Happy, Happy Talk!

Saturday. 6.20 a.m. If you read my blog posts regularly, then you would know that I have been attempting to find someone to look after Alfie when I visit my daughter and grandchildren in Worcester, because Alfie doesn't get on well and makes a lot of noise. There has been a bit of a cul de sac as regards one attempt, but now it seems I have found someone who can look after him, who has dogs. I suddenly had a brainwave. I had the idea that someone at Dexter House might be able to help if I were to go to Worcester and leave Alfie in the flat, but to have someone go in and feed him and take him out several times a day. I thought of Dave, who is a neighbour. I met him when I was about to go somewhere in my car, as he parks his car next to mine. He told me it might be difficult for him to look after Alfie, but his sister might. She loves dogs and has a small one herself, so Alfie would possibly fit in and settle if I left him for a long weekend.

Sunday. 5.50 a.m. It took quite a while to wake up properly this morning, which meant it was somewhat difficult to focus so that I could take Alfie out. He was wide awake and barking loudly, which is why I had the lounge door firmly closed whilst I got myself organized, dressed and ready to go out. It is a mild but somewhat overcast morning. We are being told that for the next couple of weeks we can expect another heatwave. I just hope it's not going to be as hot as it was a few weeks ago. My digital thermometer currently reads 71ºF.

12.50 p.m. There was no church this morning, but there was a picnic at Furzton Lake, but I decided not to go. I had intended to watch the M.K.C.C. service via YouTube, but, having got it all set up through my Fire Stick, it just buffered, so unfortunately I gave up. It just froze, which made it impossible to watch. I've been reading, more of 'Modernity Britain', David Kynaston's book on the later '50s and early 1960s. Very informative, particularly as I can remember vaguely some of the details, as I would have been around 10-11 during that period. He mentions the opening of the Lionel Bart musical, 'Oliver!' which opened at the then, New, Theatre, (Now, I believe, called the Gielgud Theatre. I was at Rushmoor School in Bedford, and we were taken up to London by the English Teacher to see the show. I was very much inspired by it, and it would have been my first experience of a West End musical.  It must have been quite radical in some ways, because the book on which it's based is quite dark in places, think the murder of Nancy by Bill Sykes. The set, designed by Shaun Kenny was very distinctive, imaginative and probably unlike anything a West End audience would have seen up until that point in time. I think it must have coincided with the marriage of Princess Margaret to Lord Snowdon. If I remember correctly, we saw decorations in the street which must have been for this momentous occasion, but, at such a young age, it might not have meant much to me. I do recall going to a Lyon's corner house, of which there were many, not just in London, but in all the major towns and cities throughout Britain at the time, but, now, long since closed. I think this branch was somewhere in the vicinity of the Houses of Parliament. We were all allowed to order whatever we wanted, and one boy being very bold and having a Knickerbocker glory, one of those sweet concoctions, created in a long, stemmed glass, and consisting of brightly coloured jelly, in layers, with fruit cocktail and topped with whipped cream and that completed by a glacé cherry. Very pretentious. Which is probably why I remember it, some 60-plus years later. It must have been that school trip to London, where we were waiting on an Underground station platform, and a train came in, and everyone got on it but it turned out to be the wrong train, so we all had to get on, otherwise some of the group would have gone without us. I don't know how it turned out, but no doubt we had to go back to the same station and start again, getting on the correct train.  The following year we were taken to see 'Pickwick', another musical based on a Charles Dickens novel. It starred Harry Secombe, but it didn't have the same impact or long West End run as 'Oliver!' had. That show was staged at the Scala Theatre in Shaftsbury Avenue, but now converted into a cinema.

I am gradually returning the stuff which was removed from the kitchen units before the refurbishment was started. I just want things back as more or less what they were before the work began. I have lugged two large plastic boxes which have been parked in the bedroom. More or less all the stuff under the sink is back, and I find quite a lot of stuff is duplicated, such as furniture polish. A lot needs throwing away. I have found a really great-looking unit on Amazon which would be ideal to take my HP printer. If I get it, the printer can be moved from the IKEA unit where it lives at present. It comes with wheels and can be pushed around and has space underneath to store printer-related stuff like paper and ink cartridges and even has a handy drawer.

