do we get back up there?” I point up to the cliff top, at the edge of which is a small pin-man hovering. Hubby.
I do what I am told and, much to my disgust, find that the route by which I am taken is an easy ascent of gentle slopes. Much longer than the route by which I descended, granted, but by far and away the most sensible of the options. Sprogs, never do as the mother does, and always – always – take heed of yourselves!
And the view from the top, now that I’m no longer on the run, seems worth all the effort, when I find myself looking down upon the rooftop of a still-inhabited cave house.
Could this be the very same ‘House in the Rock’, built against the ‘chilly and damp’ quarried rock face, once dwelt in by Jessie King, the little girl with the plaited yellow hair, who had ‘bacon’ stitched ‘inside her chemise’ and ‘across her chest to protect her from the cold’? Is this the house written about by cousin Helen Ebrey (6) in her bestseller?
Showered and free of the brown stuff, I settle back down where the day started, my backside comfortably ensconced in an accommodating leather sofa. What was it really like to be a quarry-man’s child? Perhaps Google can help. I open my laptop.
“Mum! Close that laptop! We want to go shopping!”
On a wet day, what else can one do, but resign oneself to afternoon tea at Tesco?
I pick up my Motorola and, after a half-hour wait whilst it decides whether it wants to be kicked into action or not, I arrange to meet Uncle Cool and his guest, my Mother, at Telford’s hotspot.
The Quarry Man can wait. An almost dead memory of a song comes into my head and I launch into my second doomed performance of the day:
“Don’t meet the Quarry Man!” in my best Richard de Burgh voice.
“SHUT UP!”
“If you are going to sing, at least get the words right!” advises my very helpful (if somewhat pedantic) Hubby. “That song’s about a Ferry Man!”
I process the tip, and realise that he is right. As always.
“DON’T MEET THE QUARRY MAN!”
“SHUT UP!”
(1) In Roman times, Gods were believed to have the same essential requirements as us mere mortals but, being a rule unto themselves, thought it was okay to urinate at any time and in any place they fancied. And it appears, judging by today’s miserable weather, that the inventions of Thomas Brightfield, Sir John Harington, and Thomas Crapper, as they attempted to make their marks on the timeline of progress with regards to privacy and the flushing toilet, were completely lost on those above. At this point, excuse me, whilst I make a quick request to Cloacena, the goddess of the common sewer. ‘Please, dear Cloacena, consider the River Severn to be the sewer, and allow it to overflow enough to make it to Myddle, so that the ensuing waters will flush away the odours of Crepitus, the god of convenience. Amen.
(3) Read all about my first visit to Scoggan’s cave!
(2) I have, of course, got no idea of the name of the actual farmer, but thought I’d plug the author Roger Evans’, diaries about his life as a Shropshire farmer. In return, Farmer Evans, I must insist that you promote my blog posts! The Salopian family supports it’s own, and I have lots of incidences of the surname Evans in my family tree; that, and the fact that we are both writers of wit and genius, should be enough of a coupling to bring in dosh a plenty to feed the souls of every single one of the 48823 relatives currently residing on my family tree!
(4) A plug for Roger Evans’ Great-Something-Grandmother!
(5) Jay Cool practising for a Britain’s Got Talent audition!
The Silly-Savvy Salopian in Suffolk: read, believe and write ... 