Dorothy Reynolds - her funeral

It's raining and grey this morning but it feels lighter. Yesterday the family and some of our neighbours said farewell to Dorothy, my mum-in-law, at Perry Barr Crematorium. Her coffin was a pleasing willow basket with her name on a small tablet of wood. Lin had arranged the flowers to go on top. Guy, my son-in-law - who'd brought our Remembrance poppies - and our son Richard, with two undertakers, drew the coffin up the aisle of the small chapel. Ian gave me directions for starting and stopping the music, closing the curtain at the end and the light on the lectern for what I had to say. 

Welcome everyone. It’s good to see enough people who Dorothy knew, but not so many I can’t keep your names in my head - Barbara, Janice, Michaela, Emma, Liz, Amy, Guy, Richard, Les, Gill and John. Thanks to those at Perry Barr Crematorium, David, Paul, and Ian and to Melanie and Angie and colleagues from Hadley’s and to our son Richard for Dot’s service sheet.
Dot’s husband Arthur Reynolds died in April 2016. We were here at his funeral weren’t we? But poor Dot was in hospital and could not be there to say ‘Goodbye’. He and Dorothy had been married for 70 years. Dot longed to join him. She was entirely unfrightened of dying, but, despite being bedridden her strong old body bound her here against her will. Though she rarely complained, Linda who was her chief carer knew her mum hoped that she could go to sleep one night and simply not wake up.
Now Dorothy has her wish, passing away peacefully, with her grand-daughter, Amy, at her side. So she’s not here now with us. She’s gone to where she wanted so much to be - ‘with my Arthur’
It’s said that the memories you have of happiness in childhood stand you in good stead for all later challenges, perhaps most when it comes your turn to die.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know Dorothy has left me the most bountiful and indelible of such memories. I suspect that goes for the rest of us – for Linda, for Richard and Amy especially, but also for her sister Barbara.
- I recall being able to hear our children before going to sleep being entertained by Dot’s stories – made up each evening – about Jimmy Green and Johnnie Brown
- I recall being with her as we got our fingers pricked and stained harvesting blackberries along leafy lanes in the Forest of Dean, and later, enjoying her blackberry crumbles with cream and custard.

Richard and his Nan in the Forest

- I recall Dot’s trifles - full of sherry, You wouldn’t want to drive after one of those!
- Suffering from a breakfastless marriage, I specially recall the delight of Dot’s breakfasts, made for me whenever we were together - her mugs of tea, poached eggs, her bacon and tomato on toast, which she’d sometimes burn at my request.
- I recall many sunny ferry crossings of the English Channel and arriving in France.
- I recall the long and often empty beaches there, where we enjoyed the picnics made up by Dot and Lin - crispy baguettes for us, sliced bread for Arthur.
- I recall strolling around busy markets, quiet churches and country lanes in Brittany. If Arthur, who was no wimp, hadn’t decreed that if we were were meant to fly we’d have wings, Dot would have travelled the whole world with him. Even so I and the family have reaped the happiest memories, of being with her and Arthur in the loveliest parts of England and France.
- I recall that she failed utterly in a mother-in-law’s duty to be at least mildly critical of her son-in-law.
All these memories and more.
Now we chose the great aria from Turandot because Dot and I would enjoy searching the internet for her favourite songs and tunes, one of which was Deanna Durbin singing Nessun Dorma - None shall sleep (a version sung in English in which 'she' has been changed to 'he')

I'll keep a vigil 'til the glow of sunrise when he'll be mine. This everlasting hope for love bereaves the night of silent rest. Oh night depart ere the morrow. Stars on high grow paler … at daybreak he'll be mine … mine at last… at last

Departure - Arrival

Last Monday afternoon, a bright autumn day, Linda and I were among many - it seemed like the whole village - attending the funeral service for Andreas Metallinos, son of the laic sculptor Aristeidis Metallinos, at St Athanasius Church in Ano Korakiana, Corfu. Of course I took no photo but the church for Christmas carols gives an idea of the beauty of the setting...

