More about Alg and Cyril

A post-script to my 2018 post about Chatteris men serving and dying in the First World War. Today I have been sorting photos on my PC, and noticed something for the first time.

On a visit back to Chatteris some years ago, I took photos of the named foundation stones in the street wall of what was the Chatteris Wesleyan Methodist Schoolroom.

It's now a private residence but was central to the lives of three generations of Grahams. I have known from childhood that my grandfather Alg was one of those for whom a stone was laid,

along with several other contemporaries who I also knew as senior members of the congregation, Sunday School teachers, etc.

Rosie Sharp, for one, who taught me in infant school, and later taught me in Sunday School, and tutored me for 'the Scripture Exam'.

And today, I noticed for the first time that a few along from Grandpa's stone is one for C.T. Lovell.

Grahams, Boards and Williams in 2024

Sadly (and yet it could have been so much worse) 2024 has been for our family the year of what used to be called 'the big C', but which increasingly (we have noticed since it affected us) is now spoken of openly.

First sister Lesley had a recurrence of something she had successfully weathered some years ago. As for many people, the progress towards full-on address and treatment seemed terribly slow, but eventually she had an extended sequence of radiation therapy which does seem to have done its job. The waiting was a strain, the weeks of treatment were a strain of a different sort, and the aftermath has been a slow clawback from persistent fatigue, but she is now reckoning herself back to something like 'normal'.

While Lesley was in the waiting stage, Jenny told us she too had been diagnosed with cancer. She had been struggling through the latter part of 2023 with unease in one hip, which initially she (and the medics too) treated as some sort of strain. But it didn't get better, and by about March 2024 she was in serious pain, unable to bear weight on that leg. And eventually the hip problem was diagnosed as a secondary cancer, the primary being in one lung.

Jenny was in hospital for about three weeks, and then for a much longer period convalescent/invalid at home. Nina was in Plymouth in support for about 4 months, with Ian there too for significant periods. Emily was a tower of strength. Again, we have to be grateful for the good news. Jenny has been on a targeted drug for 7 or 8 months now, and it has had a marked positive effect, particularly on the primary.
Jenny has faced it all with courage and resource, and was able to return to work on a 50% commitment when term started in the autumn. She continues to take great pleasure and satisfaction from her work. She has also been able to resume her connections with the National Gallery, giving guest lectures on zoom, and is now preparing for a role in a major new collaboration with Jeremy Deller. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/across-the-uk/the-triumph-of-art She has also rejoined her Rock Choir.

Nina and I resumed normal residence here in Clees Lane on July 23rd. Obviously, gardening in the usual sense was gone for this year, and the whole place was wildly overgrown. Amazing how quickly it reverts. We have gradually clawed things back, and have settled into a rather provisional 'normal' life-pattern, with Jenny always in our thoughts, and mercifully usually in easy touch, with modern coms.

Emily, meanwhile, is in the thick of middle life. Ben is still internationally working from home. Leo is in his second year at University, and Angharad is in her 'A' Level year. She is turning into quite a traveller, with solo trips to Montpellier and Valencia. Emily is still in the latter stages of her MA at King's London; but has turned aside somewhat since landing a temporary Research Fellowship at the Constitutional Society, preparing a report on the policy and practice of democratic education in English secondary schools, with a focus on constitutional literacy. https://consoc.org.uk/people/emily-board/

In the autumn Nina has joined a pottery class, which she is greatly enjoying. Ian proceeds through cycles of the heir-to-work in wood and stone, playing his music keyboards, and occasionally tinkering with cyber matters. He has, for instance, recently switched the (Linux) operating system on the computer he uses for writing and editing photos and going online. Like the other mentioned activities, this is a fascinating mixture of the application of skills, and the achievement of practical outcomes. He has also enjoyed learning how versatile an air-fryer is.

Storm Darragh hit us with a power cut around 10.15 a.m. on the Saturday (7/12), and it wasn't restored until 11 p.m. on the Monday (9/12). At a practical level, it wasn't too bad. We have log-burners at both ends of the house, and a reasonable stock of dry wood. And also a useful array of battery or rechargeable lights. But it did throw our usual routines and interests into sharp relief - no phone, no internet, no TV, very little mobile phone connectivity, computer time necessarily kept to a minimum - just cut off. It didn't make it easier to bear, that Ystalyfera and Godregraig generally weren't off for long, and houses within easy walking distance back to normal. (Others were even worse affected, of course - some didn't get power restored until the Wednesday or Thursday.) Our house faces East South East across the valley. In the manner of the Victorian workman's cottages these once were, we have biggish windows, originally sashes around 4' x 3', but only one per room, and those only on the front face. At this time of year, direct sunlight comes slantingly in two dimensions. And therefore there are in most rooms substantial dark corners to either side of the window, which in the case of the kitchen, is exactly where the sink and cooker are. The Monday morning brought sunshine, and it was interesting to see where the bright light fell. In the kitchen, mainly onto the stairs; in our bedroom, onto the face of the pine-end wall. In the room where my music keyboards are, they face into the room, so the light from the window falls on the cover of a score, not the music page I see when playing. Ie in no case did the external light contribute much to the functional lighting of the rooms.

