Writing, blogging and the Power of Books.

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Writing, Blogging and booksWhere ever I have lived or stayed there will always be a time when you will find me curled up in bed by the glow of my reading lamp, reading a good book. If I rewind all the way back to my childhood that is still where you will find me, with either a book or a comic. One of the first books I can remember reading was a book I got for Christmas, it was in two parts, one part was about the mythical King Arthur and the other about the legendary Robin Hood. I have been interested in both of those two people ever since, perhaps because of that book. King Arthur and his knights of the round table: Was there really a round table, was there a Camelot? Was there even a King Arthur or was it just the imagination of Sir Thomas Mallory who wrote the book Morte d’Arthur many years ago. Was there a man called Robin Hood? Well, those are just two stories that continue to fascinate me and are still with us in books and in the movies.

srfQGYLvEkOpm9pxXCkIUGTMhWN Errol Flynn played Robin in the wonderful ‘Adventures of Robin Hood’, Kevin Costner also played Robin in a more recent movie and when I was a schoolboy as well as reading about Robin I could rush home and watch the Robin Hood TV show with its cheery theme song ‘Robin Hood, Robin Hood riding through the glen’.

Reading stories like that is the catalyst that makes someone into a writer. It’s not enough to read a great story, you want to tell one too. I have been a writer as long as I can remember and if there is a pencil and a notebook handy I will write in it. As a TV obsessed child I invented numerous TV programmes, wrote scripts for the pilot shows and cast all the characters. I wrote stories too and English was always my favourite lesson at school. I do a great deal of writing in my car. Well, not the actual writing but the thinking anyway. I’ll get an idea and think about it then I’ll store it somewhere in my head and return to the theme on my next journey. I have an old dictation machine in my car, a small hand-held gadget with mini tapes and I frequently grab it and mutter something into it. When I get an idea that I don’t have time to stew over or even when some phrase or line of poetry comes to me that I think is worth hanging on to, it is quite a handy gadget to have.

I started this blog as a way of publicising my self-published kindle e-book but now I think I’m more interested in the blog than the book! Because of this blog I’m becoming more of a seasoned and professional writer. After all, if I was a professional journalist or columnist I would need to be thinking ahead, what’s happening in the world, what can I write about? What can I comment about? Now, just like a professional writer I’m looking ahead and I always have two or even three draft blogs in the pipeline. Whenever I’ve started to worry about what to write next, something has come to me and usually it’s a couple of related ideas that I can make into two separate blogs. Blogging is increasing my output as a writer and making me think more about my work. Yes, I’m actually becoming a proper writer!

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Marlon Brando, Texts, and Extraordinary Behaviour

Posted on by Steve Higgins

quotescover-JPG-83My brother sent me a text a few days ago, it read simply ‘You don’t remember me do you?’ Probably a little confusing to the man on the street but I knew exactly what he meant. I responded with; ‘I remembered you the moment I saw you!’ My brother texted  back straight away; ‘By the nose huh?’ The thing is, my brother and I are movie buffs, or to be more accurate, classic movie buffs and we sometimes text in movie dialogue.

Here’s another text; ‘Meatballs!’

I replied with ‘Definitely!’

Picked up on the movie yet? Well that it’s one of the great motion pictures of all time. It starred Marlon Brando in an Oscar winning performance, much better, much more exciting and above all, much more human than his other Oscar winning role in the Godfather. Here are  some more text clues;

My Brother: ‘What did that man mean just now?’

Me: ‘Oh don’t pay no attention, he’s drunk, falling down . .’

My Brother: ‘He’s just a juice head that’s hangs round the neighbourhood, don’t pay no attention.’

Another text read ‘Some people have faces that stick in your mind.’ And some movies have dialogue that can stick in your mind too, especially if you like your movies in black and white and served with a large helping of classic.

image courtesy wikipedia

image courtesy wikipedia

The movie was ‘On the Waterfront’ and it’s probably famous for the double act of Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger playing brothers but there are plenty of other wonderful performances and scenes. My personal favourite is when Brando and Eva Marie Saint walk together in the park and Eva drops a glove which Brando picks up but keeps hold of and eventually pulls onto his own hand and we know that Eva wants it back but, well watch the movie, believe me it’s a great scene.

