The Taxman, Viruses, Kindness and Otherwise

There is just about still time to wish you all a happy and peaceful new year. Had I waited until tomorrow, being February, it might have been both embarrassing and possibly even offensive. If only we could all assume that 2020 will be less harrowing than 2019 was, what with the horror news from so many parts of the world. Although the WHO’s warning of a global epidemic caused by an unknown strain of coronavirus doesn’t give cause for much optimism for the next few weeks.

Talking of the virus, one of the Ladies Who Lunch brought it up as a subject and the oldest member of the group, at 92 at least a decade ahead of the next oldest member, instantly remarked :”Well, I hope it doesn’t come here.” And, I am certain, she was definitely not thinking of anyone’s wellbeing but her own. It surprised me, I would think that at 92 continued life is precarious anyway. There was no empathy for anyone suffering the effects of the virus, which one would consider to be the automatic response to start with, just “not me please,” Does one get more selfish the older one gets? Of course, nobody, me included, welcomes any kind of illness, world-wide or localised, but a little of the milk of human kindness towards others goes a long way to make life pleasant. Or am I wrong? Too much rose-tint?

After two months of silence from me there may not be anyone interested in my thoughts. I developed a positive aversion to using my computer. I spent hours on the iPad and my phone, checking up on news and opinion pieces, but couldn’t bring myself to open the Mac. The reason is positively weird: I had the greatest trouble accessing the taxman’s site. Since October I have struggled to convince HMRC (Her Maj’s Revenue and Customs for those of you lucky not to have dealings with them) that I exist, that I have lived and worked and paid taxes here for decades, and that all I wanted was to be allowed to continue with the latter part in retirement. Do you think they believed me? Endless repeats of trying to gain access, endless rebuffs; each time I was told : you have tried to prove your identity too many times, come back in two days’ time. I sent emails, requests for assistance, even a long and heartfelt letter, all without success. So, since I use my Mac for official communications, (as well as blogging), it became my enemy, because HMRC remained closed to me. In the end I rang them. In an hour long call the first person I was referred to couldn’t help; the next person, a superior tax adviser person, scratched her head and was willing to cut me off when she was equally as flummoxed as the first.

I have to say that I am very good at begging and pleading and announcing my great age, and therefore great need, to all and sundry in the cause of soliciting assistance. Quite shameless, that’s me. So, once I had a real life person on the line rather than an uncaring computer, I begged and pleaded for all I was worth, even explaining that I was quite likely to be deported if I couldn’t prove my willingness to pay the correct taxes. I forgot to say that one of the questions the soulless computer threw at me many times, was, “do you have a valid British passport?” I don’t, but what has that to do with the price of fish, i.e. tax payments?

The superior tax adviser person softened and, during a further hour long phone conversation, dreamt up a whole new persona for me, going back to my tax records of years back. In the process she and I discovered that I have two “Unique (yes, unique) Tax References, two addresses, and two names. I think I am going to start next year’s tax returns right at the start, i.e. next April. And perhaps I’ll use a paper return. Last year I paid my accountant £600 to fill in my tax return, I am not willing to be fleeced again for work I have already mostly done myself, so now that this year’s return is done I am hoping that next year’s will proceed more smoothly.

I should mention that Christmas was fun. Ten days beforehand my son came; he put up the tree, with me giving instructions. We had  Christmas music, a festive dinner, some convivial family chat and rekindled old memories. This visit, on his own, is becoming a tradition I love. He also took me to the county town for a shopping trip; he carried my purchases between shops and car, which makes it all so much easier for me. I quite dread having to stumble my way through crowds, burdened with bags.

My friends were the real stars of my Christmas. Sue said I might as well come for Christmas Eve dinner as well as Christmas Day itself, which was really kind of her. She had some houseguests too and we all got on very well - no Brexit fallings out - and after a lengthy and leisurely dinner we read ’The Importance of Being Earnest’ with me taking over the role of Lady Bracknell. Halfway through the read-through my voice started to go which made it all the more grittily posh, just what is needed for the part. It was great fun and so much more so than slumping in a chair, replete with overindulgence and half drunk as well.

My voice going was a harbinger of the chest infection to come, which started more or less on Boxing Day and only stopped when the practice nurse forced me to take a course of steroids after New Year. I was really quite poorly with a cough to rattle every tooth in my head. The infection was doubly disturbing because I have recently been diagnosed with a recurrence of my childhood asthma. Apparently that is not uncommon, childhood asthma will frequently show itself in old age, when we become more susceptible to allergies. Strange that, you’d think we’d have become inured to many infections because we’ve had and survived so many of them through life. Not so, it seems.

I have mentioned Brexit but once today; in common with many friends I am sick and tired of the whole business, depressed too. In an hour’s time I am off to a Brexit wake party for remainers only.
I’ll be back here soon, unless we all throw ourselves off the castle battlements.

Ruminations

15th November to 15th January - a long break from blogging. Only five followers have decided that this blog isn’t worth following now, so thanks to all of you who have stayed. This whole following stuff is a bit silly, I suppose, but there you go, silly is as silly does. Or is that silly too?

The year wasn’t even 12 hours old before I had the first accident: I broke a glass and caused a long, thin cut in my hand which bled a bit but has healed nicely. At least it wasn’t a mirror; anticipating seven years bad luck on top of the disastrous 2017 might have caused me to swoon and thus made burying the shards underground, by moonlight, hard to do.

I don’t do resolutions, but I did, sort of, this year. I was planning to stop being obsessed with the news, to leave Brexit and Trump to get on with things and concentrate on more pleasant aspects. There aren’t any. Brexit is a catastrophe, getting more so by the week, because our government hasn’t the faintest idea how to go about saving our cake, never mind eating it too. And Trump? I thought if I can stop myself reading about him and he presses the nuclear button, at least I won’t know in advance that I am going to be annihilated. So far I haven’t had much luck, the stupidity and hatefulness of those lording it over us remains fascinating.

What a world we live in. Interesting times indeed.

How was your Christmas and New Year? Good? Glad to hear it. Contrary to expectations mine wasn’t too bad either. Friends rallied round and gave me meals, drinks and a cosy place by their fire. There were a few modest parties, some good conversations, good food, plenty of books, schlock TV
and candlelight. Christmas day was a delight. Dinner, decent wine, poetry and Paddington Bear, the same kind of Christmas Beloved and I used to have.

