WHEN WE WERE SIX

http://theadvanceguardess.blogspot.com/

Loving TYCOONWOMAN’s blog about the approach of the big 50. She has included a poem from her youth that made me think about my first decade and what poem would I choose. So Ola, this is my response to your challenge:

Growing up in the fifties meant I had the Beacon Readers as an introduction to reading. I still have those stories on instant recall; the three Billy Goats Gruff and their march over the dangerous bridge, Chicken Licken and her fears that the sky would fall in. For some weird reason, I even liked to recite the lists of words at the back, words that rhymed, words that were similar, all seemed very soothing to chunter through just before sleep.

There wasn’t that much telly in the fifties. I remember listening to the radio, sorry, the ‘wireless’, more. But there again, there was Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men with their little ’weeeeed’ in the middle. I loved them to bits and saw no irony at all there! I also watched The Woodentops who I did regard as a bit freaky as their legs seemed impossibly straight and thick.

I was also an obsessive fan of cowboy films, usually backing the Red Indians to win. My eternal favourite TV serial was Champion the Wonder Horse, followed by The Lone ranger with his mate Tonto, the loyal Indian;

‘In the early days of the western United States, a masked man and an Indian rode the plains, searching for truth and justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when from out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver! The Lone Ranger rides again!"

I begged every wishbone I ever pulled till I was about 35 for a piebald black and white pony. Damn, it will never come true now I just told you that. I don’t care it is now not seen as quite politically correct, at least there were notions of truth and justice in it.

But my favourite poem? Hard to choose because I loved poetry as a child and had a big treasury that I would regularly plough through. Christina Rossetti was a fave I seem to recall. But how can you beat my eternal favourite – AA Milne and ‘Now we are Six’ which I read and reread and still read! Now I’m nearer 60 than 6, I‘ll just put a few choice extracts down:

Busy:

‘Perhaps I am a postman. No, I think I am a tram.

I’m feeling rather funny and I don’t know what I am.’

(I regularly quote that last line in my head.)

Binker

'Binker – what I call him - is a secret of my own,

And Binker is the reason why I never feel alone.'

(I am the sort of person who had a very real imaginary friend as a child and I am still sustained by inner conversations.)

Twice times

'There were Two little Bears who lived in a Wood,

And one of them was Bad and one of them was Good.
Good Bear learnt his Twice Times One-
But Bad Bear left all his buttons undone.

………….


They lived in the Wood with a Kind Old Aunt.
And one said "Yes'm" and the other said "Shan't!"
Good Bear learnt his Twice Times Four-
But Bad Bear's Knicketies were terrible tore.


And then quite suddenly (just like Us)
One got Better and the other got Wuss.
Good Bear muddled his Twice Times Three-
But Bad Bear coughed in his hand-ker-chee!


.............

There may be a Moral, though some say not;

I think there’s a moral, though I don’t know what.

But if one gets better, as the other gets wuss,

These Two Little Bears are just like Us.'

Oh I hope there is a moral, though I don't know what.....!

LUCK BE A LADY

My thoughts this week run on gambling.

I could go on about how lovely it is to work in a bookshop for a few hours a week – love reading as I work, (HA!), sorting out bookshelves, talking to other book lovers. Buying up a few bargains and birthday presents. Oh I could go on and on about the joys of the bookshop….

But no, I want to mention gambling. It’s been a sore point with me for a while. I felt a creeping distress when a third branch of a well known bookies opened up in my local high street. There are now at least six on the not so long road that is the hub of the community. I like my High Road as it still has small individually owned shops that have been there a long time and has been overlooked by all chains – except the bookie chains. (‘Bookie’ eh? Not quite the same as a bookshop).

The internet, of course, is full of ‘opportunities’ to win plastered all over everything and I regularly get held up in the queues in newsagents or the supermarket by people diligently completing forms and handing over hefty wads of cash for the fluttery.

There is not much on telly these days that I particularly like to watch, least of all such stuff like million pound Droop, a really gruesome torture chamber without  a passing nod to the contestants’ intelligence as attempted by its predecessor, Who Wants a Millionaire. And apologies to all those millions of fans out there of Deal or Deal -  that one for me is truly the most nauseating of wind ups. I reckon they change the amounts in the boxes as they go along to create the tension, a simple trick for any basic magician. The hosts of these shows probably earn many millions for their ability to coo over and get pretended excitement for their victims’ possible lucky break.