Good and Bad Characters

 How is it that so many good characters, in literature and films, and probably in other works such as stage plays, are so dull? Just think of the princesses in Disney animation, such as Snowhite, just so flat and two- dimensional. On the other hand, the villains are generally far more interesting and complex and make more interesting characters, which, although we know they are evil in most cases, we tend to root for them and cheer for them usually. Think of Abanazer, the wicked character in the 'Aladdin' pantomime, or the Ugly Sisters in 'Cinderella,' they are more fleshed out than the flat and rather dull central characters of Aladdin and Cinderella. In Dickens, so many of his central characters seem rather uninteresting. Think of Oliver in Oliver Twist. He's at the centre of the story, things happen to him, but he never initiates anything. Similarly, with David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby. These characters don't appear to have any effect on what happens to them, it's the characters who revolve around them who do all the work of moving things forward. In that respect, they are somewhat helpless. It appears that they can't change the course of their lives or their story journey. At the heart of a good story, there should be a journey in the sense that the lead character changes during the course of the story, so by the conclusion they have learned something and in that respect, changed.

In any form of storytelling, you have to have some sort of conflict, otherwise, your story can become flat and routine. The main protagonist needs a character to work against, so a good villain should be the character who creates this conflict. It's rather like sandpaper. It takes off the rough edges, shapes the protagonist. If he/she can overcome their problems, then they will grow and by the end of their journey through their story, they will have learned something.

Some cliches are used whenever the author wants to make sure the reader 'gets' whether a character is either good or bad. Used a great deal in television drama. Think EastEnders or Coronation street or one hundred and one Hollywood blockbusters. Colour is often used, as regards clothing. Dark is usually associated with 'bad.' (For years in television westerns from what I remember from being a child.) The villain almost always wore a dark shirt or jacket. The goodies usually wore light-colored clothing.  Think Dark Vader in the Star Wars films. He's black. You can't see his face (generally, if you can't see a character's face, either because he wears a mask (as Vader does.) or dark glasses, usually highly reflective, he's the bad guy. 

Disney has recently been raiding their back catalogue to reinvent some of their villains, such as Maleficent, who is the bad fairy who didn't get invited to the princesses Christening in the 1950's animation, 'Sleeping Beauty' and given her own film, starring Angelina Jolie. More recently they have given Cruella De Vil, the villain who wants to make dalmation puppies' coats into her own fashion accessory, namely, her own coat, in the 1961 animation classic '101 Dalmations' and the 1996 live-action remake. It's as if they are trying to give these characters a reason to be the way they are. Backstories or 'origins' stories. Disney is busily remaking all their classic animation movies, 'Beauty and The Beast,' 'Cinderella', 'Jungle Book', 'The Lion King' etc etc. Really for no better reason than they have the technology to make them using such things as three-dimensional computer animation. Not actually an improvement on the original and, frankly, a lazy way to create films.

Some, what I would call 'classic' villains in some of the classic fiction have been weakened by being portrayed as comic in such shows as 'Oliver!' and 'Les Miserables.' Fagin, the pickpocket gang leader, is made out to be a comic character in the musical when he's anything but comic in the novel on which it is based. He's far more evil and contemptible than the portrayal in the stage and film adaptation. The same can be said of Thenardier and his wife in 'Les Miserables' where they are sort of knock-about characters, but with a villainous streak. Perhaps this watering down of these characters is to make these shows more palatable for family audiences.

Why do so many villains in fiction have sidekicks who are often portrayed as bumbling idiots? The two henchmen of Cruella De Vil in the original novel by Dodie Smith and then the Disney versions of 'The 101 Dalmations' are shown to be totally inept. In some ways this is just for comic effect, but why on earth would someone employ such totally incompetent?

So, to wind up. I think I have managed to give fairly good summation of why and how so many dull characters, usually the central protagonists in some stories are so dull, compared to the more rounded and complete characters of the villains. We, as the audience, tend to want to root for those characters rather than the limp central characters.