There was something else which was good. My son came some ten days before Christmas, just for an over-nighter with a sufficiency of hours on each of the two days either side for us to have a comfortable and unrushed visit. He comes to ‘do jobs’. This time I didn’t have much in the way of ‘jobs’, he fixed a sticking music cabinet drawer and maybe something else minor which I have forgotten. There was, however, a pile of Christmas cards ready for distribution and we walked around Valley’s End, my son holding Millie’s lead and me popping up lanes and into courtyards to push them into letterboxes, introducing him to villagers out on similar errands every few yards. The great thing about the visit was that we reconnected; I had ordered a Nordmann fir, the first Christmas tree for several years, which was still sitting outside, undressed and unloved. Together we brought it in and dressed it with all the old family baubles, some of them dating back to my childhood, with coloured lights and all the usual kind of kitsch decorations. We had a wonderful time, listening to ancient carols and plainchant, eating Stollen and spiced biscuits and having a turkey dinner by candlelight and incense sticks perfuming the air. We talked comfortably. I haven’t felt as close to him for many years.

Both of us felt good, both of us hoped that this might become our own, private, tradition. We might even use the same tree. I am going to ask gardener to pot it on into a bigger container in the spring and then it can come back in next year, a foot or so taller.

My darling Millie is getting old, thirteen next month, according to her inoculation record card. I had thought she was ‘only’ twelve. She is doddery on her hind legs and she had a cancer operation just before Christmas. The wound has healed well and the current cancer has been removed completely. Unfortunately it is one of those that recur. Dogs are wonderful, she never turned a hair. Surely it must’ve hurt? Just a bit? She went in in the morning and the vet said to come back for her before nightfall. At three they rang: could I come and collect her, she had woken from the anaesthetic and wanted to get out of her cage. “She would be better off recovering at home and not to worry if she didn’t want to eat.” The first thing she did when she came into the house was to stagger to her empty dish and beseech me with big brown eyes: “where’s my dinner, I haven’t had a single crumb since yesterday evening!” She is still happy and keen on her food, so maybe she has a while yet. It will be hard when I lose her too.

More ruminations to follow, so don’t bother commenting just yet. That is if there’s still somebody reading.

Christmas Hates

If you love Christmas and everything that goes with it, don’t read on. I am feeling grumpy. A list of my favourite hates might just make me feel better:

Mince Pies, hot, cold, or tepid, with or without cream.
Christmas cake, the stuff that sticks to your teeth like cement
Christmas Pudding with or without Brandy butter
(in fact, anything that’s overloaded with dried fruit)
Mulled Wine, mulled cider, mulled apple juice. Mulled anything.
Overcooked turkey
Full plates
Tinny carols in shops
Charity tins rattling in my face
Kids at the door singing a fraction of a carol and expecting instant largesse
Flickering Christmas lights on the front of houses
Overdone decorations anywhere, full stop
Smelly Santas in grottoes
Rain on Christmas Day
Round robins from anyone, particularly the boastful kind
Stampeding shoppers
Forgetting to buy batteries for kids’ toys
Having to be nice to people you can’t stand the sight of at any other time of year
Calling Christmas X-mas
Forgetting to buy vital items like lemons and indigestion pills
Indigestion
Watching a growing pile of gifts you will have to exchange after Christmas
People who give you a receipt with their gift to make the exchange easier
Christmas Specials on TV of programmes I never watch at any other time
and
Feeling grumpy when everyone else is having a jolly good time.

Do you have a similar list?

Too Poor Even For Scrooge

We’ve been food and drink shopping as if the festive season would never end. Cupboards, larder and freezers are groaning under the impact. I am really quite ashamed of myself. There are still subliminal remnants of the bad old days buried in both of us, the days when food was rationed and coupons were carefully saved for weeks before the great event. Rationing in Germany ended several years before the end of shortages in Britain, which means that Beloved’s childhood in a grocers’ shop in London was deeply influenced by people coming in to buy tiny amounts of foodstuffs like fat, cheese, sugar, bacon.

But today's poverty is worse, to my mind. At a time of plenty, wth shops filled with foods from around the globe, fruit and vegetables available all year round, when many are suffering the modern scourge of obesity, there are people for whom gifts of real food, fresh food, to be prepared and eaten at home, are quite useless. I had absolutely no idea that such abject poverty exists in one of the largest economies in the world.

During one of our shopping trips to a supermarket last week we spent enough to receive the offer of a free turkey. At first I wanted to turn it down. We had just ordered our Christmas meat at the butchers' and had no need of a whole, frozen, turkey. Then a vision of 'A Christmas Carol' came into my head and I thought that there must be many people who, like Bob Cratchit and his tribe, would be only too glad of it. I took the turkey home and rang the person in Valley’s End who organises the Food Bank. Joan said immediately :”No, I don’t want your turkey. Can’t use it.”

I was amazed. Food Banks who don’t want food? “No,” Joan said, “ our clients wouldn’t know what to do with it. On top of that, they have no means of cooking it. You can’t do much cooking on one (gas or electric) ring.” Joan’s and the Food Bank’s clients have either only recently come off living rough, are too poor to pay rent, have had their benefits stopped, have been put into one room, often barely furnished, in some council administered hovel. Joan continued :”Even those who have an oven probably don’t know how to defrost a bird, or how to cook it. They’ve been brought up in equally deprived households themselves, have been neglected, abused, lived in care homes, and never learned basic housekeeping skills. Tinned food is what they know and want and even the tinned soup or baked beans or mince has to have a name they recognise. And don’t come with lentils or anything else nourishing. ‘What’s lentils' they ask". Joan told me of a client who has nothing but a kettle. So the only hot food he eats is the one you pour hot water on.

She painted a horrifying picture of the deprivation and destitution that exists among the poorest in urban and rural areas, who are heartlessly termed the underbelly of society. None of that cosy, candle lit, jolly face we see in depictions of Victorian England, the Dickensian cheerfulness that warms the hearth of Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, in spite of the hardship they endure. Bob Cratchit’s wife has an oven and she knows how to cook the turkey Scrooge gives her, once his cold, hard heart has been dragged away from his moneybags and the ghosts have put the fear of eternal damnation into him. I know that this cheerful picture was a myth as much as the idea that there are no truly poor in our own affluent society.