My brother and I do text each other a lot but we also chat on the phone too. The thing is though; we tend to talk on the phone with East European accents. We starting doing it one day then began a sort of unspoken contract to carry it on. Sometimes I’ll get a call and he might say, in his best Hungarian accent ‘ Gut Evenink my friend.’

‘Gut evenink to you also my friend’ I tend to reply. It’s fun but sometimes I get odd looks, especially if I’m in Sainsburys or at the bar of my local pub. Which brings me finally to another text he sometimes sends; ‘Extraordinary behaviour!’

(In case you didn’t get that one, remember the 1955 movie ‘The Colditz Story’ ? Eric Portman says the line towards the end of the film!)

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Music and the Fifty Year old Teenager

800px-nadelaufplatteMany years ago in my mid-teens I was in Manchester doing pretty much what I have always done, then and now, whenever I have free time on a Saturday, either looking at records in a music store or looking at books in a book shop.

In 2014 there are not many record stores left; the whole culture of buying records is a different ball game these days, downloading instead of taking home a hard physical copy. You might be thinking hey: haven’t we had this blog already? Yes but the other day I went on to talk about James Dean, today I want to carry on with music.

As a teenager Saturday afternoons meant one thing to me, going into town, probably Manchester, and flipping through records and books. I was a big music fan and back in the seventies and eighties singles were marked down in price as soon as they dropped out of the charts and vultures like me were there to buy up cheap records. I started buying singles in 1973 and the last one I bought must have been in the late eighties. I wish I knew which record it was. In the eighties I started buying picture singles which were singles in clear vinyl with a picture running through. My favourite is probably Alexi Sayle singing ‘Hello John, got a new motor’ which comes in the shape of a Ford Cortina With Alexi Sayle on the bonnet.

The day came, probably sometime in the nineties, when the pop charts had become a mystery to me, singers and bands were in there that I’d never heard of with records I had no interest in buying. Just then, almost like a thief in the night, vinyl disapeared and the CD era began.

In the box room at my Mum’s house are four or five boxes of my singles, another box of LP’s and a two boxes of 12 inch singles which started out in the eighties as a single but with a longer or different mix or sometimes with an extra track. The strange thing is, my teenage counterparts in 2014 probably have a similar size collection only without the physicality. A huge stack of music kept on a hard disc or MP3 device, kept forever in cyberspace. I like my vinyl records, I like the smoothness of the plastic, the static electricity, the album covers, the sleeve notes (can anyone really read the sleeve notes on CDs written in that tiny writing?) and the inserts. I still have all the booklets that came with Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy and I so wish I’d written the lyrics to that Cliff Richard song, ‘Wired for Sound’; power from the needle to the plastic.

I’m not much of a downloader but I do have a shed load of CD’s I’ve picked up over the years and I’ve gradually started to use my MP3 player, especially on holiday and I even have fun making up playlists just like in the old days when I’d copy my vinyl singles onto cassette tapes.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve really changed at all from the teenager I used to be. .

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Monty Python and the Art of Social Acceptance

Posted on by Steve Higgins
Monty Python Team

Monty Python Team

Last night I was watching a TV documentary on BBC 1 about the Monty Python team and how they are getting ready for their new stage show. When I was a school kid I loved Monty Python and watching the film brought back a load of schoolboy memories.

Way back in my school days Monty Python was on TV late on -I think- a Thursday night. It was certainly a week night and it was certainly late as I had a running argument with my Mum about staying up to watch it. The next day talk at school would be all about the latest episode.

One day for some inexplicable reason I completely forgot about it and in my first lesson the following day one of my schoolmates approached me and said ‘Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!’ I looked blankly back at him and said something like ‘What are you on about?’ Only to get the disgusted answer ‘Didn’t you watch Monty Python last night?’ and then the lad moved on to someone else. Moments later I heard something again about the Spanish Inquisition and then two boys rolling with laughter. I was totally left out and I didn’t know what to do about it until later when I had an idea.

