Category Archives: Memories

What price a game of Cricket?

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Qual o preço de um jogo de críquete?

M4011M-1402

Take a school, All Saints in Gateshead UK (Now gone thankfully)
Take a so-called game of Cricket, a stupid teacher batting, and a group of unprotected small boys fielding.
A visit to hospital, x-rays, a broken cheekbone a near loss of an eye.
No-one held to account, no action by parents NAFF ALL.

Imagine uma escola, a All Saints em Gateshead, no Reino Unido (que felizmente já não existe).
Imaginem um suposto jogo de críquete, um professor incompetente a rebater e um grupo de rapazes desprotegidos a defender.

Uma visita ao hospital, radiografias, uma fratura no osso da face, quase perda de um olho.
Ninguém foi responsabilizado, nenhuma ação por parte dos pais. NADA DE REGRESSO.

Sandy Denny – Her life and times, a review

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My most powerful and enduring memory of Sandy Denny, was in a concert by Fotheringay in Newcastle City Hall. The orchestra pit had been boarded over and extra seats installed and I was sat somewhere in the 3rd row. For a large part of the performance, Sandy sat at the lovely New Steinway Grand Piano and sang. I never took my eyes off her, and was rewarded by acknowledged glances and smiles, but most of all, she looked directly at me as she sang through most of the concert.
Whilst feeling very special, I recognised something I’d done many years before, singing solo as a young boy in front of audiences. Looking out from a lonely stage to a sea of faces can be terrifying. I would pick out a person, usually a woman, who was intent on me, and sing to her, all of the other faces then didn’t matter. The feeling is very personal, and quite intimate.

Later, much later. I heard of Sandy’s untimely demise from someone I disliked intensely. Hearing it from him seemed to make the news even more hurtful, he was more than aware of how I felt about her.

There has been much said and written about Sandy Denny and latterly a review of a book about her is here Life and Times of Sandy Denny

The Eyes Have It..

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They certainly do. Unfortunately these are not rendered well on this cut-down apology of a blog. Everyone now bow low and salute the mobile phone, which a lot of folks think is a computer, which it certainly is not. Rant over. These pics were the randomly-selected heading photos on a previous blog which no longer exists, except on the wayback machine. Some of the photos are of ‘friends’, and some are not. IMHO all were very beautiful, and if the ‘eyes’ are indeed windows of the ‘soul’, ’nuff said. Although all pics were originally uploaded in 2012, some date back to pics I took much earlier.

Four Days.

Afghan Girl. Not a pic of mine, but staggeringly, hauntingly beautiful.

Angel Eyes. And a little naughty.

Redhead. Ever the appraising look.

February girl. A professional model.

Helen. Was a little older than me, I was 16 when I took this.

I rather think not, naughty boy.

January girl. A beautiful Japanese girl.

Very kindly said ‘No’.

Cure My Loneliness.

Shockingly beautiful, soft and silky red hair.

Russians are lovely folks, unfortunately their country is dominated by a bag of shit dictator, and his ‘hanglers-on.’

Sad Eyes, plus photographer.

This smiling face blow-up of a hi-def pic shows the photographer also.

Keep young and beautiful..

Valda. The eyes tell all.

Vita. Always my favorite.

Beautiful Stranger

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There are encounters in our lives, that will stay with us, so it seems, forever.
By far the most impressionable of these for myself have been those in my ‘early’ years. Some, of course, would be best ‘forgotten’, but I realized some time ago, that they provided a timely and useful message. Others, at times proved both beautiful and fulfilling – up to a point – the point at which I wished they would continue, but didn’t. Such is life.

A habit of mine, for as long as I can remember, was to search for answers, an unending journey. When I couldn’t ferret out reasons why, I made up my own. I never was a diarist, but always have been a prolific ‘scribbler’, writing down what I thought had happened. Later, when I had felt traumatised, I wrote about it, then read, and re-read it, in effect ‘externalizing’ it.
Some events, it would seem, refuse to ‘lie down peacefully’, and return, sometimes to taunt, sometimes to haunt, in many cases relentlessly. The emotions are invoked again, whether they be regret, pain, or loss.

This account was first written in 2009. It reflects an incident many years before, She has never been forgotten, and nor has what I felt about her. Her plea has been answered.

Download or read in browser: BeautifulStranger

Uncle John

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This tale is true. I wish it wasn’t. It describes events that took place in my pre-pubescent days. See my remarks later, after reading below.
Uncle John

I’ve added the following to give the reader some perspective of my father’s ‘family’.
My dad had two brothers, John and David – there had been a third, Joseph, who I was informed had been in the Royal Navy, and whose life was lost when ‘Glorious’ was torpedoed by a U-boat during World War II. There was a sister, Mary, regarded I suspect, as ‘a black sheep’ by her brothers.

