I confess I am not a great fan of autobiographies that begin at the beginning and follow a temporal path up to the present day – not that the person might not have some interesting stories, facts and opinions strung on their necklace, but it just doesn’t appeal as a structure. On the other hand, in my last, extra year at school in Oxford, retaking an A-level and adding a couple more, I was allowed out of school on my recognisance and saw a fascinating Exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery. The Artist had laid out and photographed every single possession of a single person – for example, all the cutlery was laid out in one shot, all the shoes in another. This more thematic approach appeals more and although I am not arranging the objects which I have chosen to tell my story in chronological order, I hope that my writing will be sufficiently interesting to keep your interest Dear Reader, and that on the journey from A to Z, you will assemble an impression of my life and who I am…
The shopping bag shown above may seem like an unlikely object to choose to symbolise Travel, but it is often the small differences you notice when travelling abroad and this bag is just such an one. In the UK, the attempt to reduce the amount of single-use soft plastic bags was effected by making a 5 pence mandatory in supermarkets who then realised the marketing possibilities of selling bags for life with their logo on them. This bio-degradable cloth bag is Morocco’s answer to the problem that had their towns littered with plastic carrier bags. America, has always(?) had brown paper grocery bags which have to be carried underarm which always seemed a precarious thing to do but was definitely more environmentally friendly – advanced thinking, especially when you see the environmental loutishness of Trump and his ilk… Further to the theme of environmental care, the bag is shown full of soft-plastic for recycling although I emptied it into anoter container subsequently so that I could retain this modest souvenir of a holiday in Morrocco that Barbara and I took a few years back.
It seems to me that there are two ways to travel, you can go on an extended holiday that takes in many countries, as a succession of my grandchildren have been doing, but it seems to me, that you barely graze the surface of any particular place, and take the risk that everywhere might end up seeming like an airport, train or bus station. The other way, which I would prefer to embrace, would be to go to one place, as foreign as possible and to spend at least a year there, seeing all the seasons that it had to offer and with enough time to get to know the place and the people a little better. The only places I have lived for six months or more are Australia, six months in 1968 when I was 14, Crete for six months (cutrailed by Brexit regulations) during the 2020 lockdown, and Ireland for 10 years, which I think is long enough to say you have lived somewhere and not merely visited…
It was cheaper to go by ship to Australia in 1968 than to fly – long-haul flying was in its expensive infancy whilst travel as opposed to cruise ships were on their last legs. We sailed P & O’s SS Orcades on the way out and because the Suez Canal was closed due to the Six Day War, we had to go via South Africa, calling in at Rotterdam, Lisbon, Dakar, Capetown, Durban before arriving at Pert in Western Australia. After staying with relatives in Bunbury, W. A., ws travelled by train across the continent to leave my Granny with my Uncle in Caslemaine, Victoria and then on by train to Sydney where my Dad taught at the University of New South wales and we children went to school. We bought a Holden car – a car based on American cars of the time, and in the holidays we made a 4000 mile round trip up to Gladstone, where the Great Barrier Reef begins (though we did not get to see it) then right back down to Castlemaine and finally back to Sydney.
Barbara and I lived two doors away from her sister in Crete over the Winter of 2020 and there was almost no covid there and so although it was officially locked down, we did sneak to a few deserted beaches and drove around the part of the island near to Elounda. You can find a poem about this under “B”. Below is small selection of favourite photos from other holidays in various destinations…
Tapestry, Needlepoint
In 1999, whilst living in Ireland and shortly before breaking my hip and spending a year on crutches, I had obtained a grant to start a business making needlepoint tapestry kits. Back in St.Albans, i had encountered a company supplying everything you need to heat-transfer pictures on T-shirts, and I realised that if you could do the same on tapestry canvas, you could do print-to-order Needlepoint Tapestry kits. These are normally screen-printed, which means that the entire run of canvases needs to be printed at one time, and stored (sometimes for years) so that although the heat transfer method is more expensive per print, ultimately its more economical. The broken hip gave me a lot of time to develop the business and later I travelled all over Ireland by train and bus to take photos and make sketches for the designs, which you can see below.
The business was not a great success due to distribution issues and because I then had a teaching job, couldn’t yet drive again and ultimately because we moved back to England, but it was fun and there are scattered stitchers all over the world who have them…
Tear-ing Up…
Several people of the same venerable age as myself have confessed that they tear up at the drop of a hat – I guess its inevitable as a mixture of memories, observations of the world, nostalgia and knowledge that one’s end is nearer and realer day-by-day… I tried to keep a record of the things that made me tear up in just one week but couldn’t keep it up, so here is a small selection.
- Listening to the BBC programme “Add to Playlist” the BBC radio programme in which they were talking about how Doo-Wop was an artform developed by poor African-American teenagers who couldn’t afford instruments and therefore sang a capella.
- Florence and the Machine singing “Try a Little Tenderness” which she does very slowly and with feeling…
- Joni Mitchell singing “River” surely the saddest Christmas song ever sung…
- Hearing any song sung by Linda Ronstadt, but particularly Cansons di Mi Padre and knowing that she can no longer sing well enough to perform due to Parkinson’s disease.
These are all music, but of course films and TV dramas trigger tears all the time and here is a short drama of my own…
Ten Second Theatre
Driving up the hill
through the village
a ten-second drama
plays out to my right
– a baby boy
comfortable in the crook
of his grandmother’s arm
receives a hurried kiss
from his mother
as she turns to walk down
the hill to the bus stop
the baby stretches out his arm
towards his departing mother
once more going to work
more bewildered than upset
but his grandmother
steps back indoors
before possible tears
leaving the pavement empty…
© Andrew Wilson, 2024