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Tuesday 30 April 2019

A Cage Fit For Eagles

Cage birds were once the pet of choice as far as the working classes of London and the South East were concerned. These days you might even call them Estuary Pets. Easy to keep, unlikely to offend the neighbours and certainly cost effective as far as food was concerned. There were even songs written about them such as the once celebrated Music Hall ditty about the couple doing a moonlight flit – My old man said follow the van and don’t dilly dally on the way. The story-teller is the wife who walked behind the cart with the family pet and the popular melody itself would certainly be familiar with all who now qualify for a government pension.

A hundred years ago statistics estimate that every second household kept a cage bird of some kind and the craze began a long time before that if Pliny the Elder is to be believed. He laid the responsibility at the feet of Marcus Laenius Strabo of the Order of the Knighthood at Brindisi who, he wrote, began the practice of `imprisoning within bars wild creatures that Nature had assigned to the open sky’. He then went a step further and outlined the excesses some of his fellow Romans indulged in, citing an actor called Clodius Aesop who favoured his birds roasted, particularly favouring those that whilst alive had spoken in human voices. Pliny was scandalised, seeming to view this culinary treat as some kind of minor though hard to categorise form of cannibalism. Whether or not the vogue for pet birds started with the Romans is of course debatable but the craze was definitely trending in Europe in the early seventeen hundreds when French Huguenot weavers descended en masse upon London bringing their songbirds with them. And when I was a child the fashion was still alive and well in the streets of working class Gravesend and Northfleet and if my mother was to be believed the feathered friend of choice was then the Linnet. This relative of the Finch family was either routinely trapped in the wild or bred specially for sale in local pet shops and highly prized for its singing ability. It is likely that the male bird was especially sought after because of its colourful plumage although for some inexplicable reason the colours were slow to appear when caged. My mother decided that this peculiarity was almost certainly because once caged they pined for their freedom, dreamed of soaring high into the Kentish sky – in other words it was a definite symptom of avian depression. Well she didn’t quite put it like that but nevertheless she could have been right.
Although I know that we were a linnet owning family when my parents first married and moved into York Road it wouldn’t be true to say that I actually remember Bobby, the bird itself. In fact by the time I was aware enough to take any interest in him he had already been given his freedom. This was in the hope that once restored to the wild he would grow a bright plumage and learn to sing rather than huddle on his perch in a woebegone and guilt-inspiring manner whilst conspicuously moulting. The only tangible evidence of Bobby himself was his empty cage, fashioned from slim lengths of bamboo and undeniably attractive. I wasn’t allowed to play with it in case I did it some damage and it was stored in the cupboard under the stairs on a hook above the coal bunker awaiting his replacement.

Years were to pass before birds of any variety were to once more share the kitchen of number 28 with us. Although my brother was to become a firm ornithology enthusiast, birds either as pets or in the wild was not a subject I gave much thought to. However, I found it vaguely interesting when my favourite teacher Mr Will Clarke revealed that local author of some note, Charles Dickens, was said to have at one stage kept a pet Raven and Winston Churchill was a parrot fancier owning a Macaw called Charlie. My young brother, on the other hand was already wont to comment on the bamboo cage above the coal bunker from time to time, wistfully wondering if it would hold an eagle. Well he was only five years old at the time of that query and the only eagle he had actually seen was that which graced the front page of the recently launched boys’ comic book. Still young enough to be easily confused and mostly bereft of reading skills he actually believed for a time that the popular periodical was some kind of Bird Fanciers’ Weekly and even planned to name any future eagle he might own, Dan Dare in honour of the front page hero. Once he graduated from the first raft of Early Readers provided by St Joseph’s Primary School it was with some embarrassment that he hastily tossed aside this particular notion though not the comic in its entirety. The first issue had been released in April 1950 following a huge publicity campaign and for a number of years it was enormously popular with boys between the ages of seven and sixteen providing a range of popular stories together with news and sports items.

Destined as he was to eventually emerge as a Bird of Prey fancier the green and grey budgerigar would not have been Bernard’s first choice when it came to feathered companions and it is more than likely that a compromise was reached with my mother. She only capitulated regarding becoming a bird owner in the first place because the Bennetts of Buckingham Road had recently become the proud owners of Richie who, if their Joan was to be believed, had already learned to say his name. A week or two later our own bird, purchased from the pet shop in Queen Street, Gravesend, would have also been known as Richie if that popular budgie name had not already been bestowed upon the Bennett’s bird. Instead, a further compromise was reached and ours was henceforth known as Ricky.

Without further ceremony the bamboo cage was retrieved from its place under the stairs, carefully wiped of coal dust and Ricky was installed. When Old Nan dropped in for tea and conversation a day or two later she said that we should have got him from the market because everybody knew that’s where the the best talkers were to be found and it was her belief that there was no real alternative. She would not be persuaded that Gravesend market did not go in for cage birds and said if that was the case it was a poxy excuse for a market if ever there was one. The fact that he had set us back the not inconsiderable sum of fifteen shillings and sixpence was further cause for derision because back in her day `them birds was ten a penny down Club Row’ which was nice and handy to her childhood home in Bethnal Green Road. Well all that information was only if she was to be believed and often it turned out that she was not.

Ricky was not an immediate success at once displaying a hostile attitude towards his surroundings when he set about demolishing the bamboo cage that now hung in a corner of the kitchen above the shelf where the wireless lived. My mother was perplexed and said that Bobby the linnet had been a bird of a far less destructive nature and had always been as good as gold in the very cage that Ricky was fast obliterating. Mrs Bennett advised that budgerigars had different beaks to linnets and should always be kept in wire cages and quite apart from that they liked toys. Our Ricky should be provided with a miniature mirror she advised because their Richie had one and these days you couldn’t stop him talking. He said all manner of things and had them all in stitches.

A wire cage was investigated at Rayners in Northfleet High Street because at the pet shop in Gravesend they turned out to be Very Dear. But the Rayners variety were not exactly cheap either and so while the idea was given more consideration a mirror with a pink plastic trim was acquired and handed over to Ricky with a great deal of ceremony. But he was growing more recalcitrant by the day and showed not the slightest interest. Bernard and I took turns sitting beside his cage enunciating sound bites in the hope that he would emulate them but he seemed to be quite averse to `Ricky’s a pretty boy’ and `What a clever budgie’ no matter how often and how slowly these mini-bites were demonstrated to him. Old Nan said we’d definitely been sold a pup and that our bird was a pig in a poke and thus managed to completely confuse Bernard who was still at an age when he was inclined to take things adults said completely literally.

In a final act of desperation and having very recently added School Dinner Lady to her raft of part time jobs my mother announced that she was now feeling flush enough to lash out and treat Ricky to a brand new Rayners wire cage which came equipped with a bell for him to play with. It had not completely escaped her attention that the Bennett bird was a keen bell ringer though the noise at tea-time was enough to drive you to Colney Hatch. What with the new cage, the bell and the very latest in Best Bird Seed with added oil to encourage the acquisition of speech she felt that our Ricky would very soon be making giant strides in every direction. But he continued to make very slow progress, showed no interest in being allowed out of his cage to occasionally fly around the room, refused to learn his name, found the new bird seed unpalatable and demonstrated complete indifference towards campanology. Overall he was not a total success and my mother was overheard to confide to her sister Mag that if there was one thing that gave her the pip, it was being forced to sit and listen to Grace Bennett listing all the new tricks that their Richie had learnt since she last drank tea with her. She just couldn’t stop blowing his trumpet and when all was said and done he was only a bird.

So when poor Ricky was found deceased at the bottom of his new cage one Sunday morning she clearly found it something of a relief and was not keen on replacing him. Once he had been buried with due ceremony beneath the only flowers in our garden, the stolen primroses from Lord Darnley’s woods the wire cage was cleaned and hung in the cupboard under the stairs without undue comment. After a while Bernard divulged that even though there was to be no successor to the wayward Ricky it was certainly a very good idea to keep the cage. When I asked him why he paused for a few seconds before adding that you never knew when it would come in useful and wanted to know if I thought it would be possible to keep an eagle in it – just a small eagle perhaps, one that was well behaved. I said I didn’t know very much about eagles.

Monday 22 April 2019

Patches Protected

I’d only attended one previous meeting of the Local History Writers’ Group and to be totally honest I felt at the time that those involved were just a little too earnest, taking their various areas of concern ultra-seriously. However I had to agree with Edina when she regaled us all with how much she loathed and detested the dastardly business of the dissemination of information about what she had so recently written. So I was cheered to see she was present once more and this time handing out name tags. It wasn’t only me who had been in agreement with her either because even before the coffee and biscuits had been distributed someone called Mike re-energised that discussion. He said he would much rather rewrite the whole thing (in his case a treatise on the churches of Romney Marsh) than get involved in publicising it. Now that I realised these emotions are common I felt a lot better about my own reactions – well enough to say how wonderful it would be to find oneself in a more secure financial position – one that would support the hiring of a professional publicist.

At times those who write, I ventured to suggest, seem to be inordinately territorial – often so hugely so it is astonishing to behold. There was a silence so I added that each time I stumble across this attitude I am freshly flabbergasted. After all, it’s not actually a competition is it?

Edina said that a couple of years ago she wrote a book about growing up in a corner of rural Essex. She said she enjoyed writing the book and though she said it herself, thought it read quite well. So when she discovered that very same community from whence she came now boasted a Local History Society, meeting on a monthly basis in the Church Hall – yes indeed, that same ancient Church she described on more than one occasion within her very pages – well, naturally enough she was quite sure they would be interested in her book. Their website seemed to imply that they were keen to hear memories from locals, etc., etc.

But even offers of free copies met with a sullen silence. Thinking they must have gone into winter hibernation perhaps she waited until fresh news of local events appeared on their tantalizing and shiny home page. She emailed again, and this time cunningly ordered a couple of the books she had noted had been recently written by their president.

His books arrived – promptly. Edina read them and was suitably impressed. Surely he would now be interested in including her own book of memories in the list of volumes available to members? After all it was one hundred per cent pertinent to the very existence of the organization he seemed to head.
But again her messages met a brick wall of brooding taciturnity. A hostile and deepening reservoir of reserve.

His lack of interest could not have been made more obvious if he had rung her at dawn and advised her to toddle off into the hinterland of the local marshland being sure to take her book with her. It was both discouraging and disappointing she said when the very people she was certain would be happy to spread the good news of her creative labours pertaining to local history seemed to be the least interested. Someone called Josh was saying that it was probably just that they were `protecting their patch’ and that those instrumental in keeping memories of past times alive could turn out to be the most territorial of all when it came to fellow writers.

For me the discussion topic was depressingly familiar, having had a not dissimilar lack of interest from a not dissimilar group of local historians myself. It also brought sharply into focus an incident from thirty years previously when a writer `friend’ hesitated when I asked her to support my membership application for a newly formed local authors’ group. She said that she thought there might be a waiting list. She grudgingly advised she would find out for me. She never did.

Tuesday 16 April 2019

Women Scorned - A Further Examination

Several years ago in discussion with Judith my Northern Irish friend, she regaled me with the frightening details of her brutal reaction to the infidelity of the man she had been married to for thirty years, that ordinary run-of-the-mill husband in his late sixties who did not realise that he all but took his life in his hands when he betrayed her with a twenty two year old. Recently I was sharply reminded of the conversation when watching `Mrs Wilson’ on Sunday evening TV. Primarily this was because I was taken aback to find that the writer Alexander Wilson had several bigamous marriages over the years and at the same time worked for MI5 (or was it MI6?) so how on earth did he find the time? Probably he was simply very good at apportioning his time.

Judith had decided that it was the lying about it all that hurt the most but this was only when the dust had settled on the shattered remains of her union with Bruce. It was all those lies she said, followed closely by the unspeakable insult of him actually introducing the girl (well she actually called her `the hussy’) to various among their friends and family and the fact that they were all too gutless to mention it to her. But then her Bruce had not actually entered into a full blown bigamous marriage of course because people don’t these days do they? And you have to ask yourself how and when it was that bigamy fell from fashion – and how many men might still find it attractive if it had remained up there in the marital fashion stakes. I say men but you have to remember that women sometimes went in for it too though how frequently is hard to say. You can’t learn much about it because for obvious reasons nobody ever discussed it very much.

To be completely fair to Judith she had not launched into the story of the unspeakable treachery of Bruce completely out of the blue. It was me who half brought up the topic by revealing a similar betrayal involving a family member and how his wife had reacted in a manner that could only be described as homicidal and that women scorned should not ever be underestimated; hell hath no fury, etc.

Judith said that at least there was no question of a baby in the case of her own betrayal, even if the Taiwanese girl wanted one because he had been what she termed sterilised years ago. She made him sound a bit like a cat as she spat the words out then muttered that she only wished he’d been fully castrated to completely stop his little games. I was idly wondering if all those years ago the constant tears and recriminations of my poor mother might have been even worse had my philandering father favoured bigamy above simple infidelity. And then, with some horror I paused to consider that he might even have done so during his WW2 sojourns in foreign climes. After all, like Alexander Wilson, he was a devout Catholic and always chose doing Right over doing Wrong if at all possible. But how on earth would we ever know after all these years?

Judith said she was quite certain that her Bruce had never been a man who strayed previously. For one thing there was little opportunity because they were hardly ever parted night or day for years because of working together to make that infernal bloody business the success it turned out to be. But then you had to admit that Alexander Wilson had not been completely idle either – MI5 would have kept him reasonably occupied, not to mention writing the spy novels and keeping in touch with all the children he had spawned. Judith still blamed herself for buying him (her Bruce – not Alexander Wilson) the ticket to Wembley Stadium that cost an arm and a leg. It was the boys’ night out that followed that really did for him she confided. And what’s more she knew that there had been from the very beginning a number of his friends and their wives who knew more than they were later prepared to admit. And that only served to add to her vengeful attitude even though so called well-wishers were telling her to put it all in the past and move on.

It was then that she added rather unexpectedly but in a low voice that she would definitely consider planning a nasty sequel for her ex-hubby if she thought for one moment she could get away with it. After all he’d had heart trouble on and off for years and taking Viagra was not at that healthy especially in the quantities he was consuming it. I made sympathetic noises and I couldn’t help wondering if that well brought Mrs Wilson on the Sunday night TV screen might have felt similarly – I know I would. Few of us would be totally forgiving after all and I had it on good authority that the wife of the aforementioned family member had been almost blatant about her own frame of mind. Who can blame her? But did she ever put those late night Google searches on easily-obtained-poisons to practical use? Did the ensuing rumours really have any validity? Difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff because people are always going to gossip after an unexpected death aren't they? To be blunt, speaking for myself, I have never considered divorce for one iota over the decades but I have on a number of occasions seriously deliberated upon the idea of murder so who can possibly say?

Tuesday 2 April 2019

Bernard Hendy .... The Death of My Brother Revisited.

On the morning of 3rd April, 2016 while I was mindlessly traversing the aisles of our nearest supermarket at an ungodly hour on account of an adjustment in the summer-winter clock, my only sibling, my beloved younger brother, died whilst on holiday in Africa. He suddenly dropped dead it seems from a heart attack whilst I hovered over frozen peas and spinach, deliberated on their individual merits and compared prices. In the very last seconds of his earthly life I was very possibly queuing at the check-out counter, impatiently behind the corner-dairy owners who always shop at hours unearthly despite summer-winter time variations. The news that his life had ended came an hour or so later by email from his son and left me in total disbelief. How could it possibly be that someone so charming and charismatic should simply vanish into the ether? We were brought up as Roman Catholics he and I so surely his existence couldn’t end just like that? After all, he was once an altar boy; didn’t that still count for something? We had a relationship that was very much based on love-hate and our feelings towards each other were never irrelevant or inconsequential. We could talk for hours and not tire of the fact that a lot of the time our conversation went round in circles.

Bernard and I were brought up in abject poverty, the kind of miserable and wretched neediness that doesn’t exist anymore except in the underclasses of developing countries. We inhabited a world that makes Coronation Street look decidedly middle class. Our father died when we were four and eleven and subsequently the privation and distress went to an entirely new level as our well meaning but ineffectual mother went on to do the best she could for us which was not a great deal. As we grew older my brother was much more forgiving of her than I was, much more able to see the pressures she had been under. We lived in an area of largely industrialised Thameside where we were surrounded by the Decent Poor. We featured at the very bottom of the social heap because of hints of Diddicai or Pikey family roots and the Decent Poor looked down on us. I can’t say I blame them – when the neighours were beginning to think about installing inside toilets with attached shower facilities, we were still hauling in the zinc bath from its place on the outside wall every Saturday night. Bernard was convinced he was unpopular with other boys’ families because he smelled bad.

With our father gone I became my brother’s bullying older sister who had both loved him dearly and wished him harm from his first intrusion into my life. Left in charge of him whilst our mother worked cleaning other people’s houses, I compelled him to eat slugs, chew marbles, beg in the street for pennies for a non-existent charity, and dress up as a girl called Wendy in a pink crepe paper fairy costume I made specifically for the purpose. At the same time if any other child dared to criticize him I was ferocious in my defense and this merciless aggression on his behalf continued into his early teens when I once famously attacked three of his classmates who had unwisely risked upsetting him, sending the horrified trio bolting for cover. If necessary I would have killed for him. Bernard had a checkered and volatile early life, frequent brushes with The Law and a tendency to stray far from the truth. He was a husband and father by the time he was eighteen and there were definitely times when he could have done much better in both these roles.

He and I shared a compulsion. As we grew older neither of us could accept the reality of our vastly underprivileged start in life and so invented one substitute family after another, each more implausible than the last. But eventually, to some degree due to luck but also to exceptional intelligence, hard work and diligence Bernard made a great deal of money and his long obsession with the Scottish Highlands was realized when he bought a Victorian mansion at Cape Wrath and turned it into a family home complete with enough power-showered bathrooms to utterly astound our former neighbours. Money changed his basic personality very little. It was true he could now buy whatever he wished – and he did so, but essentially he remained the same. Without money he had always been unerringly generous and with money he simply became more so. He was naively gratified when family members, alert and conscious of their own place on the social ladder, those who had previously avoided him, now accepted him. He was delighted to be included in social events and when Those Who Had Done Well wanted to holiday with him in exotic locations.

Essentially Bernard remained the captivating and magnetic individual who could entertain with stories, many of which were quite untrue, for hour upon hour. He never stopped being the man that he always had been, and to me he was the best and the worst of brothers. He definitely knew I loved him but he died without knowing how enormously proud of him I was because I never told him that and I now wish so much that I had done so. Essentially life is short and when Death reaches out the separation and the silence seem all embracing. The truth is we can never make too much of the ties and relationships we have with the living.