In my next class another friend asked ‘Did you see Monty Python last night?’ and after a brief moment I decided to take something of a chance and answered ‘Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!’ and the two of us rolled about in laughter and this trend continued throughout the day.

Of course, you must have seen what happened there. You must have seen that I was a fraud and a sham but at least my friends never discovered that or the fact that I didn’t see the Spanish Inquisition sketch until the eighties or nineties when some digital channel started showing Monty Python repeats, and all because I missed a TV show and didn’t want to be left out of some schoolboy banter. Funnily enough, the Spanish Inquisition sketch is one of my favourites. Hope the Python boys are using it in the new show!

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A Manchester record store and James Dean

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Many years ago in my mid-teens I was in Manchester doing pretty much what I have always done, then and now, whenever I have free time on a Saturday, either looking at records in a music store or looking at books in a book shop.

In 2014 there are not many record stores left; the whole culture of buying records is a different ball game these days, downloading instead of taking home a hard physical copy. Anyway, that’s a whole different blog. To get back to this one, back in that record shop I’d thumbed through the discs, checked out all the cheap records and then began flipping through the posters. This must have been mid-seventies so the posters were people like David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Elton John, Rod Stewart but there was one poster of a man in his mid-twenties wearing a white tee shirt and jeans. He was pulling a moody sort of look but there was something about him that was interesting. Anyway, he turned out to be an actor that I’d never heard of and the shop assistant pointed out a book about him in the store, a paperback, so I picked it up and read about the actor’s life. He was called James Dean.

James Dean courtesy wikipedia.

James Dean courtesy wikipedia.

Dean was born in Indiana and his mother died of cancer when Dean was only nine years old. There is a haunting passage in that paperback I bought that tells of how Dean’s father, Winton, sent little Jimmy Dean back to his Aunt and Uncle’s home in Indiana on the train carrying his mother’s coffin. Jimmy was brought up in Marion, Indiana by his Aunt Ortense and Uncle Marcus and later went to college to study acting.

His first movie was East of Eden directed by Elia Kazan who had introduced method acting to the American stage and had worked with Marlon Brando in ‘A Streetcar named Desire’. ‘Rebel Without a cause’ was Dean’s next movie. Directed by Nick Ray it is probably Dean’s most iconic film. This is the movie in which Dean wears his famous outfit of red jacket, white t shirt, and jeans.

His third and last movie was ‘Giant’ in which he stars with Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson and plays Texan bad boy Jett Rink. Dean was killed in car crash only days after finishing shooting. He was a keen amateur racer and had bought a new Porsche speedster only days earlier. The car, nicknamed ‘little bastard’ had collided with another vehicle, a station wagon at the junction of route 41 and 466. Dean suffered a broken neck and was declared dead on arrival at a hospital in Paso Robles.

I’m not sure why a council house boy from Northern England should connect so closely with James Dean, an American actor. but back in the seventies Dean became one of my personal heroes. I remember going to a cinema in Oxford road to see back to back showings of East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause on a very hot summers day. I bought a soundtrack album of those movies too, in the days before video and DVD. Dean was a counterpoint to actors like Richard Burton, he mumbled and mispronounced things. I think that was what I liked about him, he was natural and imperfect. He had an image more rock star than 50s actor. There was a great documentary about him made in the 70s and the music of the times, Bowie and Elton John featured heavily. Anyone remember that eagles track ‘James Dean?’

Well, after writing this quick essay about Jimmy Dean I must find the time to take a look at some of his films again. Did I happen to mention what I bought in the HMV sale not long ago? The James Dean Box set, but I’m sure you had guessed that anyway. .

Buses, Nicknames, and the Scaremonger!

Posted on by Steve Higgins

quotescover-JPG-28My current job is a safety critical one. I work in an emergency control room and many of the decisions me and my colleagues take have highly serious implications. It can be stressful work and sometimes I look back to a much easier control room job I had years ago. I once worked in the GM Buses Control room in Manchester.