The close family waited as we came out of the church, including, Anna - wife, Aristia, and Angeliki - daughters, Maria - sister to Andreas and her son Anastasios - nephew. Andreas was taken in burial procession to the church of Paraskevi accompanied by the solemn and beautiful music of the Spyros Samaras Philharmonic of Korakiana. He will lie by the graves of his father, Aristeidis, and mother, Angeliki.
** **
I half expected Stamati with his joinery on the Ano-Kato road to turn his nose up at so small an order. I cycled down from the village with the old window frame.
He looked at it. Understood without words what I wanted
“Come back tomorrow to collect”
Lin and I walked up the next day. There was our window amid other projects, new transoms cut; inserted as on the original. We were very pleased. Stamati rested the old frame on a bench, noting how an old scarf was warping the frame; an obstacle to glazing. In seconds he’d clamped it against a hardwood splint, brushing glue into the opened seam.

Stamati in his workshop below the village

“This window may be 200 years old. Bring the clamps back tomorrow”
We carried the window home.

Taking the clamped window home

Next morning I cycled with it to Pyrgi, where in no time a bus arrived and carried us with bike and frame to a glazier on the outskirts of town.
“You don’t want to try bringing it back on the bus” said Lin “On Friday when we have a car we’ll collect it on the way home”
I went home via Sokraki, over an hour on the Green Bus, shedding school children on the way up to Spartillas, in Sgourades and Zygos, where the bus misses building by centimetres. I treated myself to a garlicky dried sausage and a chunk of fresh bread on the journey. As he took my bike from the hold, the bus-driver scolded me for my crumbs on his floor. He swept them up with a brush and dustpan. Lesson. His bus. I think I might have done this inconsiderately before. Descending from Sokraki I got a puncture. I inserted another inner tube, checking the inside of the tyre for thorns or glass. It went flat again in hardly 50 metres. Knowing it was shot, I drifted the rest of the way on the flat and once home fitted a new tyre and tube.
So we have nearly finished the cupboard and shelves - our latest bricolage; from discarded wood to something useful again...

Recovered from beside wheelie bins

Cupboard, shelves, drawer on Lin's side of the bed

There's some fine tuning when we come back to Greece, hinges and other edges. Fillings and getting the drawer to go in and out smoothly.
*** *** ***

October morning '...to ease my regret' 

To ease my regret at returning to England soon I think of things I enjoy - treating myself to a pinch of lemon and red pepper with each of half a dozen oysters at Pearces...

...in the Bull Ring food market, tasting the fresh sea water first;

or...having a baked potato salted with lots of butter from the stall at the entrance to the Rag Market; cycling along the canal towpath in and out of town; being on our allotment next to Handsworth Park tended by Winnie, perhaps getting some honey from the bees this year; seeing the grandchildren; going to Rock Cottage where there’s a lot of wood to cut and split for the stoves and walking in the forest of Dean in autumn; a pint with Dave and Pete in the Old Joint Stock; ...

The Old Joint Stock

...to London by train and cycling there, to have supper with Ziggi and keep up with the digitisation and editing of my stepfather’s ‘Out of Town’ 16mm films and sound tapes; sleeping in our big Brittany bed with the softer mattress than ours here;