Unexpected at Camphill

I've mentioned in an earlier post that Teo, who oversees the Drama Workshop at Camphill was going on holiday for three weeks and that he had set up and alternative project for us to work on, run by Paul, who is his assistant. Three films, which were selected by the residents, 'Oliver!', 'The Sound of Music', and 'Monty Python: and Now For Something Completely Different,' and how the residents had to devise improvisations based on these films. Unfortunately there had been complete breakdown in communication, because no sooner had we done the regular check-in (whereby each resident, co-worker or volunteer is allowed to say how they were feeling before the day began.) than we got a message to say that we were to have visitors from a school with their pupils coming to try out the drama workshop. It put the whole group into a bit of a panic because it meant finding something to occupy both the regulars and the students from this school, the Walnut School. We were supposed to rehearse 'Stranger Danger,' but with some of the cast missing, it wouldn't be worthwhile, although did set up things and when the group from Walnut School eventually arrived we did a truncated version of he play, with one central scene missing and later showed them the video of the play. I was surprised how different the show is since they made the video over a year ago (well before I went to work as a volunteer at Camphill.) The whole play is far better since it's been converted into a 'live' show and the actors put far more effort into thins and it somehow has more depth. It was interesting to see how the pupils who visited reacted to both the play and the video and feedback was worth listening to.

After tea we were involved in the parachute games. I had no idea what this was, until a large multi-coloured material shape was bought into the hall. It had handles sown onto it and we all had to hold this large 'parachute' shape up off he ground and by pulling it taut keep it off the floor. The first game was called 'Sharks.' The idea being that someone started off by running under the parachute and keeping their hand up to represent the shark's dorsal fin and when they reached the other side they touched another person and they had to take over and move to another person holding up the parachute. All the while everyone else holding onto the parachute had to keep it moving as it if was the sea. Then, a game where a load of coloured balls was thrown onto the taut parachute and when it was shaken, the balls are bounced off and we had to count how many were picked up. Another game was with two large balls, about the size of footballs, were placed on the taut parachute and it was timed to see how long it took to get the balls off the parachute, this was also done with all the coloured balls. Quite exhausting, but a lot of fun and a good way to get everyone involved and also good exercise!

After lunch we watched the beginning of Oliver!, which was projected on to the large cinema-sized screen in the Chrysalis Theatre. I haven't seen the film in a long time. I was taken to see the original London production of Oliver! when I was at school, in the early 1960's and I saw the film of Oliver! when I went to London for an interview at RADA to go on a stage management course in around 1968 (I didn't get selected.) I can't believe the film had an overture, which lasts a good 10 minutes! I don't recall the film ever having an overture, unless when I originally saw it I walked into the cinema after the overture. Also, the long list of credits shown before the film, which lasts around 5 minutes. Modern films never have credits BEFORE the film starts. I don't think modern audiences would tolerate such a thing. I do recall  film of 'My Fair Lady' having an intermission. From watching this, it will be interesting to see what sort of improvisation we come up with. Next week we will watch some more of Oliver! But we have two more films to watch, so if we watch around 30 minutes of each film each week it will take some time to view all of each film.

At around 3.20 we stopped watching the film because it was Pancake Day! We went outside onto the area infant of the offices at Camphill because pancake races were arranged. A course was cleared along the road which lead out of the campus. One of the guys from the drama workshop, Matthew, held the tape at the end of the course. The starting line was outside the offices. There were several heats (I didn't join in. I don't think I was 100% fit at that time of day.) Then the winner of each heat went on to the next heat until a winner was awarded a certificate as well as 2nd and 3rd. It was a good event. I rather like the community spirit of Camphill. Everyone is appreciated. No-one is left out, regardless of their disability. The staff are brilliant. The residents support one another. It's a totally great place to work. People come from all over the world to work in the various Camphill communities, not just in Milton Keynes. It really is great to be part of it all!

