Funeral's Eve

I've come to London to attend a funeral. It is Wednesday evening and the city is rumbling in its usual way. It's stranger than I expected to be here, to be visiting for him without him. This place never felt like home, but a root of my family tree is undeniably here, or was, or is.

For old times sake I take the tube to London Bridge in search of an appetite, but find only an M&S sandwich. Doubling back to Blackfriars my clogs clatter noisily against the metal treads of the steps.

My funeral coat smells strongly of damp. It's been a while since anyone died. The oil stained pockets almost the only indication that this coat has ever been anything other than respectable, I fiddle with the screw which once failed to hold my moped together - almost.

It's half past Nunhead. I find this city confusing, too loud, too much, two friends board and fill the doorway with chattering laughter. My brain strains to hear familiar place names, Beckenham will do - I think we came here to buy a tyre once.

In my head I try to think of a satisfactory conclusion to the eulogy in my rucksack, outside the window buses rest under the bright lights of a depot. Shortlands is our next stop and on the platform a man enquires "Is this the way to Amerillo", I wouldn't know, I've never been this way before, but Blyth Road is marked with the familiar green signs of the Borough of Bromley. Not home, but here.

Bloody well right

It’s (give or take a couple of days) 20 years since I started secondary school. It’s funny to think just how much of an impact those following five years have had on my life – how much was set in motion there.

There is another trouser leg of time where I didn’t apply for Archbishop’s and went to Fulford instead. Maybe I didn’t lose my religious faith in an RE classroom and instead became a vicar, maybe I didn’t fall for engineering and did history, I almost certainly wouldn’t have landed up at York College when I did. And from wherever there was, did I still apply for Lancaster? Meet my wife? After 20 years did that Edward write a similar post, and did you read it?

But out of the subjunctive bifurcation and back to the trouser leg of reality, the things which did happen and which still echo through my life now. I still use trigonometry quite a lot, I’ve had less use out of knowledge of the essential parts of a Sikh Gurdwara, sometimes I still feel pangs of shame about being queer. I found a love for engineering, I learnt how to spot when someone was lying when they said “I’m fine”, I learnt how to sit very still on a hard chair whilst the word “outstanding” was repeated several times from the lectern at the front of the hall without giggling or farting. I learnt how to cut the pleasure out of poetry, but also how to sew joy into learning, and then - there’s the music.

I am not a good musician, I am too ill disciplined apart from anything else, but for hours a week I was allowed to cause (mostly) tuneful chaos. Orchestra, choir, and (best of all) soul band. I don’t think I realised how lucky I was at the time - not just that the opportunities to make music were there, but that a clown like me was allowed to make the most of them. My career was perhaps inevitable (that I am a railway engineer does not surprise my primary school teachers) – even if the path could have taken some different turns on the way - but I wonder what my life would have been like without that bit of my musical journey. Would I have found that joy on my own? If access to music had been restricted only to those with the discipline to do grades, would I have bothered? (The answer there, I can say with some certainty, is no). It would be trite to say that music has saved my life, but over the years through singing in choirs it’s brought me friendship and comfort through some of the very darkest nights – and even when it’s not been my redemption it’s brought joy and light.

And so 20 years on, a couple of feet taller, with a wife and a child and a job that I love, I look back on those first few days of that short five years and feel terribly lucky that that’s the choice I made, and even luckier that all the people (staff and pupils) made that choice a happy one. Today I will go to choir, tomorrow I will go to work with a smile, on Wednesdays we wear pink. School, what a concept.

A Sad Little Poem on the Death of a Dear Friend

Today I am sad.
I am sad because my friend is dead.
That's the long and the short of it.
And it's funny because the most important thing she ever told me,
was that everything is a phase.
And it turns out that's not true.
And it turns out that's not really funny.
But it's slightly funnier than her being dead.
Which is one of the saddest things.

 

TW: Suicide. We learnt recently that one of the most important people in the making of us as parents, and as a family, took her own life. She built a wonderful safe space for new parents (and mothers especially) around her and gave so much to so many, including us.