Back then in the mid nineties the buses in Manchester had radio communication so the driver could advise control of late running or breakdowns, and even call for help in an emergency. I worked in a team in the enquiry section and we took queries from the bus travelling public of Greater Manchester.

In many ways it was a good job, lots of fun, good workmates and plenty of practical joking. Everyone had a nickname and one fellow I worked with, Paul, was known as ‘Mister Nasty’. He was the guy to deal with abusive callers and when a caller turned unpleasant we would put him on hold with a cheery ‘hold the line please!’ and shout across to Paul who would take the call and give back as much abuse as the caller would be giving.

One day ‘Nasty’ realised he had perhaps overstepped the line and the caller demanded to speak with his manager. The call was sent through to the duty Inspector who on that particular day was a nice guy called Alan who had the nickname ‘Leave it wi’ me’. Paul ran from his desk in the enquiry section, through the control room to where Alan sat on a raised dais where he could survey the whole room. Paul wanted to get his version of events in first and knew that with our antiquated telephone system the call would take its time to ping across the room. However, just as he reached the Inspectors desk the phone rang and Alan stopped Paul in mid sentence. ‘Just a minute Paul, I’d better take this call.’

Alan took the call, listened for a moment and said ‘Someone in enquiries called you a bastard? Leave it with me!’ and put the phone down. He turned to Paul and asked him to carry on. Paul thought for a moment then said, ‘Actually Alan, it doesn’t matter . .’ and went back to his desk.

Another staff member had the nickname ‘Norm’ which I think was based on a character from the TV comedy ‘Cheers’ but anyway, Norm had a particular dislike of the identity badge we had to wear in the control room. When it was time for a break, Norm would pull off his badge, slap it down on his desk and go off to the canteen. One day, some of the guys decided to cut out a shapely pair of breasts from that day’s newspaper page three model and insert the picture into Norm’s badge. I personally could not stop laughing and everyone was calling me to shut up and be quiet but I couldn’t help it. Thirty minutes later Norm returned, sat down at his desk, put on his headset, switched on his phone and clipped on his badge. I must have looked ready to burst and after stifling my laughter for about five minutes Norm looked over at me and asked what was wrong. He eventually found the offending picture and removed it convinced that I was the offending culprit.

GN BusesYes, that wasn’t the best job I have ever had but we did have some fun with fake calls and wind ups. We used to get calls from the Police and they would ask our radio staff to broadcast radio messages to our drivers. ‘Please be on the look out for a red Ford Fiesta registration number . .’ and so on. One day Norm called our radio man, an old chap called ‘Stoddy’ and pretending to be the Police asked him to put out information about a stolen Ford Camper van with a registration number of . . and gave out the registration of Stoddy’s beloved camper van. Stoddy had a near hysterical reaction and rushed out to the car park where of course his camper van was still parked. When he returned fuming to the control room we were still laughing.

Finally, I must tell you about Mr Scrimingeour who was one of the top bosses at GM buses and in charge of our fraud team. His rather unwieldy name was pronounced  SKRIM- IN- JUR- and many calls  came through the switchboard asking for him as anyone caught fiddling their bus fare received a letter demanding a five-pound fine which was signed by him. We had a list on the wall of the many mispronunciations of his name but the best, the very best came in a call taken by our very own Mr Nasty.

A caller had asked to speak to a Mr Scaremonger!

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If Only I’d Gotten in the Taxi!

Posted on by Steve Higgins
Taxi

image courtesy wikipedia

Back in the nineties I decided to pack my job in and have a last ditch attempt to break into TV by enrolling on a video production course in Manchester.

It was at a place called the WFA which, if I remember correctly stood for the Workers Film Association. It was a rather left wing place too as you can guess from the name, and certainly it wouldn’t have been a good idea to say you admired Mrs Thatcher!

To get a place on the course I had to give a presentation on a media subject. I chose working class representation in film and television and spoke about the kitchen sink movie dramas of the sixties and seventies, (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, A Kind of Loving, Alfie, and so on) the TV soaps of the nineties (Coronation Street, Eastenders, and Brookside) and how contemporary British movies were then, and now I suppose, very middle class, (Four Weddings and A Funeral and Notting Hill for example.)

