Trivial Pursuits

So.
1970.
 I was 18.
And working as a nursing assistant/'Cadet Nurse' at Stansfield View Hospital in Todmorden.

Then,one weekend ,I was off
so.....

I wanted to go to " A  Festival"...........

......which  all started so well for me! 
having  grown my hair: got meself all the 'right'clothes:had watched "Easy Rider" a couple of times:and was in the middle of my first Herman Hesse novel.
So I felt like a
Debutant,entering 'Society'  for the first time.
The first thing that happened to me was a young 'hippy'with a London accent walk up to me   to ask
"Where are the toilets ,Man"?
 I had arrived.I  had been recognised as one of the tribe........

"When the Humblebums appeared on Saturday evening it started to rain even harder and because the stage roof was flat , water quickly collected and poured through onto the musicians . During the course of their performance the drummer played with an umbrella up and there were constant interruptions due to workmen coming on stage to drill holes in the floor to let the rain out. ..."

The above photo is from 1970.In Barkisland ,near Halifax.It is during the  Krumlin Festival
It was billed to be "England's Woodstock" .
A bonkers Idea!  High up in moorland...A torrential storm......Horrible Weather.By the second  night ,the police were handing  out waterproof -sheeting to us baby hippies.......One band ( John Mayall?) had to abandon their set for fear of being electricuted.
One person died overnight from exposure...
Krumlin was abandoned halfway through this 2 day  storm.
Between making drug -arrests,the police helped us evacuate.....

The promoter , a  Local   Halifax Lad   called  Brian Highley

vanished alone on foot into the stormy misty moorland.He was 
.".....owing large sums of money to all and sundry or to have wandered off in a fugue-like state , tramping the moors for several days before being rescued in the nick of time before he expired from exposure and dehydration......."[read more:]
  It wasnt all bad though!
For example,it was  the first time I heard & saw live rock music (other than seeing The Troggs a few years earlier at Halifax's Victoria Theatre)
On Krumlin's   first night (before this freak weather came ) I heard Sandy Denny sing :England's finest ever folk voice......It was worth it ,for me,for this alone.
+The Pentangle played live too !
.And a young Elton John made his 'big audience' debut ( handing out bottles of brandy to some in the crowd to keep them warm)
Brian Highley   later went on to invent 'Trivial Persuits ' and script write on British t.v.'s 'Spitting Image'.

Such is life..............

This week's  sepia saturday is around the themes of :

• RAIN ✔,

• CHILDREN  unless you count us "children trying to get back to the garden...."? 

• POLICEMEN ✔,

• NIGHT:

a section of the 25,000 crowd.Maybe I am one of them?

*vibes=MICHAEL NESMITH & THE FIRST NATIONAL BAND

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pursuit-Trivia-Brian-Highley/dp/1494723530 

is this what your missing ,the diamonds and the gold?

You may need to write this down/ copy&paste/feedburn/whip out your crayons/ etc

...... and tell people?

Exactly 3 years ago, me & Cathy saw Young Fathers play live in Rochdale.

  here: are my images + videos from that night.

We go see them again at the end of this month in Manchester.

 They have a new album out this week.

This is the Guardian Review

You may download "Coca Butter" here:

a photo i took of  them in Rochdale.

 

" I used to dream as a child whenever I passed that shop of trying that spaceman looking helmet on and going to the moon lol "

above.....a quote by someone on facebook this week about Scott & Varley

Continuing on from my sepia saturday post last week here is a photo i found today (not even scanned:see my thumb!)
I'm kind of "there"in the photo.But you cant really see me.Maybe an ankle/leg?This is perhaps a reason I have never bothered before with this photo.
I'm in blue.With my back to camera .In the middle of the "scrum".[you will just have to take my word for this!]
Still .It meets a critera for this week's theme of "Sports Fields".

See this week's  other sepian posts  here:

My photo must have been taken in 1966. I played for Clare Hall School, Halifax. We were unbeaten that season.I played in every game as "hooker".[The bloke in the middle of the scrum who has to win/gain the ball for his team]
. The game you see in this photo is being played on Savile Park (aka "The Moor"}.I think it is  Haugh Shaw School we were playing that day.
I seem to remember I got my nose bloodied that day.Sadly I have no photographic record of the exact moment  i lost my good  looks.......... Less than a couple of miles from where this photo was taken in 1966 was Scott & Varey 's Antique Shop on Prescott Street in Halifax.
Antique Shops were an usual thing in 60's Halifax.(everybody then wanted "new").
The shop had opened in the early 1960's .For  a hundred years before ( built in 1862.)It had been the town's  Co-Op/Industrial Society shop.
Scott & Varley's stopped trading  in the early 1970s.
It had been owned by 2 brothers.
One died.The other remained,living above the shop but keeping  the shop below shut.
The strange thing is ,the window display & items for sale have remained unchanged for over 40 years.
The doors are always locked.Nobody asnswers if you knock.
Sometimes,at night, you can see a light on in the back of the shop. Shades of the Twilight Zone!
Its one of those things that if something remains the same for long enough ,you forget about it!
It was only from me reading a facebook discussion this week, that i remembered about its existence .
I  took these photos yesterday
. Incidently.I attended Clare Hall School  between1963&1967 and is only half a mile from Scott& Varleys.
Which means they are displaying the exact same items today, as they did when i was a pupil
it's nice to know some things dont change!

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Scott-Varley-Halifax/

A team photo taken straight after the  game on The Moor.(that's me ,extreme right of the bottom row)

I had some nice news today .
The date has been fixed for the 50 th Aniversary of the opening of Carter Lane Youth Hostel in London.
Carter Lane is the old Choirboys School opposite St Pauls in The City of London.
https://www.yha.org.uk/media/blog/hostel-week-archive-london-st-pauls 
 I left school in 1968. I then worked as a nurse in a mental hospital in Todmorden (Stansfield View) In early 1971 I jacked that job in and moved to work at Carter Lane.
I had a ball! Sex Drugs & Rock N Roll!
 I have posted here previously: about some of my adventures!
So.The weekend of 25 th July I plan to attend that weekend reunion!
 We get to look around the building ,then tour the local old pubs inThe City.(a couple are mentioned in Dickens).Meet up with some people I used to work with then( & have kept in touch with since)
(Nine years later I returned to London as a teacher in the East End )
 a feast of nostalgia awaits!

rest in peace.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11764114

all and sundry.

This week's sepia saturday holds the theme of "groups".

Feb: 1965.
My brother Zyg's 21st Birthday Party in a club on  Clare Road ,Halifax.
Top Row.(l/r) Uncle Gordon ( ex-RAF prisoner of war in Germany for 3 years):Zyg:Me (stood on a box):my Dad Wladylaw (ex-Polish Air Force /got a gong inThe Battle of Arnheim).
Bottom Row (l/r) Aunty Brenda :My Mam,Marjory : Aunty Dot :Cousin Pat.

1967:
Huddersfield   Road,Halifax.
 (photo by Halifax Courier)
Clare Hall School Rugby League team.1966/67 season.
 That's me 4th left/back row .I dont think it looks much like me ? Behind the cameraman were members of the girls hockey team .I think I was attempting to appear hard  !

1996. me with my Transpersonal Gestalt Oasis  Group in Boston Spa. That's me on the floor 'looking a right spangle!

1999? Rochdale Turkish Baths. Me:front row middle.

"The Shining" meets Hitchcocks's "Birds"................caught by Cath this afternoon in front of our new  Living Room  window..

As I create this post  I listen to this .At the end of March me & Cathy have Tickets for Young Fathers! 'lovely Band!
Finally i found  here:  a mystery photo..............just because everybody is looking at you...doesnt mean your paranoid.

snowball in Hell

Strange Face in Halifax.

Me & Cath went to Square  Chapel    Halifax  last night to  see  Strange face: Adventures in a lost Nick Drake recording
A full house .
Watch below a you tube video for background of the project.
Michael Burdett is a lovely bloke who talked and held the audience comforably for over two hours.
Ironically Amusingly.I had wanted to take a photo of Michael talking during the show ,but such things it seems are copyrighted...........
Instead ,I share a photo of me in Halifax in the early 70's (channelling my 'inner-drake' )I was one of those (very) rare souls who actually bought a Nick Drake album (Pink Moon)  in his lifetime.
Below ,some photos from  the past 2 days...........

View all this gallery here /

You can "borrow" this book for 14 days .Simply go here: for free download (it's copyright free)

sepia saturday 407

I take this week's sepia saturday    to be about bicycles. 

The sepia movie   was shot in 1952 (the year i was born & christened "Karol") 

Its called "how friendly are you?"
 It Stars a young lad called Karl

I imagine its purpose   was school/education -related?

A splendid evocation of that period.

Charmingly innocent.(although I worry slightly about all that "fudge"!) 

Whatever.An important & timeless topic.

I can imagine it was a good way into a subject that kids will always find difficult to acknowledge.