My turkey has found a temporary home in the freezer of friends; Joan has promised to think up a way in which it can be made into a fundraiser for good causes.

The Significance of Giving

Did you leave your boots out last night for Sankt Nikolaus to fill with presents from the sack he carried over his shoulders as he roamed the lands in search of good children?  If you have been good since he last came this night a year ago I am sure he didn’t forget you.

Over the blog years I have mentioned the myth and mystery of the legend of Bishop Nicholas The Miracle Worker several times, this link will take you to a story of what happened one Sankt Nikolaus eve in our family.

Today, Nicholas, in the guise of Santa Claus, is the Bringer of Presents rather than the Miracle Worker. Christmas is just around the corner and the orgy of shopping and giving continues. We give throughout the year, of course, always have done, since time immemorial. I bet the first caveman worked a tiger’s tooth to present his inamorata with a trinket to adorn herself.  Giving has been an important part of mankind’s history, an opportunity to show our love, respect and affection for those we hold dear. Psychologically, it appears that the giver often benefits more from the act of giving than the recipient.

"Have you done your Christmas shopping? I’m all finished already, I usually start in October and by the beginning of December I only have a few trifles left to get.”  This statement is not at all an unusual one, it’s a sort of rite of passage to differentiate between the efficient, grown up ones, and those who leave everything until the last minute. Which hat fits you?

More and more I come across a small, but growing, minority of people who feel uncomfortable about our habit of splurging and dishing out often thoughtless, meaningless, unwanted tat. These people make donations to charity, both in their own name as well as the recipient's name. I can’t see a child being terrifically happy when told: "the money for your present went towards a bed for a homeless child,  a donkey sanctuary in Transylvania, to feed a family of four over Christmas. Maybe the child would feel a warm glow momentarily, but the lack of a present would be felt much more keenly.

There are people who make a present of their time at Christmas, working in homeless shelters which take in rough sleepers over the holidays. I have the greatest respect for them and their selflessness. They are not always people who themselves are on their own, I have been told that whole families derive great pleasure from such an act of kindness.

And giving for the sake of receiving is always wrong. We have a saying on the Lower Rhine which goes: “if you throw a sausage to gain a side of bacon you may be a good reckoner but you have no idea what giving means.

Giving presents can be a vexed business. My Dad used to say, year after year, “just a small token of appreciation will do, nothing fancy, nothing ostentatious, nothing grand or expensive.” Poor man, that is exactly what he got, a pouch of tobacco, some cigars, socks, a bottle of Schnapps. I believe he was happy. Besides, in the early postwar years we had no money to buy anything that wasn’t absolutely useful and none the worse for that.

Ephraim Kishon tells the tragicomic story of a spoilt young couple who swore to each other that they would not, would NOT, give each other Christmas presents. Come Christmas Eve they both unpacked   great piles of the most glitteringly expensive gifts. Both had deeply expected the other to break their promise, neither had been able to bear the tension of not-giving - giving in a purely material sense.

I am not Scrooge, I am pro-giving, in a small way. Giving is symbolic. It stands for thoughtfulness, solidarity, affection, closeness, friendship, love. Even a friendly smile, a kind word, an offer of help, a listening ear are gifts worth giving. If anybody wants to add a book and a box of chocolates I will happily accept them.

The Weather Outside is Frightful . . . .

with skies of unrelieved grey; wet and grey and muddy underfoot. As if Christmas on its own weren’t bad enough. However, I survived, as I hoped I would.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, it was a toned down English version, an English Christmas without the paper hats and streamers; without the family rows, and bored kids; without endless hours of television. Even without a turkey. Dear kind friends took pity on us and gave us a Christmas dinner of roast goose instead. All very civilised, with good conversation and enough goodwill to solve half the ills of our planet. Sadly, nobody takes notice of sensible, kindly, friendly and peace-loving folk like us.

Christmas is usually a difficult time for me. It’s the time when I’m most aware of being in voluntary exile. The Christmases of my childhood were slow and modest and contemplative ones, festive, with an unchanging order of events, lasting for at least three day, including Holy Night (Christmas Eve in the UK), Christmas Day and the second day of Christmas (Boxing day here). Nowadays, I do my best to forget, ignore, avoid all old-country-ways but all it takes is a sliver of Silent Night sung by a children’s choir on German TV and a secret tear rolls down my face. Ah well, there’s sentiment for you.

We had promised ourselves that we would finally broach our very small collection of decent French reds which we bought many years ago from a proper French dealer in the Loire region. "After all, we don't know what next year will bring; will we still be around to drink it?” We use this phrase rather a lot now. I chose this Gigondas from 2002 to start us off, entirely suitable to go with roast beef on Boxing Day. Beloved took the bottle between his knees and operated on the cork, which promptly crumbled and broke off halfway through uncorking. I had a go and broke the remaining bits of cork. I’d managed to poke a hole through though and laboriously and very slowly emptied the bottle into a plastic jug by means of a paper towel lined funnel. From there it went equally slowly into a glass jug.

And what do you know, it was still drinkable. Not that either of us knows what a 14 yr old Gigondas, chateau-bottled, tastes like before it’s messed around by a pair of rank amateurs. Cheers.

TV was an acceptable part of the festivities too; we watched the final, very final and very stickily sweet  two-hour-long episode of Downton Abbey. All’s well that ends well with not a dry eye in the house. Even the below-stairs lot gets paired off. Most of Doctor Who passed me by, the tremendous noise irritated me; Then there’s the Dickensian, a rather messy soup of most of Dickens’ novels which goes on for twenty half-hour-long episodes (will I stay the course?) and Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’, a stylish adaptation to my mind. I like a bit of mindless murder and mayhem, particularly when it’s done in muted colours, bristling moustaches and kind elderly gentlemen being sweet to damsels in distress.

But the best thing about Christmas, as in so many Decembers of our gradually warming climate, are the snowdrops, bravely poking out from the muddy ground. Harbingers of spring? Or foolhardy little treats just waiting to be nipped by frost and covered by snow?