On the very first day we had to introduce ourselves and explain why we were on the course. I gave a quick resume of myself and my career, a re-hash of the above presentation and a quick mention of my film making heroes from Billy Wilder to Oliver Stone. I was somewhat surprised to say the least when the next candidate said he had just bought a video camera and wanted to know how to work it and then someone else said they knew nothing about video but wanted to know more. Well, I wonder what film making subject they chose for their presentation!

Our movie was about taxi drivers and after a brief introduction to the camera we were off into Manchester to start interviewing taxi drivers and filming the comings and goings of cabs in the City Centre. A big issue for Manchester cabbies at the time was that the city council was enforcing a new ruling about cabs being wheelchair accessible which meant either a new cab or a costly conversion. Every taxi driver we spoke to mentioned this and they were clearly upset about it. Another thing they pulled me up on was when I dared to call a private hire vehicle a taxi! Dear me no! Didn’t I know taxis and private hire vehicles were two entirely different things? Apparently not!

Another issue that came up was when we screened our rough cut for the whole media school. One taxi driver mentioned that certain places in the city were dangerous to go to as there was the possibility of passengers making off without paying or even robbing the drivers. The cabbie mentioned Moss Side, close to the city centre. One member of the audience complained that the driver was racist as Moss Side is a predominantly black area. I didn’t think he was racist; he just didn’t want to be robbed or lose a cab fare whether the passenger was black or white. My co-directors wanted to cut the offending moment but really the cabbie was just trying to highlight the risk factor in his job.

At the end of the course I took away my video and started pestering documentary producers for the chance to make a full length broadcast version but I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere until I wrote to channel 4. I went down to see them, they watched the video and the first thing they said to me was ‘Why didn’t you get in the cab with your camera?’

Well, we had asked taxi drivers if we could do that and they did say ok but if a passenger wanted us out then we would have to get out, no matter where we were, so rather than risk being stranded somewhere we didn’t take any rides in the cab. On hearing this the Channel 4 producer looked at me and said ‘If you were a real film maker you’d have got in that taxi!’ After that, despite my protests and assurance that I would get in the taxi when fully commissioned, numerous assistants arose, handed me my video and quite quickly I found myself out on the street!

That was my part of my brief foray into television. I’ll let you know more in another blog, however if you’re interested in seeing my Taxi video; here it is;

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Arrested Development and the advent of the Internet

Posted on by Steve Higgins

As a child growing up in the 1960’s one of my favourite television programmes was Tomorrows World, a BBC show about technology and the future. I was acutely interested in science, science fiction and all things related to the future. The future was hi-technology, gleaming metal and plastic cities, hover cars, and space travel. The movie 2001 A Space Odyssey predicted manned missions to Mars, powerful computers, and lunar space stations. But, 2001 is now  thirteen years ago, so what happened? Why is 2014 not really that much different from 1968?

Movies like 2001, produced in 1968, were made in the sure knowledge that the incredible leaps in manned space flight made since 1960, and the technology that made it all possible, would continue. How wrong they were. When Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the surface of the Moon in 1969 the space race was over. It was a case of mission accomplished and the Apollo programme was cut short when Apollo 17 made the last manned trip to the Moon. To a great extent, space exploration, or at least manned space exploration stopped there. Space travel had become too expensive even for the Americans. The NASA space programme continued with Skylab and the development of the space shuttle, but none of those projects went further than orbiting the Earth, and that feat had been accomplished easily on the Mercury and Gemini programs.

Take a look at your kitchen and think to yourself how different is it from the kitchen of thirty years ago? Apart from advancements in electronics, probably in the form of your microwave and your freezer, the answer is not much. Step back further and look at your home. Are your living in a gleaming metal and plastic ‘future home’ or is it a modernised terraced house. Terraced houses are over a hundred years old but many people live in them happily today. Differently from our counterparts of a hundred years ago of course. Bathrooms have been added, and extensions with kitchens and indoor toilets, but terraced houses all the same.