It's a pity nobody filmed the audience resposes......that would have been even more interesting than the film itself.

 https://archive.org/details/0038_How_Friendly_Are_You_14_48_41_20  

John Perry Barlow

https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/5-lessons-john-barlow-taught-world/
This week, Grateful Dead lyricist and digital rights activist, John Perry Barlow passed away. Although we mourn the loss of a great visionary, we will forever remember his lessons of free speech, personal growth, and marketing tactics. Here are five lessons we learned from the digital rights activist.
1. Freedom of Speech is important 
 Barlow believed that the world should be a place that “all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth… a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.”
 This is probably due to Barlow’s humble lifestyle on a cattle ranch. Here the idea of being free and having a wide-open space for oneself developed. Barlow was an advocate for net neutrality and believed that the internet was where people could speak openly, having that wide open space as he did on the ranch.
 As he himself said, “there is a lot of room to define yourself. You can literally make yourself up.”
2. People appreciate familiarity 
 Barlow was not only passionate about self-development through the internet, but believed that putting one’s digital goods out there for the world to see and hear was the best marketing strategy.

 As the lyricist for the Grateful Dead rock band, Barlow developed a marketing strategy in which he let people bootleg the Grateful Dead’s concerts so people became more familiar and would flock to the music they learned to love. He believed that the secret to marketing was in the availability and familiarity of the product.
3. Live freely and without fear
  In 1990, Barlow took a stance against the government and created the non-profit organization Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). https://www.eff.org/
Here, he fought against the government for individual’s freedom of speech and personal liberties.
 He believed that people should have the opportunity to express themselves freely and that the internet was a great place for this purpose. It was because of this that he went to every measure to do so.He took a stand against the government and authorities for what he thought was right.
 4. Security matters 
Although Barlow strongly believed in the internet and all the good the internet had to offer, he was not blind to the darkness of the internet.
 He believed that people needed to have secure communication methods. He therefore provided, as part of the EFF, security measures through tips, tools, how-tos, tutorials, and software for safer online communications.
5. Stand up for what you believe in 
Barlow believed in an open internet, a free internet, and he held that belief until he died.  It is through Barlow’s strength and stance with the government that today we have the safety, security, and free music and movies to listen and watch. 
Today, as he can no longer do so, we must take the stance for ourselves and stand up for what we believe, just like he taught us to do. There must be someone from your friends or family who deserves to know what John did for our internet freedom.
 Share this post to let them know. https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/5-lessons-john-barlow-taught-world/

The Almighty Sometimes

[I quote here a piece Cathy has written]

"On the 15th Feb ( a significant date , for Cathy  )   we went to see a play at the Royal Exchange in Manchester,

 * a review of the play in today's Guardian*

 Daily Telegraph  

One of the actor's is Julie Hesmondhalgh 

She is on a branch of the family tree ( Cathy's side of the family).originating from Accrington/Clayton-le-moor.

[plus:] Saturday's Guardian Magazine

ßack from Lancashire.

A photo I  took  of Cathy in The Shoulder of Mutton in Mytholmroyd tonight at 9 pm.

We had just returned from Lancashire,visting a relative.

Report & tons of photos soon. 

Isnt life exciting!

Bill Boards is Innocent

a London Poet uses billboards to get his message across. I like the idea and ,more importantly ,I like his words.
 I lived these streets for 4 years in the 70's 80's (mainly Newham) living in grotty East End bedsits and teaching in the schools there.It was so rough there,even the Kray's had to walk around   in pairs.....
"he who is tired of London..etc.etc.."(as Sam once said).
I still have (nice) dreams about where i used to live.......
 Also .Something else I came across today.
Can I give a wee plug to The East End in Colour 1960 - 1980 by David Granick . (£16.95)

This is one of my 'temporary posts
In a couple of days ,me & Cath go over the Pennines to see someone on her ( and my) Family Tree.
  ♪ ♫just like my dreams they fade and die.....♪ 
 As well as 'billboards' I also talked about R.D. Laing  last week
. This movie 'about' him  .starring David Tennant looks rather groovy
 ( I wonder if  they will show  Mary Barnes  smearing her shit  on any walls?  I suppose if they do , it will have to be multi-coloured and  psychedelic in this Post- Weinstein era........)

i might be wrong but the building shown at the start of this clip looks to me like Ironmongers Row swimming pool & turkish baths in Islington?

the name is "Zimnoch". (barking up the wrong tree.........)

Rest  Well John Perry Barlow

• a fine Guardian Obituary

•  a John Perry Barlow Archive

In the Shepards Rest in Sowerby Bridge tonight with my Godson Bryn.