More School Memories

The Rushmoor School playing fields were on top of a hill (where now Bedford Modern School stands. It was moved there from the centre of Bedford in the 1970's. That old building was converted into the  Harpur and Howard Shopping Centre.) This didn't exactly help my interest or otherwise in cricket or football as to get there you had to trudge around two miles and then up a very muddy path and then stand around in all weathers, usually a howling gale, in rain and snow. So, you can see my dislike of the whole process which dwindled considerably as those winter afternoons dragged on and on, and then  having to drag oneself back to the school in Shakespeare Road and change back into your clothes in a crowded changing room.  I seemed to suffer really badly from the cold, not entirely helped by lashing rain and howling gales. I think the master in charge of sport seemed to relish the thought that he had some sort of control over us and to make you stand and shiver in the cold was some sort of control over us all. Probably there were those who enjoyed the torture, but it was supposedly meant to make 'men of us' but I don't for one moment think so. Why on earth they couldn't build a changing room on the side of the playing field I will never know. I think there was some sort of pavilion there, more like an over-sized garden shed, and even then it didn't contain facilities for changing or even toilets. Such are the future men of this country 'made' as they say, not on the 'playing fields of Eaton' as someone or other said, or was it, the 'battles' or something, by some brave future prime minister or some such person. Was it Churchill? I don't know whether he said that, or a variation of it, but I wasn't impressed as a child of tender years, nor now, as an adult, of far more mature years. Just cruelty to be expected to endure such cold and total unpleasantness. (The quotation  about 'the playing fields of Eaton' is actually attributed to Matthew Arnold.) It just further put me off the stupidity of kicking a leather ball in-between wooden uprights with a net slung between or to endure the hitting on some delicate part of the body by a fast-moving lump of red leather, a cricket ball, or standing aimlessly pretending to understand the stupid 'flannelled fools' playing cricket on a bright, sunny afternoon in summer. That quotation comes from a poem by Rudyard Kipling called 'The Islanders.' If I use a quotation somewhere I always want, wherever, to get the quotation and the attribution correct.

Anyway, you will have discovered by now, as you read this, that my interest in cricket and football is virtually nil.

I do remember that we had sports day on that games field in Manton Lane, Bedford. I was fairly good at running and long-jump, but never got through the heats to actually get a chance to win anything. I remember being used as a sort of runner of a different sort on the actual day of sports day, delivering messages of one sort of another. I suppose quite good training for when I eventually get into working in stage management. Also, Rushmoor put on several gym displays in a drill hall which if I remember correctly was in Ashburnham Road, Bedford. A lot of jumping over wooden horses and displays of one sort or another and set to music. One of the teachers, Mr Crutchley, got me interested in tape-recording, and I quite liked the idea of being able to use a tape recorder to read stories or to produce little dramas. I eventually bought my own Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder and recorded music and plays off the radio. Later on, when I was working in stage management my interest in tape recording and tape recorders came in handy when I worked on the sound side of various productions, having to create sound effects and then operate the sound decks on some of the productions I worked on.

Although I grew to total detest both cricket and football, I did quite enjoy swimming. We used to go to the Bedford Modern School swimming pool in Clarendon Street. I presume it was hired out to Rushmoor for a couple of mornings a week. I actually gained something as a result: learning to swim, although my memories of the lessons weren't favourable as I recall being jumped on whilst in the pool which I never liked, by some idiot child or other. Ever since I have had a dislike of having my head under water. My father, who I have mentioned elsewhere, had several boats, would not allow any of us children on these boats until we were proficient swimmers so learning at school did have it's advantages.

I met a former Rushmoor friend of mine a few years ago, name of Andrew Allen, and we were talking about our time at the school. He reminded me of the long walks we were taken on  some afternoons, and we seemed to walk for miles, usually towards the village of Clapham and along Bromham Road. Looking back I couldn't see what the purpose of all this was. Those walks, when we walked along in long crocodiles, with a couple of teachers in attendance, seemed pointless, until he pointed out that they were usually during the winter months, and were no doubt so that we were out of the building and which would mean they didn't have to put the heating on, hence, a way to save money! Seems unlikely, but no doubt true when I come to think of it.

We produced a couple of plays at Rushmoor. There was a stage, of sorts, in that tin 'chicken house' gym. It was mainly used for wood work, where there was a variety of woodworking instruments such as vices, saws, hammers and so on, but for the plays the stage was converted quite successfully. One play was an adaptation of "Oliver Twist." Being an all-boy school any female roles had to be played by us boys. I wanted to play Fagin, but didn't get cast as that. I played the matron of the workhouse (I think in the original Dickens novel she is called Widow Corney or something), but this was supposed to be set in modern times so the workhouse became a boy's school. Could it conceivably have been Rushmoor? I don't know, but we had fun putting it on. There is more on this in an earlier post. The second play was called "The Bookworm's Nightmare" and involved a plot whereby a whole host of characters from various books come alive. I played another female character called Rutabaga, and I think she was from one of the "Tales of the Thousand and One Nights" but I really can't remember much more about it as it's all so long ago it rather fades into the mists of time, unfortunately.