I do, however, have a slight obsession with CSI, something about the clean clinical detachment and analysis, following a variety of tortuous and often macabre murder scenes, where test tubes are swished about and computer graphics are generated to a selection of musical soundtracks. Always a little twist and an Aggie Christie desire to avoid the most obvious suspect until all ends are neatly tied by the end of the hour.  Then, just as one is enjoying the denouement, up pops a banner to tell me I can ring a number and win some phenomenal amount like £5000. They used to ask an inane question like, did the action take place in Miami, Bali or Tasmania, but now they don’t even bother with the question. Just ring in and we will bank the price of your phonecall, £1 minimum. I don’t like it on top of the way too frequent ad breaks. It’s disturbing, I don’t need it, I don’t want it, I will not be ringing in. I want CSI without the opportunity to win something, thankyou.

All the reminders that we could all do with the extra money, that this could be our turn, that win so richly deserved is just around the corner. So needed in times of recession, such a great niche market…….

A few years ago (yes this is a recurrent theme for me) I wrote a sort of poem dedicated to all those who want it to be ‘them’. These lines are theirs, I’ve heard them all. I still don’t know anyone who won yet but sure it is just a matter of time and Lady Luck smiling on you.

Ghetto Dreams

If I won a million pounds

I’d look after you

And you and you and

I’d have a car and a house

And a holiday and I wouldn’t

Forget you

I wouldn’t change I’d still be me

I’d be free

I wouldn’t have to work again

I might do work I wanted to do

Work for myself or not work

If it’s a nice day

Every day would be a nice day

Fly away to a sunny land

Everyone is smiling

And beautiful I would be attractive

And popular you will want to be my friend

Bouncers and police will be nice to me

Could even buy a peerage

Could go shopping buy whatever whenever

Pick up a phone and order

Make someone else clean up the mess

I’d be happy no matter what crisis

Money there to mop it up

Tidy away the inconveniences the stress

Order a massage

Pay someone to pay the bills

Never worry again about the knock on the door

Unrecognised

O life would be a peachy sunset beach

If I won a million pounds

It’s not a dream it could come true

You have to believe

If you don’t believe it can never come true

I want that fucking peachy beach thing

I really want it need it now

Believe.

MAY MUSE

Random thoughts this week:

Three months not working now and I have found plenty to do with my time, so much so, this blog is getting neglected. It’s already like, however did I manage to fit work in? I keep a diary to try and figure out where those spare minutes hours and days are going. I don’t think about the past. Except maybe the distant past.

So what’s new in the Hood:

Royal wedding – yes I watched it, small moderate house party to share comments on the outfits and say ‘aah’ at the appropriate moments. And what a lovely C of E service it was – brought a pang of nostalgia for that once powerful institution and my childhood Sundays that revolved around church, roast dinner and a walk along the prom.  Out dancing later where we dedicated ‘she’s royal, so royal, she’s a queen’, to Kate and ourselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp0ESS9V-wI

AV voting – yes I voted. Still can’t work out how AV would have improved anything. It’s not PR. And yes I did weigh it all up carefully, unswayed by which celebrities supported each cause. And yes I did understand it. Duh.

But what a bonus that Nick C got clobbered. He’s got lie for England on speed dial. I love his latest hard man tactic over the NHS and after he did sign the white paper (we all saw it Nick); Dave and Andy L must be quivering. Not. I bet they’ve cooked it up between them to add a bit of frisson to the ‘consultation’ before demolishing the NHS and handing it over to the privateers and insurance scammers. He’ll still be whinging that we do need to make radical changes to provide the best service for people and we do want to carry the public with us in the reform of the NHS etc etc. Funny how he’s not so vocal about the reduction of senior exec pay that he mentioned in ye olde libdem manifesto.

And what exactly does ‘free at the point of use’ actually mean? Is there a point of non-use where you have to pay? I hear some doctors think that the reforms will result in ‘NHS’ becoming a brand name only. All that ‘choice’ and ‘competition’ eh? It’ll be just like British gas or the railways…..

Ranting at the computer – yes it is such an enjoyable hobby. Those twitter links lead into all sorts of other worlds I never knew existed, some fascinating and beautiful too. Then I can actually read a book from start to finish if I so feel like it, what a joy! Or take time for a potter round the garden in this heaven sent sunny spring weather.

Oh yes, and I am tackling the spring cleaning, eating healthily (no choc croissants) and looking for a new job. I’ve found a voluntary job for half day a week in an Oxfam bookshop so that I don’t get too lazy and look forward to rooting out some good reads there. My new life is a’comin in and I am still ‘feeling good’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhY_fXLmo78

LIBRARIES – WE DO NEED THEM

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/most-popular/2011/04/01/zadie-smith-writes-in-defence-of-our-libraries-115875-23029320/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Willesden_Old_Library.jpg.

Thankyou Zadie Smith (see article) and all other authors in defence of libraries. Shame on Shaun Bailey for saying we don’t need them.