It's often said that it takes a village to raise a child, and through her, hundreds of miles from our own families, we found our village. She gave good advice, and tea and brownies, but most of all she gave confidence. I shan't name her here as it still doesn't feel like it's my news to break, but I sort of had to say something somewhere (I am okay, this isn't a cry for help!). A lot of people have lost a lot without her here, many of whom will never now be lucky enough to know what they don't have.  

Be good, be kind, be understanding, listen and talk.

Take care my loves,

E. x

 

Samaritans are available on 116 123 by telephone - other means of contacting them are here.

 

Apple Cake with Crystallised Ginger and Dark Chocolate Flecks

Makes

1 kg loaf tin

Ingredients

1 Whisky Mac (25ml blended scotch whisky, 50ml ginger wine)

2 Apples

2 Eggs

160g Caster Sugar

120g/130ml Vegetable Oil

150g Plain Flour

1½ tsp Baking Powder

1½ tsp Ground Ginger

40g dark chocolate (70%+)

A handful of Crystallised Ginger

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160°C fan / gas mark 4.

Grease a 1kg loaf tin and line with baking parchment – ensuring there’s enough to to pull the cake out with once it’s cooked. You can just line the long edges and base (saving paper and forgoing the pain of folding in the ends.)

Cut the apples into small chunks (around ¼ inch cubes – about the size of a standard dice) and place in a large mixing bowl with the whisky mac. Give the chunks a stir to ensure they all get a bit of a taste of alcohol. Don’t bother pealing the apples but do remove any visible blemishes as these will show in the finished cake.

In a large bowl, or using a mixer, whisk the egg and sugar until they start to puff up and go pale, before slowly pouring in the oil until it has all been incorporated. Be careful not to add the oil too fast or the mixture may split.

Using a spatula (or mixer beater attachment) fold in the flour, ginger, and baking powder into the mix until you achieve a smooth consistency. Then fold in the apple / cocktail mix.

Chop the chocolate into flecks and fold these and the crystallised ginger into the mix.

Pour the batter mix into the cake tin and bake for 35 minutes. Turn the tin around and bake for a further 15-20 minutes.

When done it should be springy to the touch and a knife should come out ‘just’ clean. If it’s taking its time cooking to the middle – lower the oven temperature and insert metal skewers (or all metal cutlery knives) through the centre of the cake until done.

Allow to cool in the tin for 15 to 20 minutes, if you have left the short ends of the loaf tin unlined, run a knife between the tin and the cake before releasing.

This cake can be eaten warm or cold, and will stand being frozen.

 

Backstory 

Did you know I (re)started this blog as a bit of a cookery blog? Well I did! Right back in 2011 when I went away to university and wanted to chart my cookery progress, setting out into the kitchen for the first time armed only with half a copy of Delia's complete cookery course and a set of knives so blunt you could ride to London on them and not cut your arse. I probably wouldn't bother with those proto-recipes now, but I have a few which I've developed over the years which I might feed in, with some thoughts, from time to time. 

This recipe is inspired by one from The Baking Book by Sarit Packer & Itamar Srulovich from Honey & Co (Saltyard books), which I heard on Simon Mayo's Radio 2 drivetime show. I much prefer ginger to nutmeg and my mum suggested that a whisky mac might make quite a good base for a ginger based cake. After some trial and error, here's the result!

Exam test 2021 - Paper 1 - Non-calculator

 A couple of people have asked that I provide a full pdf of my Exam test exam test paper. If you are considering presenting this to a young person please note that the words "cock" and "balls" are featured in question 15, and according to Ofcom those are a strong and a medium swearword respectively.

I'm delighted this little exam seems to have brought joy to people. If you have any questions, or would like your papers marked, feel free to send them my way - I'd love to see any answers!

You may turn over your papers now.

Stop writing!

2021 - New Years' Morning - About half past midnight

This time last year,
you danced in my mind's kitchen,
all v-neck and Chic and disco moves.
But there is no context where that you make sense here.
Retrieving a torn down breadstick box from the floor with your mouth,
Is not in right now.

2020 has been... quite the time.
You never experienced anything like it,
but I think,
given your appraisal of the heatwave of '76,
I'll perhaps explain it to you thus:
2020 - Wore slippers all year.