Many writers and film makers have chosen to look at the future as a separate place altogether from the present and this has been their mistake. The future is the continuation of the past. Cities, homes, society itself is all an evolution of what has gone before.

Heathrow Airport was recently in the news because of protests about a possible new runway. New Runway? Why is a runway even necessary when the Harrier Jump jet has been taking off and landing vertically since the 1960’s? The answer is two words, arrested development. Perhaps VTOL has suffered, like Concorde, in not being American. There is no doubt in my mind that had Concorde been an American aircraft instead of an Anglo-French craft the skies above us would have been substantially populated with supersonic passenger aircraft. The United States is the land of opportunity, especially commercial opportunity. The space programme of course was also American but perhaps commercial exploitation in visiting the moon was limited. The great technological advances in the last thirty years have come in computer orientated technology that is full of commercial applications like, pc’s, laptops, tablet computers, mobile phones, and of course the internet.

Having a book published has been the dream of many people, including me but today, with the advent of internet technology, that dream is easy to realise. My Book, ‘Floating In Space’ is one that I have been working on, off and on, for thirty years. I found it, uncompleted on an old disc, reacquainted myself with it, finished it off and now you can read it as a kindle e-book available on amazon. There were no meetings with publishers, no discussions, no chats with an editor, no re-writes. It was just a case of upload the files, proof read then press a button and it’s live on-line.

That of course has its drawbacks. As a writer I have discovered a sort of word blindness when it comes to my own work. I’ve proof read my book a multitude of times but how many times have I come to put an extract on this blog only to find missed words and other errors. When the paperback proof version came (in the wrong size: I’d made it far too big!) more errors jumped out at me and my girlfriend Liz, a fully paid up member of the Grammar Police has pointed out so many punctuation issues I sometimes feel like taking it off the market. Anyway, the good thing is that in the digital world, errors can quickly be resolved. A quick update, press the save button and we are all sorted.

Lets see, where’s my ‘Writers and Artists yearbook’? Maybe its time to check out that list of publishers again!

Cigarettes, Tobacco, and the culture of smoking

Posted on by Steve Higgins
Collectable cigarette item

Collectable cigarette tin.

I tried smoking once when I was about nineteen. I hated it, failed to see what people enjoy about it and never smoked again. Missing from pubs and bars these days is the odour of cigarette smoke thanks to the smoking ban which came into force in 2007. I’ve always liked that pipe and cigar smell in old pubs but cigarettes and their smoke do nothing for me and I’m glad pubs are now a smoke free zone.

I used to be a cigarette salesman. More accurately I had a cigarette vending machine round and some places really did make me laugh. I used to service a site in Liverpool and prior to the smoking ban they had a rule that you couldn’t smoke at the bar, in fact there was a white line painted on the floor and smokers could not pass this line. So all those who liked to lean against the bar and have a smoke, well they just took two steps back, enjoyed their cigarette, then stepped back up to the bar once they had finished.

It’s interesting to chart the progress of anti smoking through my old job. We used to give out a lot of promotional stuff in former days. Lambert and Butler bar towels or Rothmans ash trays and so on. Once the cigarette publicity ban kicked in promotional items like that were no longer legal. Even on the front of the machine itself there was usually an advertising panel with picture adverts for Benson and Hedges or some other brand. . It was replaced by a bland picture of a match and a flame.

cigarette machine

cigarette machine

As cigarettes were hit by bigger and bigger taxes, the price of a packet rose steadily. In parts of my sales area in Liverpool, drug dealers converted to selling bandit cigarettes. No longer were they the scum of society. Smokers, particularly those retired or on low incomes, looked on the bandit ciggymen as Robin Hood figures, out to save the oppressed from expensive cigarettes. At one pub in Kirkby where my sales were pretty low, a bandit dealer had stooped to selling fake cigarettes which fell apart when lit! ‘Steve!’ came the call, ‘can you come and fill our machine up!’ Easy profits had clearly led to the desire for even easier and bigger takings.