Here in Brent, six libraries are scheduled for closure but plans are currently being made for a brand new ‘cultural hub’ in place of Willesden Library – built as a new centre twenty years ago and included a cinema and café. Lack of investment or poor management has left the cinema and café abandoned. There is still a successful museum, art gallery and thriving bookshop. All these will go under the redevelopment which will see the small car park given to property developers to build more expensive boxes/’flats’ and the library squeezed into a corner surrounded by council offices. This is what they will be calling a ‘cultural hub’.

I remember the original Willesden Library, a small Victorian house that is still there and looks (see pic)  like something out of a fairy story. It was crammed full of books both downstairs and upstairs with a huge selection of fiction and non fiction. I remember when that was regarded as too small hence needing redevelopment. Around the eighties, many libraries ‘redeveloped’ to try and keep up with the modern times, even then already seeing a steady seepage of library users away to TV, to films and the computer world we now inhabit. There were massive sales of books from libraries: those deemed too old, too tatty, too unpolitically correct. Many a bargain to be had. As the computers moved in so the books moved out even more.

I have visited many a new academy school where what used to be well stocked libraries have turned into  computer rooms with an occasional shelf dotted with a few books. Yet when I visited my friend’s son’s private school recently, what a surprise it was to come across a sprawling suite of rooms all filled with well stocked book shelves and quiet tables to read and work on, just like the libraries of old.

There is a lot of talk about equal opportunities and social mobility but the cutting of libraries will see further erosion of these worthy aims.

Zadie is right to question the motives of this government in this wiping out of history. There will be one set of people who will rely on films, TV, Google and phone apps for their information and another set who will still have access to books. Google and Kindles can never quite replace books no matter how much they put on line. There will always be control over input. Remember the joy of finding a banned book or one not considered quite suitable for young minds?

I know that we are already at overload and choices always have to  be made about the information we access but we all deserve to have the choice.

On The 26March

‘Deleted’.

A word that is still provoking a reaction. It is, goes one such comment, ‘an angry word’.

And I agree. It is not a nice word. It has associations with other words like erased, wiped, crossed out, cancelled, removed, expunged, obliterated, demolished, eliminated….no trace left.

But I make no apology for using it because it makes me angry to hear this word ascribed to my job and the jobs of friends and colleagues who have also been under the cosh of the cuts. I reclaim the word to satisfy my anger and give it back to the world as a transformative word.

I went to the 26March – only the second march I have been on.  It was huge, even more so than my first march, the Anti War one, I reckon.  Amazing to see so many people, so many representatives of so many work places with the real message for the government – there is an alternative, why do ordinary people have to pay when the bankers are still rolling in it, is this a class war.

I missed all the marches in the 70s despite many an exhortation from the bearded chappie from the Workers’ Revolutionary Party who used to raise me from my Sunday morning stupor for a good old rant on the doorstep. My flatmate at the time was a member and he was always hoping to convert me but youthful resistance was strong. I preferred raving to marching and asked then, what difference could it make?

Now I am prepared to get out there and show my face, I still ask, what difference can it make.  A lot of the media, as usual,  is intent on dressing down the direct action people, thus supporting the government in ignoring the message.

We stopped for a coffee on Piccadilly and happened to watch the group of black clad anarchists go past with their black and red flags. We commented on how peaceable and non anarchic they seemed, even with the loud bangs at intervals and the subtle paint bomb that just appeared on De Beers opposite us. We saw the police race after them as they moved on to give the Ritz a bit more of a paint balling. Some of them probably cranked it up a bit later as the sun went down and police always like to join in with the general mayhem. But in the great history of protest marching, this appeared to me to be a quiet, restrained and sombre one.

To be on the receiving end of ‘the cuts’, to be facing an uncertain future, to watch all the support networks for the most vulnerable in society crumble, to be part of the necessary collateral damage to cover up a global banking crisis, to be ‘deleted’ – is, frankly, crap.

Never mind the broken windows, beware a (BIG) broken society. I shall continue to protest, albeit without a balaclava and flag. My job has been deleted, but, me, hey I will still kicking up those traces and have plenty of voice left……

Say What You Want The Official Video

Have to include this. Well done girl!

RedHoodRising. Root of the what are you going to call yourself question.

Lunch date asked me why I have called myself RedHoodRising, so for any curious souls….

The Red is for my hair that has been called many things complimentary and insulting throughout the years. ‘That one with the red hair…..’ has been a constant refrain. As it is now fading into strawberry blonde (blonde at last!) its bane and glory remain key to my identification.

The Hood is for the Hood of course. Nuff said.

Rising refers to resurgam – I will rise again – ex  cineribus - out of the ashes – from my ignominious removal from ‘working’ life.

The whole is pinched from Little Red Riding Hood, a magical fairy tale which has been reworked so many times  but is essentially (early forerunner from 1023 Fecunda Ratis) about a girl in the company of wolves who is swallowed alive yet returns unharmed.  Yes I know I am more Grandmother than Little Redcap but I still dream and hunger for life.