Observations from 1V64 approaching Taunton

There’s nothing quite like a train journey to make you realise how blessed the UK is with scenery, and what an absolute blight the general public is thereon (present carriage occupants who may be reading over my shoulder excepted). 1V64 leaves Edinburgh at 1307 and by the time I joined it at Derby it had already been on the rails for four and a half hours (technically, having been formed from a service starting in Birmingham in the morning, it had been in near constant motion for almost 10). Already past was the beautifully rugged section from Dunbar, the impressive bridges of Newcastle, Northern cities of Durham and York. From Derby to Birmingham I was treated to the repetitive throb and rattle of both loose interior fittings and the various musical choices of my fellow passengers in glorious 360 degree surround sound, the sights of the breweries of Burton doing little to ease my growing irritation.

Blessed relief from the chart hits (played with remarkable clarity through airpods and my neighbour’s head) came at the circle of hell commonly known as Birmingham New Street – the carriage largely emptied and my tablemate was very talkative once the offer of tea was made and accepted. There passed a happy few hours talking about travel (hers in India, mine across Europe, both happily by rail) as our train trundled towards Bristol passing the gorgeous Malverns.

At Temple Meads I bade my friend goodbye and my luck with ran dry. With wonderful Great Western architecture to both sides we were held waiting for a driver on a late running northbound service, and a member of the public with a great number of opinions and a voice with remarkable travelling qualities boarded. As the train waited he entertained the otherwise peaceful carriage with discussions on solar powered battery banks, the correct way to consume a sandwich if you are unable to wash you hands, and into which specific bin a compostable carrier bag aught to be disposed if it is to fulfil its composty purpose. Across from me sits a delightful fellow in sportswear – beside me sit his Adidas clad feet. We are now approaching Taunton, with luck we will be treated to the most wonderful late evening sun as we promenade at speed along the coast at Dawlish. If I’m very lucky indeed Taunton has the correct bin to dispose of a compostable carrier, but I fear that it might even be Plymouth.

Post Script 1 – Departing Exeter St. Davids

Taunton does not have the correct type of bin but fortunately Exeter does. Thanks to Britons having a generally awkward attitude to turfing people out of their seats I am still sitting next to some trainers. The rightful seat holders are quite loud so this might yet prove to be a blessing, but I think I’d prefer loud conversation to the sound track of a Mission Impossible by way of headphones and skull and occasional kicks to the elbow.

Post Script 2 – Passing Tavistock Junction

All is well with the world. The light held just long enough to enjoy the view of the boats at Teignmouth.

2020 – New Year’s Morning – Half past two.

At the turning of the last decade I was sixteen,

My hair fell past my spotty shoulders,

Hipster before it was cool I listened to all my music on cassette,

Much stolen by you from Croydon record library,

Via quite expensive tape recorder,

Onto finest chrome oxide tape.

Three and one quarter of one year later,

My hair much shorter,

I sat by your bedside and sang to you as you died,

A weight of grief and responsibility,

Landed squarely on those still spotty shoulders,

Sending fault lines through my life.

In the intervening seconds between then and now,

I’ve lived and stretched and grown,

I’m now half the age you lived to be,

I’ve married the girl who talked over the Archers,

Got a job (railways you’ll be glad to know),

Though I’ve still not fixed the car.

This last year we bought a house,

Mum thinks you’d like it,

And finally all those nights spent fettling in number 27,

Fitting floors and building shelves,

All planned to the last millimetre,

Bear their fruit in it.

And now I’m two hours into a new decade,

The first of mine unmarked by your dancing,

Yet when ‘Le Freak’ opened the 70s show on the radio,

There you were with me,

Strutting across my mind’s kitchen,

V-neck and jeans and disco moves.

Nobody can say what tomorrow brings,

But I’m glad for every yesterday we had,

Because when I set to on my next big project,

Part of you will be there,

Passing me the next screwdriver,

Marking off the cut list.

This (probably) isn't 1983 - the blame lies with all of us.

The following was first put out on my Facebook page at about midnight on Friday 13th December.

It’s another long one I’m afraid (and because I’m tired it’s littered with parenthesis and very long sentences broken up with funny commas all over the place, although I have managed to avoid the dreaded ellipses… so that’s something!) – but I hope it provides some optimism (or at least direction) and sanity in a political landscape that we perhaps view as having changed overnight.