Good Riddance and Welcome New Beginnings

Christmas 2013 I said “not everything went wrong”. This festive season was no different. The relief that it’s all over is great. If ‘festive’ is companionably sitting and moaning, feeling ill, picking at dried flakes of snot and flicking them off to join dog hair and dust bunnies in the corners of the room and generally stewing in your own phlegm, watching bad TV and reading arse-clenchingly dull books, I can do without it. If ‘festive' means feeling obliged to cook ’special’ meals, all of them elaborate and large, all of them costing the earth and requiring hours of labour and then nobody eats them and the whole lot bar a few forkfuls wanders into the freezers, then I beg to be excused from joining in.

Give me humdrum any day. For a good two weeks we stayed under self-imposed quarantine, neither going out nor letting anyone in. Whenever one of our wonderful neighbours called to walk the dog for us we took Millie to the back door, handed her and her lead over and retreated to a sofa. Actually, once we felt and sounded not completely at death’s door it wasn’t so bad. When others were obliged to attend parties, entertain families and generally pretend to joyously embrace the festive spirit and knacker themselves in the process, we put our feet up. It’s true to say that we lacked the energy to do otherwise but being allowed to recover in peace was wonderful.

Christmas and New Year were wash-outs, which surely means it can only get better from now on? Just look at those snowdrops.

Kelly came to clean up dust bunnies and snot flakes and kind friends came to eat left-overs with us. I’ve started to make inroads into festive letters and emails - why do people who never write at any other time insist on telling you about their whole boring year at Christmas? I’ve made arrangements to bring our Wills up to date, sort through tax receipts, cleared my desk of clutter, reconciled bank statements and may even get round to renewing my passport. Millie is taking me out again although I’m not nearly as keen to walk for miles as her temporary minders were.

Let the good times roll!

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them (IV)

Yes, there had indeed been a meeting, possibly the sort of thing that might be called an emergency council. We didn’t know about it at the time, it was much later that a fellow pupil in my new school told me in confidence, urging me never to reveal the ‘secret’. Or else her Dad, who was a member of the school’s governing body, would get into deep trouble. She also confided that her Dad and my Dad shared political sympathies; if these were known they would jeopardise his position. I was a loyal little body but also so cowed by now that I obeyed without thought, not even telling my parents. I don’t think I ever did.

Herr Thomanek stood above us on the level half landing with Mum and me on the steps below him. His physical attitude was that of a bully but his voice had softened a little. He seemed to be uncomfortable and spoke quietly. I was crying enough not to be able to hear him anyway; Mum listened, she didn’t speak for a long time. She nodded and appeared to agree with him and said to me “I’ll tell you when we get home.” They didn’t explain or ask my opinion..

Before we turned back down the stairs to leave I urgently wanted to make Thomanek understand that I never meant to be ‘cynical’ (whatever the word meant) and that I only smiled at him during lessons because I liked them. Hopefully, I lifted my tear-streaked face, but he turned abruptly, without looking at me.

In the German Secondary School System Middle School was the less academic branch of higher education. Although core subjects were taught, i.e. foreign languages, maths, geography, history etc., the school for academically gifted children was the Grammar School, where subjects included classics, science, music, German literature, etc. School fees were higher and students stayed on to 18/19 years of age.

At that time, in the 1950s and early 60s, both Middle and Grammar schools were occupying the same large building. It was one of the few in the town left unbombed and everywhere schools and other establishments budged up to make room for those who had lost their premises.

The heads of both schools, their senior staff and representatives of the governing body, including my fellow student’s Dad, had decided that the situation in Thomaneks’ classroom had become toxic and it would be impossible to restore order. I would have to leave. I would be offered a place in the same year at the Grammar School; school fees would be waived and I would continue to receive a scholarship. It was to be hoped that I was bright enough to catch up. It was fait accompli. Take it or leave it. The alternative was to return to basic education in the ordinary compulsory state system for all children, which precluded any chance of further academic education. Nowadays the choice would be called a No-Brainer.

Within days I was a Grammar School pupil. Some teachers disliked me from the beginning, rumours of misconduct had gone round both schools but, as now and always, gossip and rumours come and go. The girl whose Dad had spoken up for me and my parents befriended me, we discovered a joint liking for literature and poetry. I didn’t catch up in all subjects, certainly not in those I hadn’t been taught for three years, and I slipped from being top of the class to somewhere in the middle. By and by new, younger teachers came for whom I was an ordinary pupil, not tainted with having caused a teacher’s fall from grace, and we took/didn’t take to each other as such things are arranged in the natural course of events.

Middle School and Grammar School took outdoor breaks at different times but on the same school playground. Sometimes we’d overlap slightly and I’d see Thomanek doing supervising duty. I knew better than to smile at him and besides, he always turned his back on me.



there’s a paragraph or two to do with another lamp to come and a bit of an afterword. But the drama is all over.

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them (III)

“You can’t just barge in here without an appointment”, he blustered. “This is my home and my family and I are about to eat our supper. If you have anything to say about what happens at school you have to bring it up there.”

Mum stood her ground, but he wouldn’t budge. “You have no right to invade my privacy.” He continued to attack us, insisting that he was not going to discuss any complaints except at school. A time was fixed for the next day and we left, having achieved nothing. He had bullied us into submission but his extreme reaction made Mum determined not to let the matter rest. Thomanek knew this, he knew that he would have to answer for his behaviour; Mum, working class, with no more than a basic education and quite unsophisticated, would demand answers from the school establishment.

Alas, she never got them. At least, not in so many words. In 1950s Germany most ordinary people kept their political allegiance, past and present, quiet. My parents, however, were among the few exceptions, foolishly perhaps, but definitely bravely, as they and the family had been during the whole of Nazi-Germany, for which they paid a heavy price. In the 50s the Cold War was raging, with divided and four-sectored Germany the buffer zone between East and West. Twelve million people had fled and migrated from East to West and, until the erection of The Wall in 1961 put an end to it, the mass exodus still continued.

In the end, Herr Thomanek's persecution of me was not due to personal antipathy, but the politics of hatred and fear. He was one of those who had gone on the long trek from East to West.