As a result of the production of "Oliver Twist" some of us went to London to see "Oliver!", the Lionel Bart musical. I imagine that it would have been the original stage production at the New Theatre. It must have been my first experience of a West End musical, although i think I had been to see other shows, most notably going to see "Peter Pan" when I was very young and I remember as part of the treat having tea served on a tray in the stalls. This is also mentioned in an earlier post on here. We later went to see another musical, based on another Dickens novel, "Pickwick' which starred Harry Seacombe but I don't think it was anywhere as successful as 'Oliver!'

School Memories

How is it that any memories of school are never of actual lessons? In fact, I don't really remember anything at all about things we were supposed to be taught.

Walmsley House school was I think the first school I went to, and it was in Kimbolton Road in Bedford. School dinners weren't cooked on the premises and used to arrive in a gray van that used to turn up in the playground and the meals came in large tin containers.  I presume the meals were cooked elsewhere in the town and then delivered in this van , but to this day I have no idea where this was. I think most people's memories of their school dinners were of over-cooked cabbage, lumpy gravy and custard and possibly liver that was as tough as shoe-leather and inedible meat that was full of gristle and fat and which you had to chew fifty times before you could sallow it. The school always had a permanent smell of that awful boiled cabbage. Enough to put anyone off  that particular vegetable for life. Perhaps Brussels sprouts have the same effect on perhaps 95% of the population. I had no choice in whether I liked them or not, as my father, being a farmer and a Bedfordshire farmer at that, grew Brussels sprouts and we had to eat them. Not the tiny little  excuses for Brussells they sell today in most of the supermarkets throughout the country, but  a much bigger variety. And actually, as a result of having to eat them, I can say I actually like them, a great deal down to the fact that my mother didn't boil them to death. They should not be soggy and tasteless but cooked to the point that they are still crunchy.

Something else I recall about school lunches that that school was that there never seemed to be enough space for everyone to sit in the dining hall. Some people had to sit out on the landing of the staircase which lead up from the front door of the school. We can't have been supervised by the teachers very well, or perhaps it was that the teachers were useless at keeping control of their charges, but I remember some delightful child throwing food over the bannister along the landing and onto the floor below. I'm not sure whether any landed on anybody passing below, but it's something that sticks in my mind.