Firstly – there are those on the left who would have us not point fingers at this time, and there are yet more what want to loudly shout whilst pointing fingers at anyone but themselves. Both groups are deluded and wrong, now is the time to point fingers, if we want to have a chance at gaining power at the next election we have to regroup and move as one, and to do that we have to understand what we did wrong, we have communicate where we think others have fallen short, and we absolutely have to reflect on our own choices and mistakes – because no group is without some responsibility.

The big headline from Labour’s perspective is of course the revolt in the “Red Wall”, I dare say there’ll be a lot of very public discussion, and some even more public blaming over who is responsible, but here’s my take. There are a number of short term issues which which the electorate had with Labour and which Labour failed to address, but there are more long term structural issues. After the 2010 result my dad and I had a good long chat about the future of Labour (he left the party in 2003 as a result of the Iraq war, I canvassed for the Greens in 2010). We both concluded that the New Labour project had run its course - Iraq, attacks of civil liberties we both agreed on, but dad picked up on something which I did not- the places most gutted by Thatcherism were reeling, even before the financial crisis they were increasingly left behind, and by 2010 they were starting to hurt and as a result were flirting with openly fascistic and racist parties (UKIP, the BNP and the English Democrats won 10% of the vote between them in Blyth Valley in 2010). Brexit and Corbyn are both short term issues which definitely had a big impact last night, but the communities that switched this time have been royally fucked over by both parties for a very long time. Farage and Brexit have offered desperate people the promise of systematic change - Johnson tapped into that hope and lied in ways that were hard to counter.

In 2015 Corbyn's campaign highlighted the left behinds, but they were talking about communities they'd never really claimed to represent, places like Falmouth and North Devon where rural poverty were biting, I think they gambled that their previously safe northern seats would remember Thatcher and what the labour movement achieved on a local scale during the collapse of British heavy industry, and forget Blair’s indifference to them, which is an irrelevance when Johnson says they should remember both and remember that he is "different". Labour badly misjudged how to handle Brexit, and the left have absolutely failed to communicate their policies - particularly how to handle communities in the North East where far right thinking has become the norm, but this has been a long time coming.

People, particularly those on the right of the Labour party are making comparisons to 1983 and 1992 but I don't think that's right, I think this is more like the 1930s (take for example the Ashton-under-Lyne by-election of 1931 where Mosley’s far right “New Party” split the anti-tory vote and delivered a Conservative on 44.6% of the vote). The Labour movement in the ‘30s was faced with serious issues – feelings of betrayal over McDonald’s coalition with the Conservatives, populist movements across Europe gaining power, and threats from overseas to British jobs to name but a few. A notable case study in defeating the fascist threat that filled the voids caused by these crises is found in the east end of London, traditional Labour party territory filled with working class people leading very hard lives in often terrible deprivation. London’s east end, with its docks and insatiable appetite for cheap labour was a magnet for new immigrant communities, and against this backdrop it was easy for the British Union of Fascists to start making inroads, much as modern day populist parties have done across white working class communities over the past 40 years.

I don't think the right option is to steer a course for a shiny new centrist Blair in an attempt to recreate 1997, but to do as was done in the ‘30s to take down Mosley and the BUF and counter inequality head on, actually doing work in these communities to make them better despite the government.
Momentum (for all its many faults) has mobilised and engaged people in numbers that really haven't been seen in the post-war era, but to almost no useful end. If a proportion of these people can be put to action actually tackling inequality, as activists did during the 1930s, perhaps there'll be a hope of redirecting the righteous anger felt in the communities that swung last night towards the people actually holding them back, rather than raging against bogeymen like immigration and the EU.

This is my personal view of where we need to start in the communities who’ve told us at the ballot box we’ve lost their trust, not just to make the labour movement relevant and electable, but to reduce the horrific effects a Johnson lead Conservative government could unleash – the specifics of how we organise to achieve it I do not know, though I would urge everyone reading this to join a trade union.

Homeward Bound

“BREL York” reads the embossed step as I cross into the stuffy carriage, the smell of hot dust and diesel fumes displacing that of rain soaked concrete and ballast, the thundering of diesel engines replacing the gentle hum of the OLE and occasional announcement. I take my seat and plug myself in to my iPod. A notebook or novel sits on the seat next to me, poking out of a pocket of my big coat, in my mind I’ll use the next three hours productively but realistically I will gaze at the passing scenery and contemplate. I’m going home.

I’ve timed my journey to avoid the Pacers so my journey won’t be too uncomfortable (for the uninitiated these are rail vehicles built in the mid-80s out of bus parts on a shoestring budget to serve unelectrified branch lines, they are terrible). I’m travelling after the rush hour to avoid the crowds as the train approaches Leeds, I could have left at around ten, and the chances are that’s when I planned to leave, but I’m terrible at getting out the house. There are perhaps ten or fifteen other passengers on the two car train, a couple of cyclists on their way home after a long cycle through the dales disturb the quiet as they rattle their gear into the racks and clack to their seats.

The hustle alarms sound and the doors shut. The engines roar as the train judders and shakes its way out of Platform 2, hurrying up the West Coast Main Line, past scrubby farmland and the open expanse of Morecambe Bay, the journey’s brief encounter with speed before we reach Carnforth and the slow line beyond. I twist my head as rows of old carriages, mail vehicles, and dead diesels pass by before Steamtown is obscured from view by the walls of the platform shelter. A Pendolino screams by on the way to Glasgow as a few people change to catch trains to such exotic destinations as Ulverston and Barrow-in-Furness. Once again the hustle alarms wail, the doors rumble shut, and the engine picks up, dragging us up, over the mainline, and away.

I’m lucky and the rain ceases, light clouds linger over head, I will be spoilt with a glorious sunset. The train rumbles on, joining the alignment of the Little North Western Railway before grinding to a halt at Wennington. The conductor releases the doors and stands on the little platform, I hear the doors of the next car slide open and the click of the snick of the gate to the carpark. The conductor boards and closes the doors, then with two sharp buzzes we are once again away, trundling towards the Yorkshire border.

The third stop is Clapham (North Yorkshire) and I recall the occasion I walked 3 miles to catch the first train of the day after a party in nearby Austwick. The countryside is bathed in the beginnings of a sunset, low oranges and yellows playing off rivers, rocks, and low-lying fields of sheep. In the distance hills with their rocky outcrops outlined against a darkening sky. The train grinds on, wending its way through stops at Giggleswick and Long Preston before reaching the anomalously grand Hellifield.

Hellifield was once an important junction station served by expresses between London and Scotland, and whilst those days have passed, the grand iron work of the station buildings remains and in the glorious red/orange light it’s somehow easier to imagine its once important status, the sunset going some way to conceal the peeling paint and boarded up windows.

Once more the train groans away from the station, passing the final visible signal box of the journey, roaring displaced by a low grumbling as we head on, Gargrave passes as another brake application, hustle alarm and roar of diesel engines before the long pause at Skipton.

As we approach we pass two roads of modern electric commuter trains (Class 333s for the spotters) waiting for tomorrow’s rush, the first indication for almost 50 miles that we aren’t in the 1980s. Night has fallen but Skipton is large enough to have proper lighting, albeit probably flickering. Recently painted ironwork supports a glass platform canopy, the diesel exhaust marks already starting to show. At Skipton the crew changes and during the eight and a half minute wait the engines are powered down. The saloon is temporarily plunged into semi-darkness, before the strip lights ping back on. I stand up and step outside, walking up the length of the platform to stretch my legs, cold, fresh air temporarily blowing away the comfortable smell of hot dust and oil, the throb of the engines still ringing in my ears. I turn to see the new conductor emerge from the underpass and walk back. The last of the light of the day has ebbed away as we recommence our journey, so I pull out the book and lose myself for a couple of stops. We fly through stations I know oddly well, having undone and labelled every one of their many poster cases in a previous existence, stopping at the few that this old diesel can manage without delaying the following electric.

At Shipley I begin to gather my things. The train judders away one last time and crawls towards Leeds. Outside the city is temporarily visible as we emerge from a cutting and out across the low viaducts of the station approach. I pull on my big coat and force the zip of my hold all over my book and any other sundry possessions I’ve taken out during the journey, the few passengers move towards the front door of the carriage, but I go to the back, my long legs will get me out and down the platform before the queue for the logical door filters out. At Leeds I am faced with a decision, there’s a fast York train in 12 minutes which for £14 which will get me home within the hour, or I can wait forty minutes for the Blackpool train which will get me home an hour later but cost me nothing (the joys of staff travel). I invariably decide to save my pennies and pop to M&S for a pint of milk and a dessert.

With half an hour to kill I take my place at the end of the platform and sip my milk, some bizarre quirk means that by the end of the day the security announcements have gone out of sync and a disembodied voice threatens “Luggage will be removed and may be destroyed by security services”.

A few trains rumble through heading to Neville Hill for the night as a small gaggle of people gather at the platform end for the last train to Cross Gates, Garforth, East Garforth, Micklefield, Church Fenton and York. A 158 eases up the platform and the doors hiss open. Once again the sounds and smells of the station are displaced by the low rumble of the engines and the smell of hot dust. I settle down once more and dig out my dessert, book and iPod. Stations and songs pass by, this is the home stretch and in 25 minutes and no time at all we are through Church Fenton, the final station before York.

The conductor walks through filling a clear bin bag with discarded beer cans and copies of The Metro as the train ignores poor Ulleskelf and surges up the East Coast Main Line. We slow and pull gratefully into Platform 7, the conductor ties the bag top and drops it on the luggage stack before opening the door control panel and releasing the doors. I alight into the cold empty station, the grand ironwork soaring overhead protects only me from the elements as I cross the bridge. The departures board reads 2342, there is no next train. I am home.

A tale in 500 words - Motivation

Edit: 2019-07-17
Trigger Warnings and a short introduction: Someone with more time than me would find a way of hiding the below post behind an affirmative consent box - but I have neither the time nor the audience to really justify that. This short story contains themes of depression and self harm. It is not autobiographical but it does draw inspiration from my own experiences of poor mental health, and those of people with whom I have crossed paths.

Original Post: 2017-01-16
Today I fancied writing a story, and as Mr. Evans is once again launching his 500 Words story writing competition (for children), I thought I might give it a go. Here it is.

Outside it was raining, from time to time the sun would make a hopeful bid to break through the clouds, only to be stifled by a weightier darkness. If she were to look through her bedroom window, and were a poetic type, she might have felt the weather was some sort of reflection of her inner self. But she doesn’t look up, and she isn’t a poetic type, and it wasn’t pathetic fallacy - it was Leeds.

Beneath the duvet the last heat of the 3am hot water bottle seeped away. It hadn’t worked. Nothing worked. Last night, like the night before, and so many nights before that, she hadn’t slept. She kicked the hot water bottle out and rolled over. Today would be another day like the day before and the days before that. Minutes, hours, and seconds passed as one. She reached out her arm to pick at the seam of the wallpaper beside her bed, the cold air brushing against her exposed wrist. Cold air meant the heating had been off for at least two hours, she hadn’t heard the post come so it was probably about eleven. She pushed her foot out from under the covers, then withdrew it again. The kitchen was too far away.

She teased the paper away from the wall, then pushed it back and, with an almost inaudible sigh, rolled over. The little sunlight that had made it through the clouds and the closed curtains reflected dimly off any surfaces it could find. The lens of the dead alarm clock, yesterday’s mug of cold tea, the blade off a pencil sharpener. The crumbs from last week’s toast irritated her leg. Her foot emerged from under the covers again, followed by the other, and with herculean strength she threw off the duvet and sat up. The face she’d drawn on the back of the mirror grinned aimlessly across the room at her. She hopped lightly through the detritus of her existence and pulled open the door before walking heavily to the bathroom.

The cold toilet seat tempered the relief of emptying her bladder and she caught the eye of the reflection in the mirror, the scars on her arm were temporarily visible as it shot up to kill the light. She contemplated a shower as she washed her hands, then splashed some water over her face and walked back into the hallway then down the stairs to the kitchen. The cold tiles on her bare feet sent a shiver up her legs as she filled the kettle. From the back of her mind a feeling was growing, swelling. Tea in hand she returned to her bedroom, the light glistening off the surface of her fresh tea, the old tea, and the blade from the pencil sharpener. Days, months, weeks ago she might have fought it. She sipped her tea staring the blade - her feelings down. The scars on her arm were temporarily visible as it shot up to kill the pain.