As a child I was sickly. Weak, under-nourished, too tall, too thin, with lung disease and all the ailments that befell children who had had a poor start in life. I wasn’t the only one, there were many of us. Twice I had been sent to sanatoria, once during the war to the mountains of Bavaria and once after the war to the island of Norderney in the North Sea. It was hoped that mountain and sea air would heal, or at least strengthen, my lungs.

During the time I was a student in Herr Thomanek’s class, Dad was offered a place for me in a sanatorium on the Baltic coast by one of his friends in the Socialist Movement; the problem was the holiday would have to be during term time and require permission from the school authorities. Permission would probably have been granted had the sanatorium been anywhere else but in East Germany, the place many of the teachers at the local schools had called home and had been forced, or had chosen, to leave. Dad, in his naiveté, had committed a monumental blunder. Permission was refused and Herr Thomanek turned against one of his star pupils.

Mum and I still had to meet him. She knew nothing about the politics of the staff room, all she knew was that her child was hurting and she wanted to know why.

We met him during morning break on the half-landing between two floors, leaning against the stone banister. Thomanek was standing above us, looking down. I was half sitting in a window embrasure, crying bitterly all the time of the interview. Although he was physically in a position of superiority, he was noticeably quieter, even conciliatory. The Headmistress had spoken to him and advised that he try to calm Mum down. There had been a meeting, he admitted as much as that.

But what would happen to me?



to be continued

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them (II)

I caught a cold, a snot-rattling, throat-rasping, eye-watering, croaking-voiced cold.

Fräulein Optenberg was certain the cold would be gone by the day of the concert. All would be well. I begged to differ. The cold was the perfect excuse for backing out. What teacher didn’t know was that I had long had cold feet and the nearer the day came the more terrified I became. "No, Miss, I am certain the cold won't be gone in time and please excuse me from going on stage”.

Snivelling little idiot.

Frl. Optenberg was frantic. I hadn’t ever heard the phrase ‘The Show Must Go On’; Miss begged, cajoled, implored. I sneezed pitifully, then I had an idea. If it meant that much to her I’d get her a replacement. I’d get her Klara. Klara was plump, small, stupid and in possession of a much healthier, more powerful voice than my lung-sick one. Klara jumped at the chance and was so abjectly grateful that I began to doubt the wisdom of my abdication. Aladdin’s cave was no longer mine for half an hour twice a week.

My cold evaporated, the day of the Christmas concert came and Klara was a great success. Neither Mum, Dad or I were in the audience.

This was the beginning of a lifetime of doubt in my own abilities.

Then came Middle School; I passed the entrance exam with flying colours and was granted a scholarship. There were school fees which my parents couldn’t afford, ends were barely meeting. Still pig-tailed, tall and very skinny and ten years old I joined children from varying backgrounds, some already well-off, particularly the children of farmers and professional people, and some from poor backgrounds like mine, on scholarships. We scholarship kids were the bright ones, the kids from the farms the least able. (That’s not prejudice, that’s how it was. After the war many farmers were rich, had their girls been bright enough they would have gone to Grammar School, where the fees were higher.)

Herr Thomanek was my form master. I adored him and he seemed to enjoy teaching me. For three years all went well. When kids from professional households made fun of my pronunciation of foreign words he shut them up and patiently explained where these words came from and how to pronounce them. Herr Thomanek was my favourite master and I had a bit of a crush on him, as a thirteen year old  might.

When from one day to the next he turned on me I was devastated. Open-mouthed incredulity met every unkindness, every jibe at my expense, every shouted term of abuse. It’s no exaggeration to say that my form master bullied me unmercifully. He focussed the attention of the whole class on me. “There she goes, sneering again. That cynical grin of hers, look at it. What makes you so superior, I would like to know." Once I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I got up from my seat, howling in fear and frustration, making for the door. “Look at her, look how she runs and howls; exactly like one of the Furies.” I went home and finally told my Mum.

That same afternoon Mum grabbed me and we went to Herr Thomanek’s house. His wife came to the door and said we couldn’t come in, they were about to have their evening meal. Mum insisted. For once she believed me without looking for confirmation elsewhere and she was going to get the truth out of him there and then.

We were let into the sitting room. I was probably too distraught to take in details, but I instantly saw an old fashioned roll top desk in an alcove, with lots of papers on the open flap and a lit desk lamp on the shelf above. Otherwise the room was in shadow. Herr Thomanek turned towards us as we entered, his face, illuminated by the lamp, a study in angry discomfort.




to be continued

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them. (I)

"I can’t stand a naked light bulb,

amy more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action”,

Tennessee Williams’ Blanche Dubois in “A Streetcar Named Desire” gives herself away with this line as someone who prefers illusion to reality; who believes that dressing up naked truth prettily makes everyone happier and everything pleasant and easy. “I don’t want realism, I want magic,” she says in a later scene.

I woud hate to take Blanche as my role model but I admit, that as far as the softly glowing light of a prettily shaded table lamp - or standard lamp - is concerned, I am firmly of her opinion. It’s the kind of magic I want for myself. Standing lamps have always fascinated me, perhaps because such luxury was never my lot as a small child. Naked bulbs dangling from the low ceilings of cellars where Mum and I hid, the narrow glory hole of my bedroom or the slightly higher ceiling of the kitchen/sitting room in which we spent most of our time provided sufficient light but no comfort.  The apparent security and privacy of an individual light wasn’t mine to enjoy until I was an adult, in my own home. Once the hardship of the early postwar period was over, my parents had the means to buy lamps but, although ceiling lights were now provided with lampshades, table lamps were outside any experience they themselves had ever had. Light was a matter of necessity, not comfort; light had to be efficient, nothing more.

Fräulein Optenberg was my Infant School teacher;  she lived with another woman and it was in their sitting room where I saw my first ever upright lamp. It was Advent and a school Christmas concert was planned and I was to go on stage and sing some songs, solo. I was bright and enjoyed singing;  for teacher to choose me from all other children was flattering beyond all measure. But I was also shy and inhibited. I had none of the natural confidence some children are handed in the cradle. Rehearsals were to be held at Frl. Optenberg’s and progressed well. The first time I went, properly cleaned up, my long hair plaited and in my Sunday smock, the two ladies invited me into a room the like of which I’d never seen before. It was probably very modest by today’s standards but to me it was like Aladdin’s cave. There was a carpet, a small dining table and chairs, a desk in a corner, a pair of easy chairs and, in the alcove by the window, a piano, and, on the piano, a table lamp. It was afternoon, the lamp was lit. Immediately I knew that I had no right to be in this room, a room like this was not for me, and that all my life I would strive to win one. I was seven years old.