The 4 Boards and the 3 Grahams will share Christmas in Plymouth - we shall all (Jenny included) be in a city-centre hotel for Christmas Eve night, and for the first time ever we shall 'eat out' on the 25th. Otherwise, we shall enjoy Jenny's elegant home.

Two Chatteris boys, killed the same day, June 15th, 1918

At 11 a.m. , on June 15th 2018, at Chatteris War Memorial, Cambs, two local men will be/ were remembered, on the exact centenary of their deaths on the Western Front. They were both killed by shell fire. They were not in the same unit or location - their graves are more than 260 km apart - and yet I have 'one degree of separation' connections to both of them. This blog, and an associated post on Facebook on the exact anniversary, remembers them, in recognition of what seems to me a strange coincidence, and on behalf of my late grandfather and grandmother, who are my respective links to them. One, Cyril Lovell, was (as told to me in boyhood) 'Grandpa's best friend'; and the other, Fred Squires, was Grandma's cousin (she was christened Dora Squires Kemp). I don't know whether there was any connection between the two men in life. From my own memories of growing up in Chatteris, fifty years later, I would guess that they probably 'knew of' each other. They might well both have attended the (then new) King Edward School at the same time. But beyond that, they probably moved in very different circles in the town. My grandfather, Alg(ernon) Kirton Graham, also served on the Western Front, in the RFC and then the RAF. He came home safe, and here am I, a hundred years on, and all but fifty years older than either Cyril or Fred ever was, to remember. Grandma's mother and Fred's father were brother and sister. Grandma was the youngest of her family, and about six years older than Fred - it is tempting to surmise that she might sometimes have 'kept an eye on' him in his boyhood. What I do know, and remember very clearly, is that around 1960, she and Grandpa took their summer holiday in Eastbourne, and when they came, she spoke, in that sadly portentous way women of her generation had, of looking across the Channel towards France, and thinking of 'all those who went over there, and never came back'. The Squires were, obviously, 'a generation further back' to us growing up in Chatteris in the 50's and 60's. But the link is there in the genes. My sister Lesley is now a living reminder of Grandma and her sister Emily, and we know from family history and old photos that that particular 'face' is actually a Squires look. The links to Cyril Lovell also go wide and long. My sister Lesley and I had a classic rocking horse handed down to us in the 1950's, from our cousins-once-removed Richard and Alison Graham, and my memory is that it originally came from the Lovells. Much later, of course, Lovell and Ward took over Graham and Fisher's premises at 36 High Street, as acquired and set up by my great-grandfather Tom Graham, home, and later workplace, to Alg and his brother Spencer (father of Richard and Alison). My father Douglas, and later my mother, and Richard, all worked there. And Mum, Dad and I lived in rooms there briefly in 1947 - 50. (Those who actually remember the original Lovell and Ward's store, which occupied the triangular plot where Railway Lane runs into High Street -now a paved public space - must all be pensioners, I think.)

Miss Gertrude Freeman

Cyril had been engaged to Miss Gertrude Freeman. She never married, and lived to extreme old age - and I have two 'one degree of separation' connections to her.

One is, again, through Grandpa. She and he (and Spencer) were members together of 'The Rainbows' concert party in Chatteris between the wars (see photo). My grandfather is seated in the middle, front row. Gertrude Freeman is seated to his left. Spencer is standing, back right. 

 

The web widens.....

The other link to Miss Freeman is through the late Rev. Peter Collingwood. 

Peter was a son of the well-known March family. 

He, like me, though long before me, went to March Grammar School and then read English at Cambridge. 

When Nina and I went in 1970 to teach at Thekwane School, in what was then still UDI Rhodesia, he was our Headmaster. 

He and I remained in annual touch to the end of his life. When he retired from Africa, he served as a Methodist circuit minister, including a term at Portland - where he found Gertrude Freeman as one of his flock, and each year he would mention her in his Christmas letter to me.He must have been aware of some link to have ever mentioned her, though I don't now recall what that link was. 

