2011 retrospect

Mostly this year has been life just going on - slow on-going progress on buildings, local and family history, food and drink, convenience and feast, me still pecking away trying to get my ear and fingers round jazz piano. The building work has been mostly at the other end of the terrace, and that principally stonework, both demolition and rebuilding. So I have become, to misquote Flora Thompson, a ‘ca-arpenter calls himself a sto-an-mason’. I have actually come to love using stone and lime. It’s a very forgiving technology, and lime, treated with respect, is much less corrosive than its reputation. Our local stone doesn’t come in regular cuboids – it’s a matter of a presentable outside face, and some approximation to constant height, and the 3D tessellation of assembling such wildly non-standard pieces into a sound and more-or-less presentable wall is very satisfying.

One of the things that will mark this year out, however, is that we acquired a small and elderly campervan ( a Romahome Hylo - you'll find pictures in Google Images, if you're curious ), and hit the road late in September for an extended holiday. In the end, the time away was set by the 31 days of Royal Mail holding service. We had talked of going to Scotland, but Jenny's move (see below) prompted us to go southwest instead. We began and ended near Jenny and spent most of our time in Cornwall - the Roseland Pensinsula, the Lizard and West Penwith. In all we had eight stays at seven different sites, and slept 30 nights in the van 'off the reel' - with one camp exception, £16 a night for ourselves, Brindle, the van and a tent. We saw many interesting places and things, but I think the principal experience was the free-floating and living simply day-to-day like that. Until we got to the last week or so, it was sort of timeless. No radio or TV, occasionally a paper.

We spent a few days on the Roseland Peninsular, where one of Nina’s 2G grandmothers came from. Her family name remains in use to this day as a boy’s name in Nina's family and cousin-lines. We found a couple of the farms associated with the family, and the church where Mary Lawry was married. Very moving. (We had a few weeks before also been in the church at Lydiard Tregoze where the groom’s father - the great Thomas Usher - was baptised. It may sound trivial or nerdish, but believe me, there is a powerful emotional charge in visiting such locations.)

We saw all three great headlands, the Lizard, Land's End and Cape Cornwall. We had 4 nights at St Ives. We went to Barbara Hepworth's place, which we found very moving and evocative. I think the fact that she had picked this place, and colonised it, and the fact her workspaces were still much as she left them all spoke to our own experience here, and of course, the works themselves.......I found the garden perhaps a bit green and crowded - most of her best works you could put alone in a space of any sort, and they would command it, so having so many in sight of each other is perhaps a mixed benefit.

The Tate St Ives ? Well, the building itself is quite something, and its setting, and the way the two interact. The exhibition then on ("The Indiscipline of Painting - International abstraction from the 1960s to now") we found underwhelming - a couple of pieces we really admired, but the rest were that 'one idea on a large canvas' sort of abstraction that seems principally to be proclaiming the artist's own lack of confidence in what art can 'now' do. (And the gallery and its setting seemed to conspire to mock such timidity.)

While we were in St Ives, I read a novel set in St Ives and Zennor (Zennor in Darkness/Helen Dunmore) and much enjoyed the juxtaposition. Zennor itself, I loved. I walked along the old church path towards St Ives in search of the cottage where DH Lawrence lived. (You can't actually get to it, it turned out, although you can see it from a distance. The lane has been declared private.) Mostly the church path is not evident on the ground any more, but it is signed and at each field boundary it crosses, there is a way through consisting of an opening in the field-bank and long stones laid over a shallow pit, like a cattle grid. Very old, very atmospheric.

In a similar vein, we visited three ancient settlements - Grimspound on the moor above Widdecombe, and Chysauster and Carn Euny down in Penwith. The former Bronze Age, the latter two Iron Age, at least as now seen - they seem to have been occupied for around 700 years, which I suppose at that time means 30 generations or more. Quite substantial remains, and a very powerful sense of something.

We also spent some days walking and looking at the mining remains in West Penwith. In some ways so reminiscent of our valley landscapes and history, and yet in crucial ways so different.

We ate quite a lot of good food, and drank some excellent beers, but actually both of us lost weight, I think.

We've had Leo and Angharad here a couple of times this year, some of the time just them and us, and we had a weekend en famille at October half term. Jenny and Alex have moved to Bere Ferrers, upriver from Plymouth, a short train ride (but a much longer drive) from the University, and they have a beautiful (rented) house. It's a 1920's house, probably built as a 'Mapp and Lucia' retirement home, I would think. On the ground floor, it's a classic villa layout - four reception rooms plus a large back kitchen and spacious central hall with cloakroom, now a bathroom; upstairs there are just two large bedrooms and a bathroom. And large gardens. So we all met up there - Ben and Emily and the children 'stayed', and we were at a campsite not far away. Emily went back to work in September, part time as cover for maternity leave, teaching in a VIth College that was once the grammar school Ben's real father went to . (He went into the RAF and was killed when Ben was very little.) For the moment, she's mainly teaching C20th India, which has led her to look at some of the archives we've got from Nina's maternal grandfather - he was in Bangalore c. 1910 - 1926, and Nina's mother was born there; and that has quite awakened E's interest in the family history, which is nice. A slightly weird story here. Timothy, Nina's youngest brother, has a carriage clock which was his grandfather's. It was in fact a wedding gift from his wife, and engraved to that effect. For years, Timothy and Heather had it on their mantelpiece, and then it stopped, and was put in a cupboard. Timothy had been on at H to get it mended, and eventually on Nov. 10th, (sic) lost patience and went to get it himself. And looked at the engraving. Which recorded his grandparents were married on Nov. 10th, 1911.

Well, 2011 has seen Nina reach 65 and me well on the way to it. The Welsh have a saying, "Henaint ni ddaw ei hunan" which might be translated as "You'd don't just get the pension........" and we're beginning to see what they mean. I've actually had only two or three days' sickness in the year, but one way and another, I've seen more of doctors and hospital clinics than I have in any year since childhood, or almost all the years since childhood.

The most benign element has been that I reached the top of the list for NHS hearing help. I've now had one of 'their' aids for about six months, and was fitted with its brother (for the other ear) in mid-November. It/(they) are far superior to anything else I've used - they really do make up the deficit in most situations. I have tended not to wear the first all all the time, but there is a curve here; the more you do use it, the more the brain actually adjusts to it being there, and it seems to me that in effect the ears then 'work' less hard when you haven't got them in - you feel deafer than you remembered ! They assure me it is just an effect, and not actual deterioration. Now, having got the second, it feels as if the adjustment has been made only for the ear that's had one - I'm going to have to go through same process again with the other ear. Every time I go to audiology, I have to go first to the GP's nurse to have my ears checked for wax, and the last time that happened, she suddenly decided to take my blood pressure, and that started a new fuss. I did home monitoring for several weeks, but 'they' now seem satisfied.

And I had an episode of AUR in April - casualty, catheters etc - but fairly quickly got back on to an even keel, with daily medication, and am now very comfortable with how things are - better than before, in fact. I was finally summoned to a follow-up with a consultant in mid-November - very low key. But he then arranged another test – which sets up precisely the circumstances that brought on the AUR episode……... So it goes on.

Nina's back is much better - she's back to some kind of normality, but has to be careful. While we were away she found museums and galleries quite difficult - the standing and leaning over affected her much more than walking, of which she managed quite a lot, and from which she seemed to get some benefit. Early in the summer, she lost her footing on the lawn and sprained an ankle - not a bad sprain in itself, I would have said, as sprains go, but it has shaken her confidence - she tends to peer suspiciously at her footing, step by step, which I think can sometimes be counter-productive.

As for the rest of my family; Mum is, remarkably, in as good a place psychologically as she's been for many years. Her care has been cut right back - she goes two days to a day centre, where she can get a haircut and a bath, she has an agency woman in 4 hours on one other day - cleaning and taking her shopping - and a girl takes her to church. Other than that, she's back to to independence, and seemingly content. Lesley and David's year has been dominated by David's health. He had a heart operation early in the year, and a hip replacement in mid-November. They have chosen to take the treatment in Staffordshire, so they have spent most of the year back in their 'old' house in Linton, which has not therefore yet been sold. They do still seem to be planning to renovate and extend the cottage near here and at some stage to make it their only home.

Mr(s ) Cameron's handbag

So Cameron has ‘vetoed’ the proposed new Euro-treaty.

It is the act of a man without any public principles, without any strategic grasp whatever. (So no surprise there, then). It is pantomime politics, but the ultimate price may be anything but fantasy.

He has done it for short-term party gain (as he has always played European politics). Ironically, it may in the short-term achieve some broader support – the British people, particularly the English, are in a strange state of mind now, and for the few years past.

But I sense a grand mis-step, which may not hurt Nina and me too much, but which could adversely affect Jenny and Emily, and Leo and Angharad, perhaps for the rest of their lives.

Happy Christmas, 2010

Welcome to the annual alternative to the dreaded round-robin Christmas letter from us.

Before we get into the grisly details, let's enjoy a bit of serendipity as of this very morning. The following photos are from the hillside in Pant-teg, 3 or 4 minutes' walk away, and feature a remarkable free display of ice-sculpture where a run-off drain down the mountain has sprayed out water which has frozen in mid flight

(Above) From the road

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(Above) the same cropped.



(Above and 3 following) Sundry detailed views





And not least, and gratifying in view of what follows, a shot down the hillside, with Nina in view by the roadside. It was she who spotted the phenomenon, and came to fetch me.



The year has undoubtedly been shaped most strongly by a mishap to Nina. In the middle of June, she fell victim to a slipped disc in the lower back. For a few days it was painful enough to require simply lying on a mattress on the decking in the sun. Within ten days it was a case of prostrate in bed, and so it remained for some weeks. She is now much improved, while still a long way short of where she was before it hit.

Earlier in the year, in April, we had the opportunity to buy at auction the remains and gardens of the two furthest cottages in our row, 8 and 9 Clees Lane. The most crucial benefit of the purchase is that we believe there is now no-one but ourselves who has any claim to right of way along the back and front of the seven cottages of the 'street' - the right of way is effectively abolished.

The gardens of 8 and 9 had been largely untouched for probably 35 years. Even the hedge between them was over 20 feet high, and sycamore and goat willow had run riot , right up the the edge of the path along the front of the houses. So May and June were woodcraft-at-home months, and we certainly have more firewood for this winter than we have ever had for any previous. As we went into summer, Ian turned his hand to stonework, demolishing one mid-row gable wall with toppling chimney stack, digging out the back right of way, and then moving on to re-use some of the stone thus released to add additional layers to the retaining wall behind the houses, which in effect holds back the hillside on which 1 and 2 Clees Lane stand. (You may remember no 2 is where Mum, Mary Graham, lives.) This masonry work has been halted by the onset of winter, but more remains to be done when temperate weather returns. In recent weeks, he has been free for indoor work, making new drawers and wall-units for the big kitchen. The next stage, probably mostly in the New Year, will be doors for all the kitchen units. Now there's posh !

Jenny has also had her health problems this year, but seems to well on the road back. This academic year she is the beneficiary of a Leverhulme Fellowship - in effect, on research Sabbatical.

Emily and Ben and Leo and Angharad moved house in July. They now live on the uphill side of Woodingdean, Brighton. It is a spacious and characterful house they have acquired, which should accommodate and occupy them for many years, other things being equal.

Brindle continues to be one third of our household.

We wish all our friends, siblings, cousins, and the chance dropper-in, a happy and satisfying mid-winter feast, each according to their own rites, and the necessities of life without undue strain throughout 2011.

The State We're In

It becomes harder to maintain and trust your own sanity, when the world seems to be going mad before your eyes. If cause and effect seem to be faltering; if swivel-eyed ideology seems suddenly to be mere noon-time sense to most of your fellow-citizens; if pity and humankindness seem to have no shadow of influence in the seats of power - what then can you hold on to ?

Thus I am currently finding it hard to escape the shadow of what seems to be to come, in the form of the revolution currently being primed by the Con-Dem government. Does no-one else feel the same ? Why are we not already plotting our resistance and defiance ? And by what right are they doing it, anyway ?

And it keeps getting worse - today, July 4th 2010, The Observer reports that last Tuesday the Cabinet were briefed to prepare for cuts, not on the already horrendous scale already announced, but at the rate of 40% in some government departments.

I do not believe that until Dave and Nick said 'I will', all was well with the UK. Heaven knows change is needed. But change with heart at its heart, change by increments that do not mean that collateral damage will inevitably outweigh progress - and all of that damage, remember, the wreckage of individual lives and the lives of families.

These several blogs ( 3 others on this day), (technically 'preceding', but scroll-wise 'following') each expressing slightly different perspectives on the one central subject, are bits of my response. Probably few other people will ever read them and their effect will be nil. But at least I have struggled to articulate them, and now I cast my bread upon the waters.

Apprentice! / Tirez les doigts

Increasingly it feels to me that there is a serious question about the legitimacy of this Con-Dem government, and their mandate or moral authority for proceeding as they are and as they propose.
There is a major discontinuity between (on the one hand) the prospectuses and arguments of the May election campaign, and the raw outcome of that election, and (on the other) the plans now presented by the Con-Dem government, and the justifications offered for them.
It is as if we have been subjected to a bloodless coup d'etat. The LibDem MPs served as an unlikely commando to seize the premiership for Cameron, but as a result of that operation are now effectively prisoners, (and I begin to wonder whether Cameron himself is not under some sort of open arrest. Toying further with the metaphor: when will the show-trials begin?)

The collective leadership of the Labour Party then made what at the time was urged and applauded as the 'wise' decision to go for a long leadership campaign. That decision looks less good to me with each day that passes. The political process is moving on rapidly. We can see more certainly that ideology rather than analysis and consideration is going to drive government policy, at least in the short term. We can see the scale of their ambition, and the likely social, economic and (less us not forget, for millions) personal cost of their programme. We can also, crucially, see that as to the outcome, there will be a difference of degree only, as between whether they, in their own estimation, succeed, or (as seems more likely) fail. For the rest of us, it's a lose-lose bet. We really are set for a step-back-a-generation calamity, either way.

If the government is not stopped.

I believe it could be, but another 3 months of "Could you just wait a moment ? We're electing a leader" may tip the balance, sell the pass - choose your own metaphor.

The five candidates for the Labour leadership could instead agree to suspend conventional campaigning, cancel their cosy August week off, and offer themselves as the five founder members of a New Committee of One Hundred, open to all women and men who will work peacefully but strenuously - urgently - to rebut the government case, obstruct its implementation, and develop a fully detailed and costed alternative.

The leadership election itself could still go ahead exactly as planned. But even before the result is known, we could have an actual working vehicle/forum/campaign to try and avert disaster - and in the process re-generate the centre-left in the UK.

As soon as this pub closes.....

The view from the molehill
(with apologies to Alex Glasgow and Chris Mullins)

(While very obviously a layman/foot-soldier's view, this blog looks in a little more detail at issues touched on in the blog, Apprentice! / Tirez les doigts !)

What the Con-Dem government is proposing to inflict in terms of cuts, unemployment and collateral social damage is appalling. (There's a lot of loose talk from the government side about horrendous legacies to future generations in terms of a structural deficit. The legacy in terms of 'the solution' will be far worse. Where I live (Peter Hain's constituency) we still haven't recovered from the 80's and 90's. )

The present 'phoney war' (the talk before the action) is totally surreal, like a slow-motion train crash.

It's not as if the Con-Dem government had a commanding lead, either of public opinion, or of expert analysis and comment. There is in the country a solid phalanx of opinion and expertise (probably not a lot smaller than the ConDem one, in fact) that is coherently objecting to the Coalition programme - an informed, detailed, principled rejection of the programme.
And in practical political terms, Osborne and co only actually have the 'power' to implement their plans courtesy of the Lib Dem parliamentary party - most of whom are probably privately as appalled as those of us on 'this side' (but one can see that they are for the moment left without any good options).