During the course of rehearsals a nasty episode happened. On the way home from school I daily passed  the house where Frl. Optenberg and her friend lived. On this particular day a group of boys, some infants like me, others up to fourteen years old, stood in front of her house, shouting and jeering. I couldn’t make out what it was they were shouting and when I did, I couldn’t understand what the word meant. ‘Mannweib’, the boys shouted, over and over. (Literally ‘Mannish Woman’, ‘Virago’.) I saw Frl. Optenberg appear at the window and I ran off, I didn’t want her to think that I was part of the rowdy group of children, the numbers now swelled by other girls returning home from school. I told my Dad what I had heard and he said to take no notice, that the boys were naughty and rude. The next time I went to rehearsals I stammered that “it wasn’t me who shouted at you” to Frl. Optenberg and she smiled and said “I know, child.”

The day of the concert came nearer and I caught a cold.



to be continued.

Not Everything Went Wrong

 over the Christmas period. On the contrary, a lot went right.

True, a friend delivering a last minute card for me fell down some steps in the dark and hurt her foot;

true, the river came out (burst its banks), and it took a jolly old paddle to get across to the other side;

true, walking in the castle grounds was a merry squelch, each step a fight to stay upright;

true, the backdoor, still not replaced, let lots of rain into the scullery;

true, I took twice the maximum dose of beta blockers for more than a week without realising and  wondered why I was feeling a bit slow at times;

true, by the time we finally sat down to the main event, i.e. the turkey, three of us had to admit defeat long before our plates were empty.

But,
we had electricity,
no flood waters came into the house.
and no trees fell on us during the gales.


We had a lovely time with two dear friends, half of it spent at our house and half at theirs.
There was music, poetry, the Queen’s speech, the ‘Downton Abbey’ special, a pleasant bottle or four (over the whole day) and delicious food, even if all of us passed on the plum pudding due to prior overindulgence, in the true spirit of Christmas.

And now it’s Silvester, or Hogmanay, the end of the year.

Be sure to finish today any work you have in hand, for a task carried over into the New Year will never prosper.

At midnight, prepare to welcome the first visitor of the New Year, whose nature will determine your household’s fortune therein.  This first-footer (or Lucky Bird) should be a tall, well-made man, and in most parts of the country very dark men are preferred. He should not be a doctor, minister, lawyer or policeman; he must not wear any black or carry a knife or edged tool; and, above all, he must come bearing gifts - which should include a loaf, a bottle of whiskey, a piece of coal and perhaps a silver coin. He must enter in silence, and none should speak to him until he has put the coal on the fire, poured a glass for the head of the household, and wished the company

A

Happy New Year.

Is it over yet?

No, not quite,

go back to sleep for a bit longer.

It’s Boxing Day (St. Stephen’s Day) - on this day tradesmen, servants and children went ‘Boxing’,  soliciting gifts and tips from householders they had served during the year. The tips were put into slitted, earthenware ‘Christmas Boxes’.

When Boxing Day comes round again

O then I shall have money.

I’ll hoard it up and Box and all

I’ll give it to my honey.

or, more likely,

I’ll take it all to the shops.

It’s the first day of the post-Christmas Sales,

and  some people were queuing to be first into the shop at midnight!

Advent Diary, day 24 - Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht

Christmas

I had almost forgotten the singing in the streets,
Snow piled up by the houses, drifting
Underneath the door into the warm room,
Firelight, lamplight, the little lame cat
Dreaming in soft sleep on the hearth, mother dozing,
Waiting for Christmas to come, the boys and me
Trudging over blanket fields waving lanterns to the sky,.
I had almost forgotten the smell of it all,
The coming back home, with girls laughing like stars,
Their cheeks, holly berries, me kissing one
Silent-tongued, soberly, by the long church wall;
Then back to the kitchen table, supper on the white cloth,
Cheese, bread, the home-made wine;
Symbols of the night’s joy, a holy feast,.
And I wonder now, years gone, mother gone,
The boys and girls scattered, drifted away with the snowflakes,
Lamplight done, firelight over,
If the sounds of our singing in the streets are still there,
Those old tunes, still praising;
And now, a life-time of Decembers away from it all,
A branch of remembering holly spears my cheeks,
And I think it may be so;
Yes, I believe it may be so.

Leonard Clark
1905-1981

On this most solemnly festive night in the German calendar may I wish all my readers and friends in this, our virtual world, 

A Very Merry Christmas

Advent Diary, day 22 - Gardener’s Christmas Tales (3rd of 3)

"Mrs. Dollor had us on the step when we was kids, telling us the time, she teached, she taught us the time, she learned us she did, all of us.

Best time was when we come home from school. We’d wait for the bus then, about half past four. The bus driver used to get the papers for people and he’d chuck them straight through the window like, somewhere where we lived, and us boys would all line up and see who could catch the papers. Whoever caught them, took em, you see, 'cause we’d get an apple or some sweets if we took the papers that night. There’d be fighting between us who’d get to take the papers. It’s a wonder they got their papers all in one. Of course the furthest away would give you some apples and then you’d eat 'em all before you got home because you dinna wanna share 'em. You’d take your time coming back. We used to have to walk, didn’t have pushbikes or anything, always had to walk to take 'em.

We used to pick all the apples around our way, and the blackberries. There weren’t no blackberries round our way we didn’t pick. And hazelnuts. The only thing dad ever did with us was when we were sledging, he used to come sledging with us, and the other time was when we were picking hazelnuts.