My retrospective on the events relating to John are, that I pondered why nothing had apparently been done to help John with his very obvious paranoia.
Did my father refer John’s fears and actions to a doctor? I strongly suspect that he did not. ‘Finger-wagging’ he was very fond of, and that, I suspect was all that his ‘talks’ consisted of.
That in succession John was in danger of electrocuting himself, seemed of no import. It took a threat of blowing himself up, together with half of the other residents of his street, before anything positive was done. This is nothing short of shameful.

As it happened, John ‘outlasted’ my father, and apparently had left his ‘worldly possessions’ to my father. This I know, by being contacted by Mary. Well I don’t believe there were many men in Gateshead with my name, so it wouldn’t have been too difficult.
I visited Mary, by then a fairly old woman. She was ‘most concerned’ that if a descendant of my Dad’s didn’t come forward, the ‘social’ would get the ‘money’.
I listened carefully, then left, and did nothing.

Wendy

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I never discovered why we couldn’t keep ‘our’ dog. I remember missing her very much.
The events portrayed here are true, and though the account is quite short, there is at least one scene, that though it portrays ‘typical’ behaviour of some children at the time, some folks may be upset by it. Looking back on it myself, I still find it somewhat obscene, as I did when I first witnessed it.

Wendy

Predator

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The Revenge of The Red Pirate
© 2009 J.W.Brown

The movie had been running about 10 minutes, a work typical of the time, with Burt Lancaster playing ‘The Red Pirate’, and already I was deeply involved, as any kid would be. Since Frank and I had sat down, the cinema had filled up – mostly with kids, and some family groups. I became aware of a slight pressure on my knee, and looking down saw the hand of the man sitting next to me. I pushed it off, and he made no attempt to stop me. A little later he spoke and I gave a sideways glance at him, but he was turned the other way – to a little girl sitting on his right. The woman sat next to her answered the man and I breathed a sigh of relief – they were a family.

It happened again. I know now I should have shouted at the top of my voice, but I had no idea what he was trying to do and yet I felt strangely embarrassed. I again pushed his hand away, and shuffled in my seat towards my friend. I tried to engage myself in the movie, but was too unsettled, and every time the man’s arm moved it was all I could do to stop jumping up from my seat.

I was now watching the space between him and me, rather than The Red Pirate and felt thoroughly miserable. The hand started it’s journey again, but this time Frank whispered in my ear: “Change places with me.” I said nothing but got up and we swapped seats. Despite feeling enormous relief, I was now worrying what was going to happen to my friend, who although older than me, was certainly no match for a grown man.

Slowly, my anxiety subsided, and I managed to re-engage myself in the movie. The current fight seemed to be reaching a finale – that inevitable moment in space and time when the ‘goody’ has fought his way to the ‘baddie’, and everything is to be won or lost in their final personal battle, mano a mano. Back and forth they moved across the deck of the ship, dabbing and thrusting with their cutlasses. Suddenly the ‘baddie’ faltered and The Red Pirate ran his cutlass straight through the baddies chest. There was a blood-curdling scream and the baddie fell to the deck dead, but strangely the scream went on and on, very loud, and never stopping.

Almost hypnotised, I turned and looked across Frank to the see the man’s face contorted in agony and that dreadful rattling scream issuing from his mouth. I looked down to the seat between him and Frank – the bone handle of a knife was protruding from the back of the man’s hand, where it had been driven right through and into the arm of the seat. Blood was spurting fiercely on each side of the hilt, and pouring in a stream onto the floor.

I glanced at Frank. He was sat perfectly still, calmly watching the man’s terrible agony, and then he slowly got up and said quietly to me: “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

At the box-office, Frank went up to the window and said to the ticket clerk: “Call the police and an ambulance, The Red Pirate has stabbed a pervert in the picture-hall.”
Then we left.

‘Pervert Palace’ – The Bensham Picture House, now long gone. (Thanks Trevor)

My Beeping Heart

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What should have been a reasonably straightforward keyhole repair to my left knee, turned into probably one of the most disturbing events of my life.
Later the following week, a visit to my GP to review the report he had been given, resulted in in him marking up my medical medical records ‘No More G.A.’s unless absolutely necessary’. That I had been conscious some of the time, hallucinating at others and my heart had stopped beating at one point, I knew already. But he had asked me to tell him what I remembered and he was both deeply shocked, but not a little curious at my feelings of ‘deja-vu’ and the hallucinations I’d had. He had shook his head when I related the ‘back-story’, saying ‘My God. That has stayed with you almost all your life?”
I had nodded and laughed. “It never went away.”
Finally he had asked how I felt. I assured him, I was fine.
So. most of this tale is true, as you will gather when reading it.

Download/Read in Browser: My Beeping Heart