And one more to remember.....

There is a fourth young Chatteris man I would like to remember here. Lieut. Percival Angood RFC had been killed the previous year, in a flying accident. Unlike Cyril, he was not 'remembered to me', in my boyhood, and yet it now seems very likely that he and Alg (and possibly Cyril) would have known each other, and perhaps had a more specific relationship, either as friends, or possibly as rivals. Percy and Alg both went to March Grammar School, both their fathers were ironmongers on Chatteris High Street, and both of them worked in their father's businesses before joining up. They were both, also, Methodists, and organists.

ANGOOD, Percival George

 2nd Lt, Royal Flying Corps. Killed (flying accident, England) 11-9-17, age 23. Only son of George & Mary Ann Angood, 48 New Rd; husband of Grace Annetta Angood (nee Buck), married July 1917. Formerly Honourable Artillery Company. Chatteris General (Meeks) Cemetery. At the time of his death he was serving as a pilot with No. 7 Aircraft Acceptance Park, Kenley, Surrey, a unit which flight-tested new aircraft from local manufacturers. Killed flying a RE.8. Had previously served with 2nd Battalion, HAC.

http://chatteris.ccan.co.uk/content/catalogue_item/chatteris-ww1-soldier-percival-angood-chatteris-remembers-biography

My Angood link

I also have more specific links to Percy's (as surely he must have been, as Algernon was 'Alg'?) wider family, though I haven't checked out his exact relationship.
There were three children born in 1921, and christened together in the Methodist church: my father Douglas, his cousin Gertrude Whitehorn, and Harold Angood, of Honeysome.
Dad was the Player King to Harold's Hamlet at MGS in the 30's, and Gertrude and Harold were 'young sweethearts' who married. They and their three children, John, Jill and Joy, were very much part of the Graham/Kemp extended family in which I grew up in Chatteris in the 1950's and 60's, and I am still in touch with all three, my second cousins on the Kemp line ie we share common great grand-parents, Elias and Jane (Jenny) Kemp.

Reflections in closing

the strange richness of the webs that link us, in time and space


both Cyril and Percy enlisted via the H.A.C. Was this coincidence ? Was it known as a fast-track for would-be pilots ? Was there a specific Chatteris/Cambridgeshire link ?


the vagaries of the class system in 1914-18. All four men remembered here were much of a class. Two became officers. The one who was probably the most-highly educated of the 4           ( A.K.G., who did Higher School Certificate, and was remembered on the old MGS honours boards) never advanced beyond L.A.C.


I have no current links to Squires in Chatteris, though the genes persist, strongly !

Local government cuts - focus on the Library.

The Welsh Assembly government this week published its draft budget. The biggest losers are the local authorities. Yesterday, as an officer of a local society, I received an email from the Chief Librarian of the County Borough in which I live, inviting the Society's response to proposals which include the closure of my local library.

This is the text of my reply:

"Thank you for including YHS in this consultation.

Obviously, you and your political masters face appalling pressures and choices. But let it not be overlooked that the first mover in all this is a Westminster government which has absolutely no electoral mandate for what it has done and is doing. Many of us regard its economic 'justifications' for its policies as at best unsound, and at worst simply bogus. The damage that is being done - in this case, the forced closure of libraries in deprived communities with poor transport links - will not be quickly reversed, if it is reversed at all. So is there not a need for a bit of backbone, some boldness, some lateral thinking, to hold the line in the hope of the tide turning? "Do not go gentle into that dark night."

So you will not expect any civic society to applaud the closure of its local library. Change is needed, without doubt - but if one form of provision goes, an alternative needs to be found.

Have you considered the role of the secondary schools ? They have libraries. They are on the whole located around the county with some regard for the patterns of population. Might not a stronger partnership between the education service and the library service be a way forward ? "

The next blog down explores how we (collective we - are you one of us ?) might "not go gentle into that dark night".

Time to get up off our knees

Yesterday, as an officer of a local society, I received an email from the Chief Librarian of the local authority in which I live, inviting the Society's response to a paper of proposals for cuts to the Library Service in the Borough.

I drafted and sent a response. And what I found myself saying prompted me to further thought about the choices now being forced upon us all by the (let's be honest) Conservative  government's 'austerity' policies.

The crux of what I will now try to elaborate is this: is it not time to start developing a programme of actual resistance to the budget cuts being imposed from Westminster ? Are there not in fact ways in which 'we' could simply refuse to accept them , and, at least to a degree, circumvent them ?