Our mum, we'd go on the road with her, like, with the big pram and the baby would be in there and another one sat on the side like,  and another one in her tummy likely. and we’d go down the road like and her’d say pull the sticks out of the hedge,  and her would fill the pram across like and you couldn’t see the baby in the pram  because these sticks is all across, We’d get 'em home like and we’d saw em up for firewood for her. Wonder the farmers didn’t curse us for taking the sticks from the hedge. And she’d have this sack round her and go in the fields to help pick potatoes for the farmers and the pram’d stand in the middle of the field and when we got home like the pram was full of spuds. We had to pull the pram off the field some days when it was really wet. The farmer came round and mother got payed like; mother had the money, we never had any of it.  If she saw big ones, mother‘d say 'cover 'em over', we’ll have them later on.

Them were days them were. We never sat in the house, we was miserable when it was wet because we couldn’t go out, be under mother’s feet.  Good days they were, everybody the same. You’d leave your back door open. Monday morning was wash morning and everybody have their washing out on the same day. We’d just have a bath on a Sunday night. all of us in a cold bath. You’d fill it up with hot water from the boiler like and we’d all get in there,  we all had the same water, three in a bath like. Mother then put all the clothes in and soaked em all, to get most of the muck off like and then fill the boiler again and boil the water again and put all the washing in the boiler  and you’d have a big stick like and stir it all up. Then you’d rinse 'em all out and put 'em in this old mangle. We’d turn the handle for her and then Monday morning out on the line they went. Bloody great line about half mile long, nappies, nappies all the way.

Yes three of us in a bath. and we’d all try to get in first, because it was hot then, by the time you got out and the next lot went in, the water was cold. so you’d all be willing to get in quick like, girls or boys, be first to get in like, and it’d be clean water then.  There’d be an old scullery, somewhere at the back and everybody’d be shivering like mad, once you got out of the warm water, be bloody cold, shaking like, specially in the winter. In them days there was no heating. You’d run into the kitchen to the stove to dry off, and we never  had colds, we was hardy. It’s that entral heating you get colds from, innit,  have it too hot and then go out in the cold. That’s what does it.”

Postscriptum

Some commenters have assumed that Gardener must be a very old man and that his stories tell of a time long gone. Not so. Gardener is in his 60s and he was a boy in the 1950s when times in rural England and Wales were still very hard for the peasants and birth control was unheard of.

Advent Diary, day 21 - Gardener’s Christmas Tales (2nd of 3)

"I got me christening card and me bible and all that. I was  five when I was christenend. I had three or four behind me, following me like, a little baby and I think there was three others between me and the baby, we was all christened together. It didn’t make  me cry; they dinna pick me up either, they put some water on me forehead.

O aye, there used to be a lot of us there on a Sunday morning at Sunday School, that’s the only time we ever got dressed up. When we got home mother said take all them clean clothes off, put the dirty ones on, go out and play now.  I had a little pillover, mother had knitted, short sleeves like, I think I was about five year when I first had it. I give it up when I was about ten. I used to pull it down, but I grew out of it like, over five years.

Mother’d knit a sleeveless pillover in a night. Knit the back, do the front, then sew it all up. Her was quick, never looked at it like, the needles was going but you never see her look at it. We used to hold the wool out and roll it all up for her.

We made a fair few carpets too. We used to cut the cloth to a certain length then you’d pull it through the mat. We did a hell of a lot of them for mother. My eldest sister went to Bridgenorth when her first left school. Her went to a carpet factory and her used to bring these offcut carpets and the wool like and we used to do it all with wool like, and patterns too; used to keep us busy at night. No telly then.  One’d be doing one pattern, the other’d be doing another. 

Could be about eight of us living at home at one time; three in a bed; me older brother and me younger brother. But he had more sense because he used to sleep in the middle and come winter time he used to pull the blankets and there’d be none on your side and the other brother used to sleep against the wall, so he could never lose his like, and I’d be on the outside and I’d be the one with nothing on me. We’d be tugging away there. trying to get covered.

We went to Felindre  once and we stopped the night at me mum’s mother. She was in bed like, her was getting on,  her couldn’t get out of bed like and her’d have this stick and her’d be banging on the floor like and we’d be down below, listening. Her was just like a witch. The bedroom was all one big room with curtains like,  and we stopped this night and there was eight of us in one bed, and her was there round the corner, grumbling and mumbling like, just like a bloody witch.

Me dad went with his brother in law fishing, salmon fishing like, and they didn’t get caught. Next morning, early light, we get back to Weston, that’s down the dale; we went to school at Compton. Of course, when we got home, we missed the bloody bus. The bus used to take us about two and a half  miles and then we used to have to walk about another mile to school. So we all had to walk down the road to school like; you had to, you couldn’t stay at home like because you'd missed the bus. We all walked together and we got to school.

We had to walk another mile when the bus dropped us off, there was a happle tree on the right hand side; of course, being kids, we used to pick up sticks and chuck them in the tree like to get the apples to fall and catch ‘em, and if it had been a windy night you’d go the next morning and there’d be umpteen sticks in the road, all the sticks that had got stuck in the tree. Same as the conker tree it was; we were always there chucking our sticks up to get the conkers down. In the village we had a big hole in the hedge and there was a horchard off the road. Mrs. Dollor owned it and us kids, we dared one another to go, you know, go on, get through the hole, and get some apples like. I mean if we’d a gone and ast her, her’d have given us some apples. But it was just for the dare like, we had to dare ourselves like. We were right buggers for pinching."

final instalment tomorrow.

Advent Diary, day 20 - Gardener’s Christmas Tales (1st of 3)

A scene from “A Christmas Carol”  filmed in Shrewsbury.

This is Fish Street, with the Bear Steps just off to the left.

So, in December the garden is mainly found in a great number of garden catalogues. The gardener herself hibernates under glass in a heated room, buried up to the neck, 

not in compost, but in garden catalogues and books.

Gardener turned up not so much for work as to bring annual Christmas greetings, coming into the kitchen with clean boots, well-scraped on the mat, and ready for a cup of tea, a piece of cake and a long leisurely ramble over the past.

One of gardener’s pet grumbles is the ingratitude shown by kids. He had been telling us his favourite Halloween story, about how he’d given a ‘whole ruck of them’ sweets and bags of crisps, and how the ungrateful little blighters had opened the bags on their way to the garden gate and tipped them all out on the path. “They never got nothing from me any other year!” Gardener snorted in disgust.