Me & Cath went to Hebden Bridge Picture House this morning to see 'Three Billoards Outside Ebbin Missouri '.
I sat there imagining , if someone gave me 3 billbords ( in ,let us say ,the middle of Halifax ) to give the population messages for 12 months...what would i chose to display to relect my concerns.....? 
 At this moment in time, I think I'd pick a few ditties by  R.D.Laing

 That's the "Laing" who was a psychologist,not the "Laing" who is a gay country & western singer (that's K.D.....)
Not that that's a bad thing.only....she never wrote Sanity, Madness & The Family  like wot Ronnie did.....
Anyway.........today's film  should well win a shed load of Oscars .

It's the first great movie of The Trump Era ?

The ending , in particular , could have been The Rust-Belt going off to vote...... 

 I dont understand the Guardian's comment that
"......the critical backlash to this film: a feeling in some quarters that for all its powerful and compelling female lead, the movie appears obtuse on race and blackness by making it a subsidiary function of the white characters’ moral journey...." [read more:]  
 I dont get that at all.......I mean,it doesnt have anything to say about Polaks either.So what?
Bravo Performance,Frances McDormand .

Then I went out on the lash in Sowerby Bridge tonight.

ßréxitérs aré as thick as fuck

 

Buy T-Shirt Here:

If your a bit thick,here are some of my previous posts you may also enjoy:

• slow train coming (2013)
• in the olden days , people had to make their own trees? ( 2011)

If your very thick, you will love this video.Taken from my 2011 post how to hate the working classes
Some people are ultra literal,arnt they?
They dont see things in a wider context .
Anybody who reads my blog knows i dont "hate" the working classes ( if I did ,I would not  say so,would i?).
In my book. If you cant see irony,context,third-party views..then,yes you are as thick as pig shit ,non?

• For the record. I,m not a "Remainer".

•  I believe the E.U. is deeply flawed.

• I dont wish for a second referendum.

However "Brexit" is different from"Leave".

Brexit has been hijacked by a bunch of right wing/nationalsocialists such as Farage

& Mogg. Now I dont want to be ruled by "faceless beurocrats from Brussels".

But I neither do I want to be governed by Trump.

 OK .I,ve explained myself. You cunts  can all go and just fuck off  ,s'il vous plaît

buyhere:

Although , you would be a bit soft to pay £15 for any T-shirt....and even softer to wear it in Public?

"A seemingly pregnant woman would not be suspected of stuffing her clothes with pamphlets, Resistance newspapers, or even weapons."

Italian women  partisans on the Castelluccio front (1944) .Waiting to go on patrol with the US  5th Army.

Italy, Women in the Resistance during World War II

Late in the winter of 1943 ,three British SAS soldiers were dropped into (still) fascist occupied Italy.deep in a remote mountain region.

The  3 Brits were sheltered by villagers& partisans  in the remote hamlet of Gessopalena

One local must have  'grassed' on them?
Anyway, they were soon arrested, taken away & tortured by the Germans.

As punishment for trying to protect these English Squadies, on 21st January 1944 the  Luftwaffe bombed Gessopalena and completely destroyed  it.
Now ,perhaps different nations react differently to grief?

The Poles In Warsaw, they rebuilt an identical copy of their city after WW2.
However ,Italians( seeming to love ruins.)... kept Gessopalena's damage complete & intact......

They did bury  the bodies ,but otherwise  did nothing.....other than to move the undamaged  church bell .
To this day , nothing else  has ever been  moved!
 Clothes, toys furniture ,books ,mirrors....etc.remain  in exactly the same spot they were on the day the Luftwaffe called..
Somekind of  permanent record of what  " normality." might once have looked like for the victims.?
These days ,its rather weird when you hear that original  church bell call  the new villagers  to Mass in the new church in "new" Gessopalena which was later built a 100 yards away...............
I scratched my head and tried to  work out which was the "real"village and   which was the "replica"......

My son Chris.    Our friend Mick   & myself in Italy in 2010

 ( i briefly owned a ruined cottage in the Abruzzo mountains at the time ) Damien Rice: Montreal 2017(famous blue raincoat):Jackson Browne: Osaka, Japan; October 23, 2017:(late for the sky)
This is a sepia saturday post.The themes this week are Dance : Performance : Costumes : Stage

i found this photo in 2009 in a junkshop in Lanciano.I was told these are firemen .....Ironically!  looking like a bunch of girls........!

https://theconversation.com/forgotten-resistance-the-italian-freedom-fighters-dropped-from-our-history-books-34891