'Restored to Life'

"So perhaps there's a small part of the past here, that won't pass away". Two years after I terminated Delta Leisure's licence to retail my stepfather's Out of Town DVDs, on grounds of 'breach of contract' - have to get the legal language right - and their 'insolvency', I have signed an Acquisition Agreement with Tim Beddows on behalf of Network Distributing Limited, to relicense not ony the existing DVDs in a revised format with new artwork by our son Richard, but to include with this material more of my stepfather's films that have been recently unearthed, and most exciting of all, and more significant for me and others interested in Jack Hargreaves' work including Network's MD, to recover scores of 16mm films and 1/4" sound tapes of Out of Town episodes that Jack stored in his shed at Raven Cottage, Dorset, (more details here) and, after perambulations, are stacked on dexion shelves in our Birmingham garage.

Jack Hargreaves - the invention of the camera from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

29th Apr 2017: message from Julian Schmechel  Simon. You are far too modest to agree with this I know, but perhaps without realising it, you have become the guardian of Out of Town, and Jack's other work, recording a now vanished rural way of life. Speaking as one who grew up in this 'Former Culture', and who well remembers taking part in many of the activities catalogued, I am aware of the immense debt owed to you. You may think my words melodramatic; but consider. When you and I are both dust, future generations, (living in the 'cracks between the concrete') will be able to view Jack's programmes, and have insight into the rural past. This is due almost entirely to your efforts, and for that, 'Thank you'
30/4/17 Dear Julian. I was going to get in touch now the days grow longer and you have real sun instead of that helping domestic light. Your words are lovely and not, to me, melodramatic. They do not embarrass me even if I cannot embrace them alone as I've had such help in the project you praise so eloquently - Linda my wife, my son (recall the draft art work), Paul Peacock who wrote J's biography, and now - he prefers to stay in the background - the businessman Tim Beddows from Network Distributing with whose company I'm about to sign a contract (we've been meeting on and off for two years), Simon Winters from Kaleidoscope, many people whose thought and words on these pages have reminded me that there is a legacy to be cherished, the presence of Jack in my head - alive from when I was a 6 year old, and after he left us, Tony Herbert and Ian Wegg who know so much about Southern TV and the date and origin of so many specific episodes of OOT, friends I've not named who've helped in the storing of the old film and sound tape in my garage and its transport in earlier years, Dave Knowles (able to find his way around the Southern TV studios, at Northam Southampton, in the dark) with his re-introduction of Old Country from which he's hardly recovered his investment (a labour of love from one of Jack's original technical team at Southern), Dean Hoffman in Maryland USA who has helped create restorations in draft of the OOT archive and sent them back to me across the Atlantic, Dave King who rescued old OOT recordings from storage shelves that mighty Endemol wanted cleared, their contents discarded - forever; Francis Niemczyk who first took on the recovery of the archive films and tapes and Frazer Ash from BUFVC, who now continues this with Francis, learning all the time. Charles Webster, ex-Delta, who for a long time kept my chin up on the 'Restored to Life' project when it seemed to be going nowhere. You are probably right (I'm not that modest) in saying that I have a co-ordinating role among these friends and helpers and inspirers, and thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to make this list of our 'team'. I, like Jack, value my past. I, following him, respect the past, but not uncritically, sentimentally or other than slightly nostalgically. I'm not one who believes in what the late Zygmunt Bauman referred to as 'retrotopia', in a world where so many find it increasingly impossible to reside faith or hope in the future. I think Jack wavered between optimism and the pessimism he seemed to express in that ode from whose last lines you quote about love of country (not nation, but the countryside and all that it had been and could be). As he said of dying, it didn't scare him too much; what really vexed him about no longer being around was 'not knowing what happened'. I think we perhaps feel the same. Much affection and good wishes, Simon (in Corfu enjoying the sun of beloved Greece and loving the contemplation of dust - ingredient of that unknown substance that we and the world need - humus).