“Christmas is just the same”, he continued."Who believes in Christmas today;  people under forty. they don’t even bother to go to Church, do they.”  (Gardener is not in the least religious)

“We were lucky if we got a present, a horange and a napple is what we got. The kids today’d chuck it back at you. Apple and orange is good for you, they tell you years ago. Fruits is good for you. Now kids don’t wanna eat it. If you had a banana they took the skin off you. I reckon if we all went to Church the world would be a lot better place. if everybody made a heffort to go to Church on a Sunday, dress up and go to Church, get to know all your locals and that, it would be a better place, like it did years ago. Like in Wales, see, they had Chapels, they used to dress up, all in their nines, go to chapel and they talk then, they’d get to talking, and they knew everybody in the village, all the scandal like."

"I can see my grandad now, with his trilby hat on and his suit on and his tie and all dressed up to the nines and his wife, granny, her ‘d have her big hat on as well, every Sunday, they’d walk about 2 1/2 miles to the Chapel. That’s the only time her take her pinny off, to go to Church Sunday morning, 11 o’clock like. get back for one o’clock for dinner and that. You’d put your meat in in the morning. and be back for one o’clock."

"The Welsh are more religious than what we are, chapelwise.  I used to go to Sunday school every Sunday from the age of 4 till I was 10 and-a-half. We left then, but up until then, every Sunday morning we was off to chapel, 2 miles away, we’d walk, all of us, we’d do drawing and all sorts, up at Ditton Priors. It’s still there, the little Chapel is.  Then at Christmas, we’d have a big do, in the main big Church, and in the Village Hall, and they used to give us a little present each, more than we had of our parents like.  It was a toy off the big christmas tree and they’d call your name out and you’d have to go to get your little parcel like, up under the tree."

"Mother’d give us a penny and you’d buy a penny stamp see and you’d put it in a book, off a Sunday, then you’d have your penny stamps all in there, I think mother got all the books, well I don’t know who’s got them now, but somebody’s got all the books, because we never cashed them in, so some lucky bugger’s got em or they’ve all been chucked away."

Part 2 to follow tomorrow.

Advent Diary, day 15 - Sailors’ Warning, Christmas Cards and the Dangers of Cats

 I should never watch more than 2 hours of TV at night and I certainly should not then go to bed and read a thriller until 1.30 in the morning; a fail-safe recipe for a disastrous night.  I must have slept in snatches, but I looked at the clock every hour on the hour until 6.30 this morning when I finally had enough and got up.

I dawdled and dithered before drawing the curtains but when I did, this is what I saw. Shakespeare said of such a sky: 

“ Like a red morn that ever yet betokened,

Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,

Sorrow to the shepherds, woe unto the birds.

Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.”

Hard to believe that a spectacular morning like this will soon turn into a wet and miserably grey day, even though there are plenty of metereological reasons. A German saying goes: Red dawn fills the well, red dusk will dry it.

Still, the miserable day had a good outcome, we finished writing our christmas cards. Music, a glass of Gluehwein and some chocolates were all part of the pleasure.

Finally, a bit of advice: Even in cold weather, beware of taking cats to bed for warmth.

‘As this beast has been familiarly nourished of many, so have they paid dear for their love, being requited with the loss of their health and sometimes of their life......for it is most certain that the breath and savour of Cats consume the radical humour and destroy the lungs and therefore they which keep their Cats with them in their beds have the air corrupted, and fall into severe Hekticks and Consumptions.’

Edward Topsell, History of Four-footed Beasts, 1607

You have been warned! Hecticks and Consumptions. Nasty!

Advent Diary, day 13 - Pre-Christmas Rant

There I was, thinking I would manage to post every day during the 24 days of Advent; okay then, I admit defeat. Who was it who said “the best laid plans of mice and men go oft a-gley”, or similar? At least my punishment is not grief and pain, just feeling a bit sheepish. I really admire bloggers who post more or less daily, particularly those who write about more than their daily routines.

We’ve been shopping, ordinary household shopping as well as Christmas shopping. I hate it. I have yet to meet anybody who has a good word to say for the pre-Christmas mania which seems to overcome a goodly portion of the population. For heavens' sakes, people, the shops will only be closed for 2 days max., and how much can you eat at one or two meals anyway? I am getting too old for pushing through crowds or standing in long queues, waiting for my turn at the check-out. Too old, too impatient, too cross, too cranky.

An added irritation is the canned music. Tinny Christmas songs on a loop, over and over. I stood in line, fuming, mouthing “Oh, shut up already” and glowering at people who were singing along. The proverbial old witch killing the Christmas spirit.

The only kind of shopping I can bear at the moment is the posh, expensive kind; small speciality shops where the customer chooses with care and baskets hold just a few items - you couldn’t afford to buy more - patisseries, hand made chocolate shops, smokeries for smoked fish and meat delicacies, a delicatessen, a cheese shop, a wine merchant. I love foodie treats. Ludlow, our local market town, is a foodie Mecca, a genuine slow-food-city, which still offers a choice between mass-produced and artisan-sourced goods.

I seem to remember having posted a similar rant last year, and probably for several years running. What can I do, give up pre-Christmas shopping altogether? I’d have to find something else to complain about.

Advent Diary, day 9 - Herbs and Advent Wreaths

Every year I put candles on a large wooden plate,

and arrange pine cones and small pieces of tree bark, sprayed golden, around them.

The proper thing to do would be to make an advent wreath

and either hang it from the ceiling if it’s very large,

or put it on a table which is not used for anything else.

For me, my plate suffices.

This year I decided to snip up some herbs and add them to the plate. Both bay and rosemary grow in the garden and both have a lovely scent when rubbed between the fingers, or simply placed in a warm environment.


Evergreen rosemary - the rose of the Virgin Mary -  is one of the special plants for Christmas. There is a lovely legend connected with it: it was believed to blossom at  midnight on Christmas Eve, and to have acquired its scent from the garments of the Infant Jesus, which the Virgin hung out to dry on a rosemary bush. Rosemary does indeed flower in winter.

‘Rosemary comforteth the brain, the memory and the inward senses. The distilled water of the flowers, being drunk morning and evening, taketh away the stench of the mouth and breath, and maketh it very sweet’.

Gerard’s Herbal 1636

Also:

Where rosemary grows, the woman rules the House. Anon