...having a flu jab at the GP’s; giving blood at the Donor Centre in New Street; taking part in the latest 1000 Elders study of protein intake - an influence on muscle mass and function, which lessen and weaken with age. Despite popular attention to ‘dieting’, science still knows relatively little about people’s protein intake. So mine – based on keeping a three day diary of what I eat - will be compared with that of younger groups. A second invite asks me to be the subject of a study into the effects of Nicotinamide Riboside, a vitamin supplement supposed to boost the mitochondrial functioning of old muscles - two tests over three weeks, with one using the vitamin and the other a placebo; double-blind where, until the testing is over, neither researcher nor subject knows whether a placebo or the NR is being used. As I age I’m supposed to become frailer, more susceptible to disease because the ‘power houses’ of my cells – mitochondria – that give energy to my body become weaker because molecule called Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD) drops with age. The hypothesis – but perhaps hype - is that taking the NR vitamin supplement makes up for this. I wonder.
“Hm! I’d like some of that” said Lin
“Yes but suppose it works on me and I go in for the Tour de France couldn’t I be in trouble like Bradley Wiggins?”
“No he was taking a TUE. A drug. This NR is a vitamin supplement”
“It gets a lot of publicity on the internet. It’s what I like about the 1000 Elders project. You get to see if things do or don’t work by going through procedures in controlled conditions. There are so many ways we fool ourselves without intention.”
We see others getting old and know that barring accident the running down to being bed-ridden may await us, worse - senility, dementia and decrepitude – the seventh age. I can either pretend to ignore my fate or have at least some understanding of the process.
A second invite comes from the 1000 Elders project; to keep a diary over three days to study my protein intake - its influence on muscle mass and function, which lessen and weaken as I get old. Despite popular attention to ‘dieting’, science appears to know relatively little about people’s actual protein intake. Mine will be compared with that of younger groups.
A third invite come via my blood donating where I’ve just completed the ‘Intervals Study’ testing – in a sample of 50,000 people - the safety of giving blood more frequently. Will I take part in the CARRIAGE study? This is run by researchers at Cambridge to investigate why some people carry the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) in their nose while other people never do. S. aureus is a common bacterium carried by one in three people, in their nose or elsewhere on the skin. For most people carrying S. aureus is harmless, but it causes life-threatening infections in hospitals in patients with serious underlying medical conditions and weakened immune systems. Understanding why some people are carriers while others are not will help design new treatments to prevent such infections. I’m asked to take three nasal swabs – a week apart - and complete a short online questionnaire at the start and end of the study. My pack of swabs, labels and envelopes arrived at home just now.
I have also been involved in the PROTECT study led by Kings College, London. This goes on for a decade, gathering data from 20,000 volunteers on the ageing brain and how and why some people get dementia. I will provide a DNA sample, and information about my habits – drinking for instance - also, my exercising and blood pressure (measured by my GP) as these could affect my risk of developing dementia. I also do online assessments to measure such abilities as memory and reasoning. These assessments are repeated annually so that the study can check how I change over 10 years. And I'm one of 500,000 people registered with the UK Biobank.
**** *** ****
 Amy, who’s looking after Oscar dog while we’re in Greece, says she thinks he’s getting senile – born 14th June 2002, he’s coming up over the average age for Jack Russells; spends time sitting in the middle of the room staring.
There’s the continuing campaigning in Sandwell to get housing back around Black Patch Park. Phil Crumpton’s been keeping me briefed, including his and Andrew Simon’s meeting with Cllr Steve Eling, Leader of the Council...a brief from Phil who I'll see next Friday...

PDF Friends of Black Patch Park meeting with Steve Eling and Richard Marshall on Tuesday October 4th. at Oldbury 
Andrew and I were delighted to be joined by ‘Matt,’ (surname not recalled as I type this/Borough Chief of Park maintenance and services - site manager). He was invited to take part as the support for making the hands-on case for the work being undertaken in Black Patch Park.
Our meeting with Steve was much longer than the one we had with Darren Cooper. In contrast to that starter meeting, in April, no-one was sitting in the take minutes. This was an enormous relief as it demonstrated that Steve wants it clear, he had got people submitting evidence and materials to help him carry on from where Darren started. It was the case that he had to acknowledge, too, he ‘..has been handed many tasks’. Another plus point. Richard did have many points to make about how he sees the current state of the park. Councillor Marshall (my councillor) wants it made clear to our group, how much he understands about the untness of the park - even though he confesses to not being a regular visitor. Give Richard the benet of our faith in him as he is clearly tired of seeing things just delegated and deferred over a number of years. We have made that case. We clearly have a coherent councillor, working in the interests of one of many, many Sandwell Parks and, in our case, a distinctive heritage site to boot. Richard also had a good grasp of one of the most inescapable circumstances that the ‘Patch’ still suffers from and as Steve mentioned on many, many occasions; “..Black Patch is isolated as a neighbourhood”. Few councillors have ever taken the time to put detail on this, in making the case for this inalienably-protected green space. All our work and lobbying since 2002 has seen to that remaining the same. But it was most interesting in how much SMBC’s policy message has moved on from the old, ‘institutionalised pre-2016 prognosis.’ Instead, now making the community of place ready for a Place of Community.
Matt made the effort to commit his SMBC department to pledge: ‘No More Disruption’ to the park’s badly needed upgrade to ‘Fit for Purpose’ status. Matt went on to state how this would be carried on, with the help of a break from so many illegal actions following on from the travellers’ regular abuses of the Park. He stressed how the newer obstacles to travellers - like the newer anti-lift or tamper-proof concrete bollards have made the difference to the opportunism that we have become so fed up with accommodating. Richard and Matt are to visit in the coming days to do a further check on the means by which they can demonstrate further action to check the cameras’ alignments plus inspect the old school gates site. This is because I showed them the photographic evidence of the newer fly-tipping hotspot, on the bend in Foundry Lane and where Richard is locating the heavy duty sunken bollards to block off the recess. Another outcome for the Friends’ campaigning..!
Councillor Eling did execute his right to say, on several occasions, “..Black Patch issues are not all about the Park”. He is right and I agree. He went on to use that word “isolated,” and he was still right; as much as the boundaries of three former counties met at the bridge over the brook(s); as much as the area has become a place where industrial expansion choked off access to the small residential area - it does not mean that it will stay that way. He did emphasise: “..we need to follow-up this meeting when we have your ‘Community Housing Project Proposal and Re-Zoning Plan’ as he is looking closer at the walkway along the brook-side - to the end of the allotment but he acknowledged the ‘whole allotment was as prime for redeveloping for housing as it is for closure’ ...! Another breakthrough..... See you all on November 1st. W