Cigarette machines have now been banned in pubs in the UK so my former colleagues in the vending industry have all been made redundant. Whatever you think of tobacco and cigarettes all those people were working legally in the UK and paying a hefty bill to the taxman. The ban on cigarettes and the restrictions and high taxes on tobacco have opened the field to many criminal elements from those individuals seeking extra cash who travel abroad, buy cigarettes in bulk then return to sell them in the UK to those organised gangs who smuggle tobacco into the UK for big profits and less risk than drugs.

Today in this lovely summer of 2014, the smokers, banished from the interior of the pub have laid claim to the pub gardens and outside seating areas. They are bound together as part of a small social community; the smokers! Fancy taking your pint outside on a sunny evening? No thanks, the pub terrace is full of smokers! Pubs are free of irritating smoke but is smoking on the decrease? I’m not so sure!

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Wedding days, Cumbria, and what to do with those Wedding Snaps!

Posted on by Steve Higgins
Wedding day!

Tania and Alex

Well, you can’t beat a good wedding but weddings are hard work,  what with the planning, the arranging, the compromises, the cost, the logistics, and of course all the attendant stress that comes ready built in; very hard work indeed!

The wedding I went to at the weekend had a lot of great elements and the one important thing that only nature can provide; good weather! I shouldn’t complain really but I was sweltering in my three piece suit and a couple of degrees cooler would have been nice but that would be quibbling. The day was wonderful and one that all went to plan as far as I could see anyway.

Another fact that comes built in at a wedding are tears. I am referring to tears of joy of course and the bride and her Mum did their fair share as well as others. I doubt if there was a dry eye in the place during the speeches when it’s traditional to ponder in public about the subject of love and loved ones, those who are with us and those departed. On this occasion, the mother of the bride did a speech herself as her husband had passed away some years ago and her performance as she balanced emotions and stage fright was outstanding.

The one disaster, well for me anyway, came part way into the evening when I took a glass of red wine to my mouth,  inexplicably missed and as a result poured red wine all down my shirt. Anyway, I nipped round the corner to my room, luckily we were staying at the venue and soaked the shirt in cold water which I think was the correct remedy for the situation, changed shirt (to a less formal shirt I should add) and was back at the reception within fifteen minutes. My fiancée Liz, and also the mother of the bride, who seems to like me in my three piece attire was not amused that I had ditched my splendid outfit (jacket waistcoat and tie had seemed a little superfluous by this time) but of course you can’t please all the people all of the time.

The only other problem came earlier. The wedding cupcakes were painstakingly assembled in the reception room by bridesmaids and friends only to be told of a rule, well a law actually, that food could not be placed on the tables until licensing hours! First I’ve heard of that so the cakes had to be hastily removed! The thing is the wedding was in Cumbria and my experience of Cumbria people is that they don’t necessarily care about things like rules or laws.

A couple of years ago Liz and I stayed in the small town of Wigton. We had rented a small cottage for a few days and the first day we went to the local chippy for some old fashioned fish and chips, then decided to wash it down with a pint in the pub next door. When we stepped inside there were a number of locals smoking away, happily flouting new anti-smoking laws. We ordered our beer and one of the group asked if we minded them smoking and if we did then they would go outside. Actually we did mind them smoking but being British and not wanting to upset the regulars of a pub we reckoned we would be visiting regularly during our stay we said ‘OK, go ahead and smoke.’ Just as we were about to ask if the pub served food a couple of other locals arrived with fish and chips from the chippy, sat down at a table to eat and called over pleasantly for two pints of bitter! Yes, that’s the way they do things in Cumbria!

Not long ago I asked my Mum what had happened to her wedding pictures as I don’t remember seeing any. She replied, rather shame facedly, that after a row with my Dad she had taken her wedding pictures and ripped them up! Still, she continued in her marriage to my Dad, happily I might add, until his death in 2000. My wedding pictures are still intact in a box somewhere in the loft although my marriage ended in divorce many years ago. So, perhaps my advice to Tania and Alex should be to rip up their wedding pictures! Not so easy in the digital internet age!

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