Our son, on a surprise visit, works on graphics for the new Out of Town DVD issue

Vol 1 Out of Town to be released 31 July 2017. Art: Richard Baddeley

Hugely popular and fondly remembered to this day, Out of Town saw Jack Hargreaves exploring rural life in Britain – reflecting on its character, traditions, history and folklore, and the skills that had passed from generation to generation. With his extensive experience, knowledge and love of the countryside, Hargreaves' easygoing presentation style enthralled both rural and urban viewers – the series becoming so popular it ultimately ran for over two decades. An unsentimental record of a bygone time, Out of Town set the bar high for all "country matters" series that followed in its footsteps. This volume contains the 35 editions that remain from 1980/1 – including the unbroadcast 21st anniversary special and an episode never previously released on DVD - being the last episode of Out of Town Series 22 (of the total 23 OOT series) in which JH warns, in an episode broadcast in Sept 1980, that there will only be one more series, and signals that 'it's time to go.' (My stepfather saw the writing on the wall for the future of Southern TV!). No-one had a complete version of this OOT episode on record, but it was discovered that one half of it was held by Ian Wegg and the other half by Jack's great cameraman, Stan Bréhaut. Stan's widow, Marion Bréhaut, and Ian Wegg gave their two halves to Simon Coward of Kaleidoscope. He has put those two parts together and remastered the whole episode for Network. It's not the only extra on this new OOT issue, but I'm so glad it's resurfaced and so grateful to Stan's wife and Ian. Other material on Network's OOT Vol 1 DVD, includes Oliver Kite's Summer in Kite's Country, as well as Jack's Learning to Fish, a B & W film he made in in 1966. More material in this volume is, as yet, unannounced by Network. 

Hod Hill, Stourpaine now - a landscape from the OOT clip our son used to create the DVD cover (photo: Graham Beddow)

*'Restored to Life' - our restoration project takes a name from a phrase in a novel by Jack's favourite author, Charles Dickens, in this case 'A Tale of Two Cities', who's first lines J could recite with such pleasure. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.'....

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Saissetia oleae colonies extract large quantities of sap, causing general host debilitation and build-up of sticky honeydew deposits on nearby surfaces. The honeydew may attract attendant ants. Sooty moulds grow on the sugary deposits. Badly fouled leaves may be dropped prematurely. The older insects are usually quite easy to see as dark grey or brown-to-black lumps on leaf undersides and stems.
As a result of some pest-on-predator imbalance, perhaps caused by an exceptionally cold spell in March, citrus trees all over the island - and probably beyond - are affected by a plague of black scale insects. The females settle on the underside of a leaf and attach themselves to it, sucking sap; weakening - possibly fatally so we have been warned - the whole tree. The males fly between leaves and tree spreading the blight. This is the first sight we've had of this problem in 10 years.
"I assume the females also fly" said Lin "until they attach themselves"
The female insects, once clustered under a leaf, exude honeydew which attracts the spores of the same damp sooty mould that settles on many surfaces during winter. The mould, covering the top-side of the infested leaves, prevents photo-synthesis. Columns of ants march up and down trunks, branches, twigs and over leaves, feasting on the honeydew, but serving no purpose other than to satisfy their appetite for the sweet stuff.

Sooty mould on the topside of leaves of one of our lemon trees colonised on their underside by scale insects

We had hoped that new growth would surmount the problem, but swiftly the insects began colonising new young leaves. No-one we asked quite knew the best way to treat the problem, or they came up with chemicals of uncertain safety and doubtful efficacy.

A culprit colony on a shed lemon leaf - killed with insecticide soap spray. Is that white stuff honeydew?

I think I understand this hesitancy; that this scale insect infestation – common in many other parts of the world - which I had thought to be a regular local occurrence which our trees, over the 10 years we’ve been here, had been fortunate in avoiding, is new to Corfu. It's just arrived from somewhere else. Hence the relative puzzlement as to what it is and how to treat it. Last night over a drink at Piatsa, Mark who deals with trees, among other skills, told us he’d not come across this before. I stand to be firmly corrected on this surmise. 

Lin studied the problem on the internet and selected her choice of spraying recipe - dissolving, in a gallon of water, a bar of olive oil soap, bought in N.Theotoki Street, with which she mixed two tablespoons of corn-oil for leaf adherence, a teaspoon of wine vinegar and a teaspoon of ground red pepper to deter future pests. We spent a couple of days laboriously sawing and lopping away excess and dead growth from the centre of our trees and off the ends of longer branches - the leaves, thousands of them covered in scale insects and mould, bagged and disposed of; twigs and branches cut up for kindling.
Mark lent us a back-pack sprayer, pressured by hand, with a reaching-wand. After the heat had gone out of the sun the other evening, we began spraying the underside of every citrus tree, working upwards on a stepladder, and by sitting on the apothiki roof and eventually reaching from the balcony where we let a helpful breeze carry liquid to the furthest leaves.
"We have to try to kill the lot in one go" said Lin.
The soaked leaves dripped soapy insecticide onto the ones below, and on us. Testing the effect on a couple of soaked leaves, the insects had turned into a black paste. Our lemon trees and one orange are treasures; not fruit that for all their proliferation here, we, from north of the olive belt, could ever take for granted.
"This mix only works while the leaves are wet"
"They should stay that way at least overnight" I said "I sort of want these little bastards to suffer as well as die"

We used 5 gallons of Lin's insecticidal soap mix on the Citrus Scale Insect infestation

In the days that followed it looks as if the cure has worked.
"At least temporarily" says Lin.
New growth is clear. On old leaves, the killed insect colonies, from turning black mush, are drying into dust that slowly falls away.

A shed, but treated, lemon leaf showing what's left of the Scale Insect colony that killed it

We keep our fingers crossed.

The balcony

(photo: Mark Jacks)

No sane Greek would have built a balcony out of wood. This structure has been giving us problems for years, but before we left Ano Korakiana this November we'd made an arrangement to have the present decking removed, all dozen support beams lowered and cleared of rot, the whole re-assembled with eleven additional tantalised beams and new hardwood decking.
The internet makes overseeing building at a distance much easier. Mark, working on our balcony off Democracy Street has uncovered and communicated an unexpected problem.

Part of the support beam that runs the width of the house is badly rotted (photo: Mark Jacks)

The front to back cross beams were all in place - the old ones ground and sanded to remove rot and the new ones tantalised; the lot treated with preservative, then Mark emailed:

Hi Simon and Lin. As you can see from the photo's from today most of the old  beams are now back up along with all the new 7x7 ones. It's been a long slow process getting the beams in order as I first had to get all the rotten wood out (ground out) then sanded out with an orbital using a very course grade p40, then 3 coats of the universal wood preserver which kills all manner of grubs and beetles apparently, then I gave all of the old beams the 2 coats of Resolcoat which seems to have gone off nice and hard so sealing all the preservative in and keeping the bad weather out hopefully.

Before and after (photo: Mark Jacks)

A couple of problems have arisen -  one being the old beams are 14.5 cm x 7 cm (not all are this by the way) and the new ones are 7x7cm with the extra piece under the end being added to make them 14x7cm, which leaves half a cm out from the tops of the new 7x7 cm to the tops of the 14.5 cm beams, meaning  along with other inconsistencies with the old beams not running true we have the decking touching the tops of some of the beams and others not... 

'...touching the tops of some of the beams and others not' (photo: Mark Jacks)

...at its worse out by 1 cm and its least ½ a cm, so I am going to have to pack in places to get the levels as right as I can.
- two you will see on the photo's the beam which is attached to the house (2 actually), the one that is directly under your balcony french windows.  In the very left hand corner the wood is rotten far worse than I thought, this beam holds the house side of I think the last 5 beams.

(photo: Mark Jacks)

I saw a bit of rot on the top of it so got a wire brush and started to scrub away and it just fell apart on the back side up against the wall up until about half way along to the centre of your balcony door. You can even see one of the coach screws now from one of the brackets.

(photo: Mark Jacks)

'That's how far gone it was in one place'

I have cleaned it out the best I can and given it some of the wood preserver and hardener, but I am not sure if it doesn't need to be replaced totally, which means I have to take half of the beams down again and get another length of timber and replace it
Maybe it will hold for many years after treatment. I don't know, so you can decide on what I should do with that one.
I am behind schedule as I have yet to remove the last middle beam and 2 end beams after having to secure the balcony first , which is in quite a sore state on the whole. I was hoping to be putting the decking on next week but I don't think so, not with these few minor problems arising, then of course I have to adjust all the beams so as they will allow the decking to sit on top .
All the old beams I numbered so as they went back on the same bracket in the same place and even with no work done to the bracket area of the wood on the beam apart from a little sand and then treated, they don't all allow the decking to make contact so I will have to either raise or lower them a little to try and square it all up, just shows how bad the work was done on it in the first place .
That's it , not all doom and gloom from below it looks quite nice. Sally and I think and the weather is great for doing this work. Hope all is well. Cheerio, Mark 

Dear Mark. Thanks for the latest news on the balcony. It will cost more and take more of your time but there's no question this must be made good. Please go ahead and ‘replace totally'.  This is a key support for the whole balcony isn’t it? It will take more time but please order a tanalised beam from the Velonades yard. It’s a jolly good thing you found this. If it had been left, even with a dose of Resolcoat, it could have been a weak link in the whole ‘new’ balcony. Glad you are figuring out ways to deal with the inequalities of the beams as they emerge. That’s our John the Builder again. All the best, Simon

This wooden balcony has been a problem since we bought the house in Ano Korakiana in 2007. The house has two balconies - one of concrete, on the official house  plan, and our wooden one which is not. It is a temporary structure within the law. Turning it into a permanent structure - or stone, iron or concrete - would be an expensive bureaucratic nightmare. Ignoring the law and creating an illegal addition would be no better, as planning regulations are tightened across the Republic - and rightly so!
Early on we made the mistake of thinking we could make the balcony leak-proof, so that the area beneath it would be dry in bad weather. We covered the decking with UV resistant polythene. Lin and I went to great pains to seal it all the way round. We should have realised that covering the wood in this way would make it sweat, encouraging rot.

I put some L-brackets under the dodgier decking and even began replacing some of the planks - an expensive option that didn't deal with rot in the support beams.

Before Mark started work

By May this year I was putting temporary planks over the worst areas of rot; wholly unsatisfactory, especially as we'd at last dealt with the problem of keeping the space under the balcony dry by rigging a tarp on hooks and carefully anchored bungees.

Amy and her mum fix a tarpaulin to create a rain shelter beneath the balcony

Once the tarp had been fitted the first time, it became a matter of minutes to put it up again. It works perfectly. If only we'd thought of this years ago. The new decking will have gaps between planks; no attempt to make it into a 'roof' for the veranda below. It will be stronger, having more support beams. It's hardwood, more resistant to sun and rain. The wood will never be covered again, prevented from breathing or allowed to rot. Yet the balcony will remain a temporary structure; not too tricky to dis-assemble if required.
Why all this trouble over a balcony? When we first inspected this house in in 2005 we were taken out onto it and saw the view. As we stood on this balcony gazing over the island's olive-clad contours, on to the Sea of Kerkyra, to the mountains of Albania and mainland Greece, Linda and I decided to buy the house.

Our wooden balcony ~ overlooking the Sea of Kerkyra, Albania and Epirus on the mainland of Greece beyond

One of our neighbours from Democracy Street - Angeliki Anthi - posted on Facebook:

Οι Κορακιανίτες κατ' επιλογήν, όπως ο φίλος Simon, ο γείτονας και φίλος Mark και πολλοί άλλοι, είναι άξιοι σεβασμού, εκτίμησης κι αγάπης! Πιστεύω πως κι αυτοί τρέφουν τα ίδια αισθήματα προς εμάς, αλλά πολύ περισσότερο στον τόπο μας! Αυτό φαίνεται με την προσοχή και τη φροντίδα που έχουν δείξει με τις κατοικίες τους ώστε να μην αλλοιωθεί η αρχιτεκτονική του χωριού μας! Να είναι σίγουροι πως δεν θέτουν σε κίνδυνο "την ακεραιότητα" της Κορακιάνας, και ακόμη πως δεν τους θεωρούμε "αλλοδαπούς" αλλά σημαντικό κομμάτι της κοινότητάς μας.

Could anyone ask for such generosity of spirit?

Τι γλυκό πράγμα είδους να πω, Αγγελική! Είναι τιμή μου. Συγχωρήστε τα ελληνικά μου (:)) Σαίμον και Λίντα

**** **** ****
I had lunch with Mark Woblee* in town. He'd driven down from Lancashire to give me recordings he'd made of Old Country as a young man. We had two pints of Doom Bar and sausages and mash in The Bull on Loveday Street. A proper pub entirely built for privacy in public and undamaged by restoration and fake tradition.
*Mark's domain name! He's really Mark Carroll, but I rather like Woblee.

In The Bull, Birmingham Gun Quarter

I've seen some of Mark's recordings of Old Country before but not all the episodes he's so generously let me have, and certainly not the ones with signing, nor the additional programme - a BBC interview. Pity that the recording ends abruptly mid-sentence before the end.

Jack's first and only appearance on the BBC: an interview with phone-in questions from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

Almost within minutes of streaming it on Facebook I got a message:

Iwan Bob Geldart - I was a cameraman on the show on the Vimeo link above. The show was Open Air shot at BBC North Studio B, Oxford Road in Manchester. The presenter was Susan Rae

...and then hardly an hour later...

• 

  Simon Baddeley Thanks Iwan. For neatness it'd be good to have a date, but I've already got more than I could have expected from you by way of information. Perhaps Susan Rae will know. I'll tweet her.

  1 hr · Edited · Like
• 

  Ian Wegg Earlier this year the BBC put online transcripts of every single edition of "The Radio Times" so thanks to Iwan providing the show title we can track this down to 2nd May 1988.
  http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/b22d9203688b46dc95ba6ae135550579
  

  Open Air - BBC One London - 2 May 1988 - BBC Genome

  Do you know whether this programme was actually broadcast as scheduled? If not, tell us what was. Or do you know something else about this programme? The information you send using the Tell Us More form will not be published on the page. We plan to hold on to it and use it at a later stage, to fill…

  GENOME.CH.BBC.CO.UK

I'd never heard of the BBC Genome Project. I searched my name and came up with Miles Blackley's BBC Private Investigations programme about the Victoria Jubilee Allotments made in 1999
Victoria Jubilee Allotments: BBC Private Investigations from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

Shoot forward 15 years ....Wet on the allotment this Friday.

Not much to do but continue weeding and tidying. Winnie pruning too.

She found a plastic cloche and made it into a shelter for Oscar as he gazed at the park. I dug up enough potatoes for supper and harvested a pound of Jerusalem Artichokes - peeled, boiled and liquidised with a chopped onion and a few young carrot leftovers in chicken stock made a good winter soup.
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27th November....

Hi Simon and Lin. Rained off today maybe avrio also. As you can see from the photo's all the new and old beams are up which includes the two end beams.
What I did with the support beam on the house was to cut it back at about half the length which was well passed the rot and using one of the old better spare beams from the end of the balcony which I cut down to the size of the removed rotten beam...see photo...

....sanded it down and treated it then secured it back to the end of the house .This way keeps costs down for you and it is just as good as a new one anyway. Then I put back the removed beams from the top so now it is all complete .
Next step is to start with the decking when the weather improves. Hope all is well. Mark

All new and repaired beams in place ready for new decking (photo: Mark Jacks)

Dear Mark That saved a journey to the north and with preservative it should be fine - especially as we’ll never again try to cover the balcony. Ridiculous that we were so focused on preventing it leaking to the plaka below, we ended up ignoring the consequences for the wood. Mr and Mrs Rot must have been overjoyed when we covered the balcony and worked so hard sealing it all the way round (:)) What was it like screwing into the wall to refix the ’new’ beam? Look forward to seeing the decking. Nice to think of all the firewood we'll get from sawing up the old decking. Its pretty wet and grey and chilly and often misty in the evenings here - typical English winter, otherwise all’s well. We’re babysitting Oliver this evening and I’ll take him and Oscar to the allotment tomorrow. How are you? Simon

I woke up

I was with Jack for the day in London. At some large capital hotel off Piccadilly, my stepfather in a tweed suit with waistcoat, checked us in. Our room wasn’t ready so our luggage, which included my folding bicycle was taken by a porter to a smaller single room in another part of the hotel. Jack and I strolled off down a street full of shops until we came to the best pipe shop in the world.
The place was enormous; brightly lit; full of glass counters and brass fitted display stands teeming with a diversity of racked pipes and pipe smoking equipment. Jack was talking to one of the staff, a friendly old man, who seemed to know him when I remembered I’d left something I needed in my luggage. Jack looked a little resigned.
“Do you really need it?”
He handed me the key to the little room where our bags had been taken – a number with an ‘A’ suffix. I walked back to the hotel and found the room. As I was checking through the luggage there to pick up what I wanted someone else arrived to occupy the room – a man carrying fencing gear in two large shoulder bags like those used for a cello. I thought I recognised him as someone successful in the sport. I said I’d move our luggage into the corridor with a mind to take it to our booked room, but having done this with half the luggage I realised I hadn’t got the key.
I worked my way down a series of passages and broad stairways to the reception where, in a hurry now, I asked for our key over the shoulder of someone checking in, apologising for butting in. It was swiftly handed to me. Our room was now ready.
Returning to the other room I got lost.
I might have gone to the wrong floor, or else I'd come into the wrong part of the same floor which had passages that seemed to run parallel with other passages. At last, through a small connecting door beneath a tall sunlit classical atrium, I got onto the right corridor, narrower and dimmer, and found the room. The luggage I’d left outside had been moved.
The guest in there said a staff member had taken it to a holding place in the grounds of the hotel. I moved the rest of our luggage including my folded bicycle – we seemed to have so much stuff – into the corridor and started carrying part of it down to where I thought the other luggage had been temporarily stored outside. I thought it best to have it in one place - together.
I spied a pile of baggage lined up on an area of uncut grass amid the wide lawns at the back of the hotel, down a grassy tufted slope. When I got there I couldn’t see our bags anywhere. I guessed they must already have been taken to our room and started back into the hotel intending to collect the remaining luggage from the small room but found myself in friendly conversation with a woman who worked in the hotel and seemed to know me and Jack. I was more and more anxious about the time but still chatted out of politeness. then dragging myself apologetically away, I wandered over the rough lawn back into a labyrinth of passages unable to find my way, eventually realising I was in the wrong building of this towering hotel - a part matching the exterior and interior of the other building but with all room numbers having the suffix ‘B’. I was getting more and more disoriented and disconsolate; our luggage more and more dispersed, even lost. I was imagining Jack waiting and waiting at the pipe shop, but I was determined to recover the situation and so carried on the fruitless search even as I guessed it was almost certainly futile, hauling one hefty case along brightly lit deep carpeted corridors lined with mirrors up and down broad stairways, taking lifts in soundless elevators, retracing my steps in search of the rest of the baggage and one or another of the rooms where it might have been left or was supposed to have been taken, when distraught and frustrated, I woke up.
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There are things on my mind -  my mother in Scotland; phone conversations with UK and my sister in NY; excitements arising from the progress of this three year project to re-introduce my stepfather’s films made in the 60s, 70s and 80s about countrylife; the maze surrounding rights and royalties; the continuing news of the long torment of the crisis in Greece as it effects not only the dream of European Union, the wider population of this beloved country but friends and neighbours; with further news of local burglaries in a haven where keys could be left in doors and ‘wallets left on walls’. Such large matters make the contingency of detail occasion for unnecessary rebukes, sharp retorts and disproportionate gloom at a tap that drips.

The ascent to Sokraki above Ano Korakiana

Things to do and done

Handsworth Helping Hands

My plate is full of things - of course Plot 14, several local government assignments, just short seminars; the next stage in transforming Central Handsworth Practical Care Project into Handsworth Helping Hands ...

'our' tipper truck

and a new recruit to our advisory group in Rajinder Rattu and then - to our delight - an offer to allow us to park the tipper and store our rich inventory of mechanical and manual tools in Birmingham Parks and Nurseries  compound off the Holly Road gates of Handsworth Park, thanks to the trust of Gary McManus, Allen Broad and colleagues; my attendance with Denise at the Handsworth Housing and Environment Forum now overseen by Midland Heart, Jo Burrill in the chair; ....

the incident that followed, that evening, when having borrowed Lin's car instead of cycling to Lozells Methodist Church, I got myself foolishly involved in a minor mudguard bump with someone whose BMW is their 'pride and joy'...

"That's going to cost chum!"

..so that Lin says "You can never borrow my car again"; my new involvement on the Supervisory Committee of the Handsworth Breakthrough Credit Union after a fraught but ultimately happy meeting, off Soho Road, ...

Our guest Kevin Waters from West Midlands ABCUL "You have a Credit Union!"

in which the Union has begun to pull itself out of a mire of local difficulties in hard times; a talk on Thursday morning to the congregation of Warley Baptist Church about the founding of Handsworth Park; ...

Oscar at Inlogov: smoking's off but it's still dog and cycle friendly

a meeting under the auspices of Inlogov's new Director Catherine Staite with Mari Davis to look for new areas of work - scrutiny and its role in helping develop localism (whatever that may come to mean); overseeing continued building work by Royston to make our home Rock Cottage in Lydbrook properly habitable; giving my 96th blood donation with the prospect I'll hit a hundred of these not long after my 70th birthday; preparing to be a grandparent of course; continuing the wonderful hopeless challenge - with Lin - of learning Greek under the tutelage here of Nikos and, in Corfu, of Aleko; our continued endeavours to save money by cutting down on heating, shifting suppliers of services - energy, insurance, telecommunications, and trying legally to avoid paying a penny more tax than we need to by assiduous maintenance of our domestic filing and recording of expenditures and completion - on line - of forms from HMRC, (this is us as the Pooters); keeping in touch with the nightmare tribulations of our dear friends whose just-18 year old son is on bail, tagged, curfewed and accused of involvement in a violent incident - his trial in late January. 'My wife Linda, a retired schoolteacher, and I, now a part-time university lecturer (previously full-time), have known B since he was born 18 years ago. We have seen him grow up to be a pleasant, good mannered, hard-working young man. X's parents, V and K, have given their son a stable, loving and supportive upbringing – one that has imparted to B a strong work ethic and a proven determination to succeed in his chosen career as a carpenter, evident in his commitment to his job and associated college work. In our experience of knowing him, B has always shown a mild, good-humoured temperament, with no indication of aggressive or violent tendencies. Both Linda and I would be more than ready to attest to B's good character in person, if required to do so.' (our note to the court that might have helped with the bail); my continued search for copies of my stepfather's films, some of which may now be re-released via a new licence, with attendant legal issues of my rights to control their release; ...

and now and then posting another film from those few I hold - this one about Mr Huskisson making a collar for Jack's horse Blue, that darling introductory music Recuerdos de la Alhambra, "Hello. What I love is to see something done by hand better than it can possibly be done with modern machinery"....

...looking out for an alternative way to look after dog Oscar in our absence now that John and Jo are finding this so difficult; Lin's current preoccupation with Arthur, her 90 year old Dad, who she's driving to Sheffield with my mum-in-law Dorothy, for an eye operation on Thursday. The nature of happiness in humans includes brief periods of languor, oblivion in sleep, constant endeavour with no obvious likelihood of success or conclusion, worries and uncertainty, occasional celebrations, good reading, constant learning, good food, friends and anxiety about small things. I guess that except for the reading that makes us not much different from other species. I left out the touching matter of intimacy - hazendo doz vezes con mi moher on grando pleasure to me and ella - because that's a regret I have about a blog as opposed to a written diary - that and having to be far more oblique diffusing gossip, slander, libel and confession. There must be someone out there who's got round this by encryption in the manner of Pepys.
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Handsworth Park in November [my son's film made in the summer]

Everywhere the ground - lawns and pavements and gutters - are covered in dead leaves, some of which are unbagged by Plot 14 as future compost. I've come to like this time of year more than before. I'm not sure it couldn't be some poet's territory - Larkin? It's a scruffy time for gardens, the park and other public spaces; yet the details can be bizarre, even poignant; preparing for departure - but with time to spare. Once these would have been burned on bonfires. i liked the smell of burning leaves and their long smouldering into dusk. Now I wouldn't waste a fire. Leaves now go back to the ground not the air. Strange seeing Osama bin Laden among the plane, cherry, aspen and sycamore leaves fallen in our road.

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I seem to have made so many journeys in the past few days between campus and Handsworth.  Compared to the road ride across town my journey goes via Richmond Road, Claremont Road,  The Crescent, up Goode Avenue, left along All Saints Road, over Pitsford Street, along Clissold Street, Clissold Passage to the towpath of the Soho loop canal that joins the Birmingham Mainline and so via Gas Street Basin to the Birmingham-Worcester canal (all without locks) running beside the main rail line to the West Country passing Birmingham University campus...

...I shouldn't have it done it this way - get someone to clean my cherished Brompton's vital parts with a power washer but I pass this small business, on The Crescent in Handsworth, almost every day and couldn't resist having my man spray away several layers of encrusted dirt - a job that would take me near an hour, and ought to since I should remove wheels, chain and gears and do it all by hand with brush and cloth. All for £1. After the power wash I sprayed WD-40 generously, in hope of dispersing damp that might have got where it shouldn't.
I could describe much of what Linda and I have done over the years as voluntary work in the community - in fact our joint CV in that area - would look quite good but I'm not sure we would then want to be seen as advocates for the idea of The Big Society especially where this is a cover for cutting back on professional expertise in the provision of public goods at the ground level - environmental health inspectors, midwives, district nurses, gardeners, refuse collectors, park rangers, street wardens - or at strategic level in terms -  or people tasked with thinking strategically about service provision. Max Wind-Cowie at Demos is giving publicity to a recently completed report  on Britishness. This was just what we were debating last night at supper with Jill, concluding that being British was not talking about it; certainly not waving the union jack "We're private" said Jill. Wind-Cowie's less interested in defining than in understanding ‘practical patriotism’. Hm? Demos is launching a new report on patriotism A Place for Pride, with a debate featuring Lord Glasman on Monday 21 November. Max writes:

British people are proud of their country but don't see themselves as particularly 'patriotic'. The report argues that this dichotomy has been caused by a disconnect between political narratives of patriotism and ordinary citizens’ pride in Britain.

Jet Valeting, The Crescent B18 5LY

Notwithstanding Jill's point about privacy, there's an interesting piece in The Sunday Times. I find the quoted thoughts of Andrew Mycock, a reader in politics at Huddersfield University and a student of British identity, interesting:

“The way we feel about patriotism is very much a lived experience. Discussing kings and queens and wars is very abstract; we can’t feel an emotional tie.”....The poll (Demos') also suggests politicians’ understanding of what inspires patriotism is flawed. More than half of those questioned were proud of the contribution they made to society but many who took part in focus groups as part of the research were deeply suspicious of the big society initiative championed by David Cameron. ....The study, published tomorrow, accuses both the political left and right of failing to grasp the reality of modern British patriotism....Mycock said: “David Cameron and Gordon Brown were both keen to promote a type of Britishness that is abstract and lacking in emotion. Values and institutions are things we have no real sense of ownership over. Given the choice of things that make them proud, people will go back to their local communities." (Mycock last February on Cameron's ideas of Englishness)

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Είμαι πεινασμένος για τις ειδήσεις από την αγαπημένη Ελλάδα, αγαπητό έδαφος, σὲ γνωρίζω ἀπὸ τὴν κόψι...meantime our debt, British debt, is described by BBC's Robert Peston as the 'biggest in the world'...

...we must brace ourselves for many years of relatively low growth, perhaps 1% versus the 3% of the 16 boom years before the crash, because we no longer have the fuel of borrowing more and more every year.