Rainy summer days

Plot 14 on the Victoria Jubilee Allotments

It was the wettest chilliest day this July but on the 24th Hannah Rowan was one year old - a Friday, and the only day that week her dad was off-work selling cars.

The family and friends gathered over the afternoon on Plot 14 where Winnie and I had set up a gazebo, laid out tables and chairs. Sophia with her mum Liz, whose son, Henry James, was still in hospital after an early birth; her parents, ...

...a family from Amy's baby group; Oscar dog, of course, Linda and I and Richard; Amy and Guy and our grandchildren, Oliver and Hannah.

Simon and Hannah (photo: Barbara Delaney)

Will Hannah have recorded some fuzzy images of her first birthday to recall? Received opinion, which I doubt, says not. Memory's so fallible that I wonder if memories of that age are made up later. A BBQ was intended. Instead Amy, having strung bunting, laid out a table of cold snacks. Well clothed, the children enjoyed running up down and across the paths of the allotment, riding in the plot cart...

...before joining the grown-ups for food and a one-candle cake, "Happy Birthday dear Hannah..."

...after which we played 'pass the parcel' in the gazebo. On went the rain. The boys discovered puddles. By the time we all headed home they were soaked to their skins and happy.
"What rubbish weather" agreed the grown-ups - parents, grandparents, one uncle and several friends "but we'll remember Hannah's first birthday!"

*** *** ***
At the last meeting of the Friends of Black Patch Park at Bishop Latimer Church on 21st July I agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to turn up the following Sunday at Ted Rudge's annual celebration in the Soho Foundry Tavern of the Gypsy connection with the Black Patch. Our chairman Ron Collins who'd normally represent us couldn't be there. No-one else volunteered. Sunday morning it was raining steadily. I put on my long waxed oilskin coat; with this buttoned up and wearing my waxed newsboy cap I can stand under a shower and stay dry. I cycled off to the Black Patch, under 2 miles away over Soho Hill.

Black Patch Park between Woodburn Street, Perrott Street and Foundry Lane in Smethwick

It's long been rumoured, contrary to the unproven claim of the official website, yet on the basis of small, but rather telling evidence - a letter from Jack Hill to the star...

... which, despite the thousands of fan letters he received, he kept in a secret drawer at his home in Switzerland, to be found by his daughter Victoria after his death - that claimed Charlie Chaplin was born in a Gypsy caravan on the Black Patch on 16th April 1898. The supposition which will aways remain a mystery has been strengthened in recent years by several visits made by Charlie Chaplin's son Michael to the Black Patch where he's met Ted Rudge and Gypsy friends, descendants of those families long ago expelled from the Black Patch to make it into a park, and Ron Collins. Michael agreed to be a patron of The Friends of Black Patch Park. On Sunday he visited again in the company of his son-in-law; a nice and unassuming man who clearly enjoyed the company of the Gypsies, strolling amid the rubbish in the park...

Michael Chaplin, son of Charlie Chaplin, walks through the Black Patch (photo Michael Scott )

...and standing on the bridge at the junction of Boundary and Hockley brooks, where he unveiled a stone memorial commemorating the Romany connection with the Black Patch, I filmed our visitor saying that "a lot of the things he (Jack Hill) said in the letter have been verified...."

Though it would be tricky to get these suppositions into official records. We got good coverage for the Chaplin visit in the local papers - Express and Star and Birmingham Evening Mail. I know that repeating things in the newspapers creates no more than amplified rumour but it's quite good to have some background chatter on this - even in Wikipedia

Michael Chaplin, Simon Baddeley (Friends of Black Patch Park) with Oscar and Ted Rudge (photo Michael Scott )

I got Michael Scott a free lance photographer standing by to snap us. Ted was keen to get everyone out of the wet and back for a meal at the Soho Foundry Tavern. I wrote to Ron suggesting a meeting of the Friends as soon as possible:

Dear All. May I suggest we meet again asap to:
- Review the fall-out from Michael Chaplin’s visit to the BP and his statement about his father’s birthplace - which I recorded - Arrange a meeting with Cllr Sharon Thompson of Birmingham Soho Ward who I’ve spoken to. She has told me she gets calls from quite a few people especially on James Turner Street about the BP and especially about the derelict community centre - Arrange a meeting with Cllr Darren Cooper who has emailed to say that he would be ready to meet us any time (MC visit to the BP gave us a boost in that direction I suspect - Make a contribution to the current consultation on the re-bounding of Birmingham’s electoral boundaries (can be done on the internet( suggesting that Cooper’s Soho and Victoria Ward in Sandwell transfer the Merry Hill allotments and BP area to Soho Ward, Birmingham. Sharon Thomas is aware of this and would be supportive. She knows the problems and knows there are no voters there but also that so many users of the park do and could come from her ward.  Love, Simon

Ron fixes a meeting for the 11th August but we've got a committee on that day for Handsworth Helping Hands which I don't want to miss.

Ron. Sorry re 11th. Here’s the message from Cllr Darren Cooper that i got on Facebook and said I’d forward to you.
QUOTE 'Hi Simon it was good to see Michael Chaplin in Black patch, I'm just sorry I was not aware of this until it appeared in the news. I have made many attempts in the past to get a solution to the area including the historical Soho foundry. I'm still keen to look at options. However this just seems to hit a brick wall. I had extensive meeting with the Lunar society all to know end. I'd be happy to meet with you to look at options if you contact my office on 01215695666. In any case finding a solution with Council money alone is a non runner given the cuts we have to make. B'ham are in a worse place than Sandwell so can't see that making a difference.’
DC’s last sentence arose as a result of my suggestion that the Black Patch might move into Birmingham’s Soho Ward via the current boundary shift consultation
My reply to him on behalf of the Friends:  'Thanks Darren. It is such a tricky wicked problem - one you clearly understand. I will indeed be in touch. You know at the moment that Hayley Insley, your senior regeneration officer, is looking at Eastside's offer but which involved losing a third of the Patch. We are bound by our constitution and belief in the park to resist this while ready to be participate in all attempts to find a way through in these horrible times for local government! Kindest regards, S' (END)
I hope the meeting on 11th Aug could formulate  - say - 3 good reasons why the latter ward boundary transfer should happen with details of where exactly the boundary might run. I’ve spoken to Cllr Sharon Thompson (Soho Ward, Birmingham)  about this proposal and she says she is happy to endorse a proposal on the boundary consultation web form from FoBPP. She also says she knows Darren and would be glad to meet us and him to discuss the Black Patch (this doesn’t commit her or him to discussing boundary changes to their respective wards - just the possibility of partnership working on the problem.)
Once I have support and ideas I’m happy to fill in the consultation form  
Simon

Back in Birmingham

All Saints Street, Hockley ~ on my route via the canal towpath to the centre of town

I'm back in Birmingham. We're back in England. I'm cycling through parks, along towpaths, sometimes with Oscar...a flâneur again.

With Oscar and a heron on the Birmingham Mainline - towpath improved by the Canal & River Trust

...wandering around the markets, sweeping up leaves, bagging them for compost, mowing twelve weeks of grass on the lawns, checking up on the allotment where I've garlic to plant - for a start. The other night we had a meeting of the Handsworth Helping Hands Committee...

Meeting of Handsworth Helping Hands Committee at Simon and Lin's home

Agenda: 1st item - Apologies from John Rose; Present - Mike Tye (Chair), Linda Baddeley (Hon Treasurer), Denise Forsyth, Jimoh Folarin, Charles Bates and (taking the photo and minutes) Simon Baddeley, Hon.Sec (also tea maker)...2nd item: approve last meeting minutes: approved 3rd item: finances: Lin reports - healthy and transparent; 4th item - work done and planned - an inventory of jobs done and planned; current concerns about the problem of hiring skips for street clean-ups "They're more and more expensive"
"The companies delivering them aren't always reliable"
"How about relations with Fleet and Waste Management?"
"Can they replace skips for our next 'Skip-it Don't Tip-it' day in just over 10 days?"
"We'll just have to hire skips entirely from our own funds then?"
"This time - yes"
5th item; AOB and date of next meeting - 11 Dec'14
*** *** ***

Black Lake Metro stop

In the urban sprawl I am wholly fascinated by the experience of non-places, by placelessness part created by auto dependency part by post-industrial destruction of an area once defined by manufacture...

The Black Country as it was

....but also by the mental shift that allows me to find these de-identified spaces almost a pleasure (especially when it's dreich - chilly and wet - and I'm in warm outdoor clothes, and car drivers are even happier to be in their havens) not least for the sudden juxtaposition and surprise afforded by a building or an experience that recovers somewhere from nowhere. I was trying to explain this to Richard Pine while we were having a family lunch  in Tomas' O Foros in Old Perithia - a once deserted village on an island defined by its multiplicity of places.
"Have you come across psychogeography?" I asked, knowing him perfectly capable of understanding the notion of strolling off predictable paths.
"Hrumph!" he replied, wholly of the belief that places are either a delight because unspoiled by mass tourism or desecrated ruins.

Lunch at O Foros in Palia Perithia with the family and Richard Pine

The other day I was stuck for nearly an hour near Black Lake Metro stop, expecting to be collected for a meeting of the Friends of Black Patch Park. Like so much of the Black Country at night there was little hint of place, just roads, lightless buildings and streaming lights on wet roads.

I cycled to a cross roads to look around. I glimpsed a branch of Staples in the distance. All of a sudden I came across a temple, back slightly from the road...

Shree Krishna Temple, Old Meeting Street, West Bromwich

...a pleasing surprise. A narrow column of light came from the large front doors beyond the grey stone portal. A Hindu Temple; not an adapted church; one built to the principles  of Vastu shastra. I'd learned something of the precise complexity of these buildings when, over ten years ago, I went with some of my Japanese students to see the famous Shree Swaminarayan Mandir, the magnificent Hindu temple in Neasden, where the architecture relies on huge cut stones placed one above the other without cementing mortar.
I forgot about waiting for an appointment that wasn't kept; just headed home the way I'd come. Then 30 minutes later Harjinder collected me and drove me to where we had a wonderful shared meal at a small restaurant almost hidden in a line of shops at Great Bridge - Sanam Tandoori, Tipton. Ron. Our chair, Ron Collins, caught me up on what had been discussed at the meeting; mainly about the terms for a partnership with Sandwell Council for the renovation and stewardship of the Community Centre in Black Patch, something about which I remain sceptical, wondering if there could not be a S106A in connection with an application to build a recycling centre next to the park. It could be a way of funding a full-time manager for the centre. On his smartphone Harjinder showed me a 30 second clip from the series Peakyblinders which I've heard about, repeating the now familiar conjecture that Charlie Chaplin, brought up in south east London, was born on the Black Patch.

“He was a bookie in Birmingham, then he went to Los Angeles. He’s a Romany gypsy like Chaplin. He keeps it a secret, Chaplin was born on the Black Patch, a gypsy camp in Birmingham. That’s why he gave Wag a job, even though Wag was on the run.” Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby in Episode 5, Season 2 of BB2's Peaky Blinders

*** *** ***
Gave a talk (as I do now and then) about Handsworth Park the other night - to the Great Barr Local History Society in the Great Barr Memorial Hall with a plaque on the wall commemorating local men killed in the Great War. Took my folding bike on the 51 from Perry Barr bus; was early so had a tray of chips with curry sauce....

...and enjoyed it by the dual carriageway; then gave my talk to a lovely group of people - many my age and older - full of stories and questions and welcome mugs of tea....

...then, since the next bus wasn't for over 20 minutes, cycled back in the rain - mostly downhill - to Handsworth, where Lin and I had a late supper, salad, chicken legs and baked potatoes

At the Memorial Hall I was told a story. Maurice, even older than I, told me a tale his father had told him of the park pond before the Great War. There were fewer and fewer fish to be caught by the keen local anglers who fished the pond in the 1900s. A great pike was rumoured to be eating them. A reward was offered of a month's wages - £5 - to anyone who could catch and dispatch it. Many tried and failed, losing their tackle. Eventually a man called Morton, who lived off Holly Road, succeeded in landing and killing the great predator. He got the reward and spent it - plus another £3 - on taking the beast to a taxidermist. The stuffed pike, in a glass cabinet, was displayed with pride in his home. Ever after locals called him 'Pikey' Morton. He'd button-hole people and boast of his catch; how that fish came out of the pond "barking like a dog", "lips full of rusty hooks", "wrapped itself three times round me!" I wonder where Morton's pike might be now.

*** *** ***
Richard Pine who has written about the difficulty of getting Greek writing translated into English and other languages, encouraged me to read Apostles Doxiades' Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture. Given my mathematical illiteracy it's not promising but then critics similarly innumerate praise Doxiades' novel. 

*** *** ***
As one of the 1000 elders recruited to take part in research overseen by Professor Janet Lord at the Medawar Centre for Healthy Ageing Research....

....I've agreed to take part in another small experiment...

...which gave me a chance to cycle to the Medical School along a resurfaced towpath - several miles greatly improved...

Worcester & Birmingham Canal near Birmingham University

...as is the rough stony path through Perry Hall Playing Fields which I used the other evening for the first time in years, giving a nice route between One Stop Shopping Centre and Handsworth Wood Road...

The new cycle path through Perry Hall Playing Fields - one pleasing product of the Birmingham Cycling Revolution

*** *** ***
So consoling to work through a checklist of errands - like mowing lawns and firming up a shelf in our larder...

Cameron fears second global financial crash - does the UK want UKIP or Labour or more austerity and are we all going to die?

Amazon UK with precise micromarketing expertise (note the generous range of search terms, but why the use of singular where plural is the norm?) has suggested I might like to buy 'New men Sexy seamless underwear pants briefs U convex pouch thong knicker'

• Margaret Prothero, Alex Kendall, Chris Holmes and 2 others like this.
• 

  Stefan Unkelbach 

  15 November at 18:20 · Unlike · 1
• 

  Liz Basden Yeah not getting that for Christmas!

  15 November at 18:51 · Unlike · 1
• 

  Tony Jacks Is there something you are not telling us!

  15 November at 19:24 · Unlike · 1
• 

  Paul Grantster Grant
  

  15 November at 19:44 · Unlike · 1
• 

  Paul Grantster Grant Mmm..yes Simon , I can see you in them on your decking at the back of your Spiti in Ano

  15 November at 19:44 · Unlike · 2
• 

  Margaret Ann Hope Well !!!

  15 November at 22:42 · Unlike · 1
• 

  Chris Holmes and, as usual, the 'zon has SB bang to rights. cant fool my old alma mater

  Yesterday at 07:27 · Unlike · 1
• 

  Simon Baddeley Pondering this. I bought some Long Johns via Amazon - so some bot decided to offer me 'short johns'

  Yesterday at 07:58 · Like · 3
• 

  Stefan Unkelbach I like also the advertising from facebook on my side. They suggest me a page for incontinence garment...

  Yesterday at 08:40 · Unlike · 2
• 

  Margaret Prothero Ha no V.P.L.!!!!!

  Yesterday at 12:00 · Unlike · 2
• 

  Simon Baddeley Depends what the 'P' stands for....(don't go there)

  Yesterday at 13:25 · Like · 1
• 

  Margaret Prothero Visible panty line just a female thing?

  46 mins · Like
• 

  Simon Baddeley End thread now

  43 mins · Like · 1