Begin with a simple narrative picture. Suppose all the Local Authorities in Wales, collectively, said: "We will not accept these cuts, we will not implement these cuts, and we are collaborating to find practical ways of NOT implementing these cuts." Suppose, even, that just the Labour- or Plaid- controlled authorities, took that stance.

With a bloc like that in alliance, what, effectively, could any other power do about it ? Calling out the army would not have any direct impact. Conventional legal or accounting processes to 'bring them to heel' could take years.

Raise the bar. Suppose the Welsh Assembly government supported the stance, either actively or simply by doing nothing to hinder it. Suppose, better, that the Welsh Assembly government reached out to the Scottish Assembly government, and that they joined hands on this issue. By that stage, the Westminster government's 'bluff' would have been called in no uncertain terms.

OK. Let's come back to money and the nuts and bolts.

Expenditure and funding at the level and scale we are considering, even at the level of a single local authority, is NOT like a private budget or household income writ large. The 'credit card maxed out' image is simply illiterate, in economic terms. (Which would be worse - to have a Chancellor who really believed it, or one who knew it was nonsense but peddled it all the same ?) We are not talking about, say, a barn full of corn, or a store full of potatoes, and when the barn or the store is empty, it is empty, and starvation stares us in the face. We are talking about numbers - very large numbers - on paper, or on a computer. We are talking about confidence, and about credit.

Ah yes, some will say, but that's the problem. The Welsh Assembly Government, or the County and Borough Councils, do not legally have the powers for structural borrowing, or for running a deficit. My answer to that objection is : "Stuff that. In practical terms, could they do it ?"
(Remember that the background to all this is that the Westminster government had and has no electoral mandate for their policies. The Conservatives failed to win a majority, and the Lib Dems fought the election (ie won their seats) on a set of policies essentially opposed to what they have supported in coalition. So the legitimacy of what I am proposing we should resist is, to be polite, highly debatable. Surely the lengths we need to go to to resist may legitimately  reflect that.

And similarly, if we look at the actual implementation of the Westminster governments cuts, their programme makes no sense in conventional financial / economic terms.
A 'shrink-the-state' government could responsibly pursue its agenda over, say, a generation - rarely cutting anything, but simply not renewing programmes as time passed.
The sort of instant-effect cuts that have been pursued since 2010 are counter-productive, even in terms of their own intentions. It actually costs money, and wastes money already spent, to cut off programmes and projects in mid-flow.
And the ensuing disruption to the overall economy (made up of lots of individual lives and households) is profound, as we have seen these past years.
Money needs to go round and round, and keep going round. In a way, that is more important than how much there nominally is, or where it nominally comes from.

This is not just wild opinion - the bald fact is that the austerity programme has not even achieved its object - the 'deficit' is not being paid down in any significant way, and the date by which it might be paid down is in continuous retreat down the decades of the 21st century. It's the whole mind-set that is wrong, not the deficit itself.) 

So, to return to the notion of actually refusing to accept the cuts. If we dared to think about it inventively, there are ways in which the refusenik authorities could do it. The first and simplest is simply to run a deficit. Who is going to call 'foul!' if that is done, what can they do if they don't like it, and (very important, this) how long would it take for them to do it ?

But to cushion that extreme, there are ways in which the local authorities could be supported. For example, I am in the happy position (probably not typical, I know) in which I could pay a year or even two years Council Tax in advance. That would presumably be legal ? The trades unions have an enormous interest in resisting the cuts - and they have not inconsiderable financial reserves. Again, a nimble mind could find not-illegal ways for the unions to help mitigate the local authorities' technical default at the points of most risk or most pressure. And even 'business' has no reason to love the cuts, and their tolerance of or connivance with the local authorities could be significant.

I repeat the questions with which I began:
is it not time to start developing a programme of actual resistance to the budget cuts being imposed from Westminster ?
Are there not in fact ways in which 'we' could simply refuse to accept them , and, at least to a degree, circumvent them ?

Two swallows don't make a summer.....

but it's sure good to see them, nonetheless.

Labour's economic record given clean bill of health at home and abroad.

A leading British academic concludes that the last government has been tarnished by spin, while the US treasury secretary follows Gordon Brown's lead.

William Keegan, Observer, Aug. 4th

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/aug/04/labour-economic-record-clean-bill-of-health  

Home truths for clueless George Osbourne.

The downgraded Chancellor wrecked a recovery and is slashing living standards, as well as missing growth and debt targets.

Kevin Maguire, Daily Mirror, Aug 5th

http://www.mirror.co.uk/opinion/news-opinion/kevin-maguire-home-truths-clueless-2124921

Altogether, now.......

Time for a re-jig

As it was: