Training company boss by day. Poet and a whole heap of other things by night. Plus the son of a mother who was killed in a care home while living with dementia.
Blokes in ones and girls in twos.
Some in boots and some in shoes.
“All tickets please.”
Punk with nose ring. Ginger hair.
Babe in arms. Collapsed pushchair.
“The next station is Stockport.”
Kids with phones. Teachers with papers.
Both reflecting that day’s capers.
“He was like in capital letters SCREAMING at me.”
A wondrous landscape sliding by.
Look out the window: azure sky.
“Yes he’s been working hard that boy.”
Substituting sylvan March of green
With a silvery iPhone screen.
“Hang on I can’t hear you.”
3G. 4G. Two bars. One.
Battery dead. Or signal gone.
“We will shortly be arriving at Crewe.”
Lunch unpacked from ice cream carton.
Tattooed roses in white flesh garden.
“She’s been snapping at everyone.”
Shirts. And socks. Shorts. And blouses.
Trolley tea. Then terraced houses.
“I’ll have to check with Christine.”
Lives wide open. Windows closed.
Our hopes and fears and thoughts exposed.
“She was proper fit I can tell you.”
Too loud the sinner and the sinned.
All caution thrown into the wind.
“The next stop is Ludlow.”
The man looks up. Sees his reflection.
Shit he says there’s no connection.
This poem was inspired in general by a journey on the Arriva Wales train service from Manchester to Ludlow and in particular by the girl with the tattooed thighs. The words in quote marks are either overheard snatches of mobile phone conversations or announcements made over the tannoy. Both are reported verbatim.
His work hangs on the gallery wall.
We hear its buzz.
We’re in its thrall.
Each piece still humming with the thrum.
As strong as when the work was done.
That clay was soft and took the mould
Of artist’s hands and brush strokes bold
Laid down their layers one by one
Upon the canvas taut as drum.
And so lives on the artist tutor.
Who has a past as well a future.
Whose work transcends the passing years
Through others’ eyes and hands and ears.
We hear the echo loud and clear.
The artist lives! Ne’er shed a tear.
Courtesy Gallery 131, Ludlow
These words came to me after attending a preview of the Man and Light exhibition running at Gallery 131 on Corve Street in Ludlow until March 19th. The exhibition celebrates the work of the Midlands artist Arthur Berridge (1902 – 1957). Opening it the sculptor Stephen Cox RA explained how Berridge was underrated – both as an artist and as a teacher. It struck me then that echoes of the creative compulsion that drives artists like Berridge and Cox reverberate indefinitely: directly through their work (and more loudly when many works are brought together in one place); and indirectly through the work of others they’ve taught.
Dangerous I know, mixing business with pleasure. But here’s a sneak preview of the new ACM Training cycling kit. I’ll be wearing it to promote the company at cycling events over the year and they’ll also be available to buy. Details to follow.
Now as the dusk is drawing in
Around these weathered cottage walls
The birds sing out an evening hymn
Their last before the darkness falls
And carried on a gentle breeze
Which shimmers through the grass and trees
A haunting curlew calls.
Farmland and hills soon disappear
Shrouded beneath the cloak of night
And Springtime flowers held so dear
Are safely hidden from our sight
By day the golden tulip blooms
Reflect the warmth within these rooms
Now bathed in candlelight.
Comforting chair by fireside glow
When daylight struggles once more cease
Thoughts that surround us ebb and flow
More mellow as the flames increase
The fiery dance directs our gaze
Enveloped in the tender blaze
We find refreshing peace.
This Shropshire home is sleeping now
Beneath a starry, jewelled sky
While somewhere on a moonlit bough
A lone owl hoots his lullaby
And lying still we long to hear
Piercing the darkness plain and clear
Another bird’s reply.
Joanne Emery
I’ve only just rediscovered these wonderful lines. They were composed after the poet stayed at Crosshands with her family a few years ago. Written in a neat hand on a scrap of A4 they’d been tucked inside a book for safe keeping. And that’s where they might have stayed if I hadn’t been leafing through the book (by Clive James) for some inspiration. I hope you’ll agree it’s a cracking poem. And I like to think the Aussie wordsmith wouldn’t have minded keeping it safe all this time. But then I’m biased. The poet is my sister. Proving that our father, Brian’s, love of words rubbed off on both of us. Thank you Joanne, thank you Clive and thank you, most of all, dad.
He’d forgotten how to listen. To still his knotted mind until the sounds untangled. Untied one by one from the thrum.
Listened.
Registered. Identified. Appreciated.
More, much more than mechanical.
No eardrum beat alone. But notes in a symphony. The orchestra all around. Violin, horn, oboe. Dunlin, dawn, crow.
As he listened each sound got louder. Or rather expanded. Until it filled the concert hall of his mind. All other thoughts displaced. The frantic rhythm paced.
He started to cry. Or it started to rain. Perhaps it was both. Tambourine drops rattling the leaf litter at his feet.
Calm. The steam from your pre-ride espresso rises vertically.
Today I cycled from Aberdeen to The Lecht ski centre in the Cairngorms and back. Whichever way I pedalled the wind was slapping my face. Which got me thinking about the Beaufort scale.
The scale was devised in 1805 by Francis Beaufort (later Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort), an Irish Royal Navy officer, while serving on HMS Woolwich. Clearly he wasn’t a cyclist. If he was, this is what he’d have written…
0 – Calm. The steam from your pre-ride espresso rises vertically but only because you’re slap bang in the middle of a high pressure system that stretches from Scandanavia to the Bay of Biscay. Night time temperature’s have plummeted to – 12C and the road is covered with 3″ of black ice.
1 – Light air. The drift of bumble bees indicates wind direction which, inevitably, is always directly towards the unzipped neck of your cycling jersey. Other, stingless, insects remain stationary.
2 – Light breeze. Wind felt on exposed skin which is a blessing in summer but leads to chillblains in winter. Leaves rustle but you think the noise is coming from your chain so you stop pedalling. Wind vanes begin to move – towards you.
3 – Gentle breeze. Leaves and small twigs constantly moving. The dead ones snap off and land in your path. You swerve to avoid a slightly bigger twig just as an articulated lorry starts to overtake you. The weather beaten flags left up after last year’s poorly-organised sportive are extended.
4 – Moderate breeze. Dust and loose paper raised. The dust gets in your eyes even though you’ve just shelled out £200 for a pair of wraparound, anti-nuclear, eye protectors (formally known as sunglasses). Small branches begin to move but you can’t see them because your eyes are watering so much.
5 – Fresh breeze. Branches of a moderate size move. But you still can’t see them because by now you’ve accidentally rubbed cherry-flavoured energy gel into your eyes in a desperate attempt to get rid of the grit. Small trees in leaf begin to sway. You begin to sway.
6 – Strong breeze. Large branches in motion. You’re in motion. But slower than you’d expect for the effort because, whichever way you head, the wind is always on your nose. Whistling heard in overhead wires and in your helmet. Umbrella use becomes difficult and you begin to wish you’d brought that Gortex cycling onesie instead. Empty plastic bins tip over. You tip over empty plastic bins.
7 – High wind, moderate gale, near gale. Whole trees in motion. You’ve ground to a virtual standstill and dismount to squirt water in your eyes because, while that cherry-flavoured gel tastes lovely, the methadioxydrone, or whatever gives it its taste, stings like hell. Effort needed to see where you’re going. Effort needed to walk against the wind.
8 – Gale, fresh gale. Some twigs broken from trees. Some spokes broken from wheel. Cars veer on road. Bikes veer on road to avoid veering cars. Progress on foot is seriously impeded so you decide to keep pedalling. Progress on bike is seriously impeded (by twigs and veering cars).
9 – Strong/severe gale. Some branches break off trees, some wheels break off bikes. Some small trees blow over. Some small bikes blow over. You wish you’d still got those stabilisers from back in the day. Construction/temporary signs and barricades blow over but only at the precise moment you’re riding past them.
10 – Storm, whole gale. Trees are broken off or uprooted. Cyclists are broken and upended. Structural damage likely, particularly to the aero carbon frame that you re-mortgaged your house to buy.
11 – Violent storm. Widespread vegetation and structural damage likely. Most of the vegetation ends up in your face. Most of the structural damage is to the most expensive components on your bike. The dérailleur hanger is the only bit that remains unbent.
12 – Storm force. Severe, widespread damage to vegetation and structures. Debris and unsecured objects are hurled about. On the third attempt you finally manage to open the back door to fetch the bike from the shed only to realise that there is no shed. You head back to the house inexplicably humming Somewhere Over the Rainbow from the Wizard of Oz to find the back door has blown shut. You haven’t got a key and there’s nobody else in the house. You utter a string of un-Dorothy-like expletives and sit on the step in your bib shorts cursing while the storm blows itself out.
If you’ve enjoyed reading this post please consider donating to my Just Giving page. I’m raising money for Willen Hospice by cycling from Paris to Nice via the Alps. Hopefully not into a headwind!
P.S. You can read about the proper Beaufort scale here and see how spookily similar mine is to the real thing!
It is, as headlines go, a little confusing, I’ll grant you that. Certainly not up there with “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster” which has the simple virtue of telling you all you need to know without having to demean yourself by actually buying a copy of The Sun (wot published it.)
Courtesy The Sun
And not in the same league as my personal favourite, the Carlisle News and Star’s “Budgie’s Death Now Being Treated As Suspicious” which has the opposite effect and makes you want to take out an annual subscription (at least to the Silloth edition).
Courtesy Carlisle News
No! “T am S y” falls into the cryptic category and as such probably belongs more in the back page crossword puzzle than on a front page headline. The clue is in the gaps. Fill them in with the missing letters and you’ve solved it. Or, if you prefer your clues a little more gnomic, Rupert Murdoch on your bike will give you the same result and also, by a bizarre coincidence, link the hamster headline with mine.*
Yes, you’ve cracked it: “Team Sky.” Cracked being the operative word because the Team Sky lettering on my very expensive Rapha bib shorts has cracked after just one wash and dry (ahem) cycle. My other pair of even more eye-wateringly expensive shorts haven’t and they were put through the wringer (so to speak) in several ride through laundromats on my epic trip across America.
I didn’t notice Chris Froome sporting am Sk kit as he showed the competition a clean pair of cleats on his way up to the summit finish on La Pierre Saint-Martin. I didn’t see the motorcyclist cameraman getting an arse shot of Richie Porte’s shorts with “2 s Cent y Fo ” emblazened across them.
Courtesy my tumble drier (on sportswear mode)
All of which leads me to conclude that Team Sky and Rapha are fobbing off us amateur riders with second rate kit.
Or to put it another way: “Team Sky’s Bib Shorts Are Pants.”
If I want to wear something that needs mollycoddling in the laundry department I’ll buy a G string woven from unicorn fur thank you very much. Cycle wear is going to get sweaty. Fact. And as such it’s going get whanged in the washing machine and tossed in the tumble drier. So make them more durable please. Either that or persuade the boffins at Bosch to design a cycle cycle on the next generation of washers. At least then I’ll be able to freshen up the G string and the bib shorts in the same load.
*Rupert Murdoch’s companies have stakes in both The Sun and Team Sky.
By the way, if you’ve enjoyed reading this and you’ve got a few bob to spare I’m riding from Paris to Nice in a few weeks time to raise money for Willen Hospice. You can donate safely and securely via my Just Giving page. Thank you.