That's for now. When the blitzkrieg actually starts, it seems inevitable the government will lose support as people are actually hurt. We know it's going to be a disaster - the purposeful employment activity of millions lost, the special measures for those already on the margins gone, the welfare costs (even with the benefit cuts) outweighing the intended financial savings, so the whole thing is self-defeating.

Now, consider more fully the issues around mandate, legitimacy and 'moral authority'.
The measures proposed are far from routine - the superlative comparisons vary, but it is clear that in terms of scale of effect and degree of change of direction (i.e. from one government to the next), you have to go back at least to Thatcher. And even that is not really adequate to the Con-Dem aspiration. It is often remarked how unsuccessful the Thatcher governments were in rolling back the state, despite the social and economic damage they did by trying, so even the Thatcher comparison is inadequate. For scale of change you probably have to go back to 1945, (but then there was an exceptional, overwhelming, mandate to 'authorise' it). For a truer comparison you may have to go back to the Geddes' axe - and anyone old enough to have voted for the first time at that preceding election would now be well over 100 years old! So it seems reasonable to claim that to underwrite the government 'morally' today, a wholly exceptional mandate is required .

Whereas, consider the actual electoral facts: in May, Labour won clear-to-overwhelming majorities of MPs from both Wales and Scotland, and the results from England were very regional - there are parts of England where the Governmment has hardly more of a localised mandate than it does in Wales and Scotland. In the present parliament, Labour is the only party with really significant representation from all three mainland elements of the Union.
Moreover, the Government proposals as they now stand include important elements which during the election campaign the Conservatives themselves denied they were considering (the VAT increase being the clearest example) and which the Liberal Democrates explicitly opposed. So within the total package there is a bundle of measures for which the Government cannot claim an electoral mandate in any terms whatever.

And as already noted re the parliamentary mechanics of power: the implementation of this multi-decade-exceptional programme is made possible by the votes of the Lib Dems who secured election by opposing significant parts of it, and many of whom (one must now in charity believe) are probably now as aghast as the rest of us. (If, as a side-outcome, 'our' opposition strategies offered at least some of them something to leap for and cling on to, we should be forbearing. We've made ministers of renegade Tories before now.)

Is this not one of those - once-in-several-generations - moments when 'business as usual' is no longer an option ? If the Labour Party, and particularly its MPs, simply settle down to 'principled opposition' until the next election, the axe will swing, millions of lives will be devastated and swathes of the country will economically marginalised.
Do not these considerations make it reasonable for those of us appalled at what we are threatened with to extend our challenge and opposition well beyond conventional Parliamentary opposition politics?

I ask in all seriousness: should we not be considering a complete social mobilisation of protest, to drive this government from power before it is too late ?

This comment is not a full manifesto - it does not examine what an alternative government would do. ( How could I ? But Apprentice! / Tirez les doigts ! already suggests the way to an answer.) Piecemeal resistance to the cuts by the Unions is predictable but likely to be ineffective and perhaps even unpopular. Whereas a co-ordinated campaign of social resistance including strikes, minimal or non-cooperation with the implementation of cuts by elected councillors and civil servants, sustained widespread demonstrations, could be very powerful. The cuts in the presently proposed Con-Dem version could be stopped.

Are we prepared to try, or is wringing our hands more comfortable ?

All in this together ?

If only......

Try this thought experiment:
try to put a figure on the lowest income on which anyone (not you, of course, not you) can get by in this country.
Well, of course, 'it depends' - how old 'they' are, whether 'they' have dependants, etc.
But you can be sure of this: surviving at that level is a short-term business, week by week or even day by day. It requires fierce prioritising of spending, probably principally towards shelter, sustenance, and a dash of the vice of choice to soften the edge.
And in what 'they' do buy, 'they' will have very little choice as far as quality goes. There will be many things 'they' will seldom if ever be able to afford at all - new clothes, investment in hobbies or interests, holidays, or indeed travel, away from 'home'.
What infrastructure 'they' have will vary, according to how long 'they' have been at this level, but any failure in the infrastructure will be a major crisis, because there simply is not the financial slack to cope - the pair of shoes no longer wearable, the old washing machine throwing a fault, whatever, is a disaster.

OK. Now double that 'get by' basic figure.
You will still be contemplating an income that most people will consider modest - probably less than the average income, whatever that abused term means.
But obviously the desperate edge is already much abated. Many people at this level will have 'a proper home'. The scope for budgetting is significantly greater. It's at least beginning to be the case that 'they' do not absolutely have to go without anything they regard as essential, although the range of quality they can afford is still restricted.

Double the figure again. And you're now well into basic comfort. You may now be able to afford a property of your own; and your fate, and that of your family, is fairly securely in your own hands provided you stay in work. You have a lot of choice about most things.

But note that at this third level, four times the 'get by' basic, you are still well in the middle of whatever range covers 90% of the whole population. In a typical local authority, for instance, the chief executive may well have a gross salary of ten times the 'get by' basic. And we have probably yet to consider anyone who really regards themselves as 'rich'.

Now let's consider 'cuts'.

For someone on the 'get by' basic, there is virtually no room for manoeuvre. Each £1 they lose is likely to mean there is one more thing that they can't afford at all, and the more pounds they lose, the more certain that is to be the case.

But as you again move in imagination through the income levels, contemplating reduced incomes at every level, choices appear - options to economise, trade down rather than go without, at worst postpone rather than abandon hope of. At quite modest income levels, the sharp absolute of 'we can't have it at all' is no longer there, at least in relation to what 'we' are used to having. And well within the total (i.e. ten times 'get by' basic) range, the difference which reducing a person/household's income by, say, the amount of the 'get by' basic will make becomes a matter of detail and inflection, no more - fewer 'designer' items but no actual material deprivation.

If we were really 'all in this together', the austerity measures would require a very sharp reverse taper, from taking nothing at all from those at the bottom, to whatever is necessary from those at the top.
Perversely, what is actually proposed cuts most directly and specifically at the very bottom - restrictions to Housing Benefit, real-terms cuts to benefits and tax credits, junking thousands of low-skill jobs in the public sector (no one's idea of the good life, but the means by which many just about keep body and soul together).
If there were truly a will that we should be 'all in this together', is there any way to make it so, except by tax ? The truth is, that however much you increase the tax take from the top, they will still have enough to do what they regard as essential - which is already not the case for those at the bottom. And with the revised tax take, you would suddenly find you had bought time to make all the adjustments and re-balancings we really need in a controlled and therefore more efficient way.

I am not an economist nor in any formal sense a money man, though I do have some private experience with investments. I am just a man in his seventh decade who has always concerned himself with the life of his time, and has himself known (relatively) both poverty and plenty.
From that standpoint, I do not 'buy' the assessment of the seriousness of the deficit issue pushed by the Conservatives, and more specifically I entirely reject the facile assumption that public finances are to be run on the same lines as a private domestic budget. Even the relatively more moderate stance of the Labour Party on the issue (still typically New Labour in this) seems to me too concerned to placate the opinions of its natural opponents, not to say enemies.
This is not such a maverick position as some may think - if that includes you, please go away and read e.g. William Keegan and Will Hutton.

So I think current policy is being sold (it may not actually be conceived - that is the devil of it) on a bogus prospectus. Conversely, I believe that the conduct of public policy requires a small screwdriver and a probe, not a sledgehammer (adjustment and re-balancing as between public and private, service and production are constantly required, but sudden exaggerated actions are inherently destabilising and wasteful); and that mass un-employment and inadequate 'welfare' are a far greater danger to the stability and well-being of our society than 'the deficit'. And I certainly think to balance adjusting action in the ratio 4:1 (cuts:taxes) is calculated to make the worst of a bad job. To keep as many lives as possible safe and stable is one of the highest common goods. If we are indeed 'all in this together' ( a fine slogan currently cynically deployed) it is actually in the interests of those least affected to pay more to cushion those most disadvantaged.