Every year the school used to put on an out-door show on a raised piece of grass in the playground. It was something like an outdoor stage. A dancing display was part of this entertainment and parents came to watch. I think this dancing was similar to country dancing with two rows of children facing each other and you moved forward in time to the music and slapped your opposite number on their opposite hand, for example, right to left, left to right. The music was played on a record player and operated by a teacher at the side of the stage. Unfortunately, during one performance, this teacher, who wore high-heel shoes, trod on the electric cable which ran from a power socket to the record player. There was a cloud of smoke and no doubt a bright blue flash and the record ground to a halt, no doubt making quite a spectacle in itself, and the whole proceedings came to very ignominious conclusion no doubt amidst roars of laughter.
I have never been a great lover of sport. I didn't mind gymnastics, athletics or field sports, although I wasn't that good at any of them, but cricket and football left me feeling totally uninterested and still do. Cricket to me has to be one of the most pointless sports invented.
Walmsley House didn't have it's own sports ground so we had to walk to Bedford Park to play football. My one and only goal I ever scored was a real disappointment. I kicked the confounded ball in the wrong goal. Nobody had the sense to teach me the rules and to say that you kicked the ball into the opposite goal depending which way you were playing. For a seven or eight-year old it must have been a real let-down.
From Walmsley House I progressed to Rushmoor School, still, I believe in Shakespeare Road in Bedford. I have always had - and still do to this day- real problems with maths. I think it may have been because I was mildly dyslexic. Numbers and maths were my real stumbling block at school. My two elder brothers managed to get into Bedford School but I failed the entrance exam when I was around 10-11 so I went to Rushmoor instead. I have to admit I didn't enjoy it. As for sports, we had to go to a games field up a hill in Brickhill Drive (where now Bedford Modern School stands when it was moved there from the town centre in the 1970's.) We had to trudge up and down this muddy hill, come rain and shine, and then play this benighted game of football usually when it was pouring with rain or it was freezing cold. Well, I imagine it would be extra cold with a bighting wind whistling around our bear knees in the middle of winter. I suffered greatly from the cold and the added extra of mud and rain didn't exactly help matters.
In the summer it was cricket. Just as bad for me. I had trouble with my left or right hands. I think I should have been left-handed but I was made to use my right to write with. I think this, and the mild dyslexia didn't help either. As a result I found using a cricket bat really difficult and as a consequence my ability to hit a ball with it, and one flying at several miles per hour was not exactly going to make me into a first class cricketer. So, as a result, I was never chosen when teams were being picked. I usually ended up fielding, if you could call it that, and I managed by some stroke of effort to end up in the long grass and as far away from the action as possible. But it was a good way to spend a hot summer's afternoon I suppose.
I remember clearly an incident while I was at Rushmoor. Unlike today, punishment could be metered out if you did something wrong, usually with a cane, administered my the Headmaster. This particular incident revolved around a cupboard in a classroom, which was used to store art supplies, such as paint, paper and so on. The teacher had found a screw or a nail lodged in the keyhole of the cupboard so that he could not open the cupboard. I think he had a vague idea who was the culprit was  but he needed to find out who had done the deed using a form of justice which involved the entire class. We had to stay behind, probably during break or it might have been after school, and he asked us one at a time whether we had stuck the screw in the cupboard's keyhole. Nobody would confess. If things weren't resolved he would use a ruler and make us hold out our hands and hit us with the ruler on the palm of the hand. It really hurt, as you can imagine, but if you flinched in the slightest he did he again. As a result you didn't flinch or attempted to not flinch. It really stung your hand and the pain remained for quite a long time after. I don't know whether the culprit was found but it meant that the entire class had to take the blame for one stupid person's crime. I don't exactly believe in capital punishment, but in this case it did make you think again before you did anything wrong at school. Today there is absolutely no sort of 'ultimate sanction' such as this and as a result children seem to get away with all sorts of bad behaviour. One teacher used to walk up and down the room when we were supposed to be silent and would hit you on the top of the head with a bunch of keys which hurt. I think he was a bit of a sado-masochist to do this, gaining pleasure from inflicting pain on his charges, but at least it kept you focussed and you never spoke if you had been told to keep quiet.

We put on a couple of plays when I was at Rushmoor School. I'm not sure whether this was where I got my interest in theatre from. Probably not. Being an all-boy school, there was a problem as regards  casting for the female roles. As a result I got cast as a female in these plays. Don't ask me why, but in one, an up-dated version of "Oliver Twist" I got to play the matron character. My mother managed to solve the wig-situation by making one out of wool. It had to be worn the right way round, but for one performance this wig was put on the incorrect way. For one of my entrances unfortunately I came on through a door which was far too low for my height and the 'wig' (for want of a better word) brushed the door and rode up and I got a laugh which I shouldn't have. As a result of putting on this play we were taken one Saturday to see the musical 'Oliver!' This was the original West End production starring Ron Moody as Fagin, at the New Theatre, renamed the Noel Coward Theatre. It had a profound influence on me and I have really loved the show ever since. We went up to London by train. I'm not certain if it was this visit to London or not where we had to travel on the Underground, but I do remember a member of the party getting on an Underground train which he wasn't supposed to get on and the rest of the party had to follow, I suppose so that we were at least together and so none of us got lost. I have an idea it would have been the Circle Line, so we would have just gone round and come back to where we had got on! When I think of the effort it takes today to take school children out, doing risk assessments and making sure the outing is fully of an 'educational' nature, I can't believe how we managed to go to London. Later on we had another theatre trip, that one being to see another musical, perhaps not as long-lasting as 'Oliver!' but also based on a Dickens novel and starring Harry Secombe, 'Pickwick." It was running at the Saville Theatre in Shaftsbury Avenue, but the theatre closed years ago and the site is now a cinema.