I must also draft the final report of Handsworth Helping Hands’ on our ‘Three Avenues Project’. Our next committee is at the start of November. We've more work yet with residents in Brackley, Putney and Crompton Avenues, focusing on their small green spaces and the continued challenge of services for ‘unadopted’ streets.
Then there’s Christmas in the city

"Dreams and memories"

'Until last autumn Arthur was still tending his garden'

We said goodbye to Arthur last Thursday. Linda arranged the time and place and with our approval decided on a wicker coffin. Richard and I, with the funeral people’s bearers, helped carry it into the chapel at Perry Barr. Two candles burned beside it. Lin asked me to pick a mix of bluebells from our garden; blue, gentle pink and white like those she'd picked with him on Cannock Chase. She laid them on her dad's coffin as we arrived for the funeral. Music was chosen by Lin - Tosselli's Serenade sung by Perry Como - a favourite of Dorothy’s; played as we'd sat down. I went to a small lectern:

Welcome - family, John, Leslie, Liz, Emma, Aunt Barbara, her daughter Janis and her daughter Michaela, Ann and John, Sylvia and Trevor.
“It’s a bit black over Bill’s mum’s” - and as Arthur would also say, if we asked him now, ‘Today’s Thursday – all day’. We knew Arthur would leave few instructions in the matter of his death. He said in his will he wanted to be cremated, so apart from that purpose here, we’re making this up as we go along.
I thank the staff here, Pam and Carl, and Melanie and Angela of Thomas Hadley for their professionalism in helping us with this quick farewell. And Richard, my son, for making the Service card.

This…is not Arthur, not husband, not Dad nor Grandpa or great Granpa.
These small fragile remains - on which we repose our care and grief – are not Arthur. He’s left us - in the twinkling of an eye. His last words to me “Sorry to be such a nuisance, Simon”.
And Amy said “Gramps, 3 weeks ago we were sat in the carvery listening to the story about you getting drunk and having to be collected from the police station. Last week I saw you in hospital but I don't think you really knew who I was...now you're gone. In some ways I'm thankful that your demise was as swift and unsuffering as it has been. Goodnight Gramps the most hard working, good sense of humoured and loving grandad a girl could have.”
And didn’t Oliver say, in his budding toddler’s knowledge, from which we half hope to protect him, say ‘great grandpa’s a skelington’?
We here may hold a coffin here for a little while, but our Arthur is not his remains.
Even Arthur – for all the precious care and love Dot, his wife of 70 years who cannot be with us, and Linda his beloved daughter, especially, have bestowed on him in these last years – had no time for what lies here.  He might even have said he felt "like a sack o muck tied up ugly".
So don’t remember this as dad, or grandpa or Arthur. What we now say farewell to is a symbol, a means – time-worn, traditional, and valued - for lament, for grief and tears (if Lin will allow those). All things that, in time, should not be any great part - for all our present feelings - of the treasured memories we’ll share, and his knowledge and the indelible codes which Linda, Amy, Richard, Hannah and Oliver carry in their DNA. That goes on.
Let’s say goodbye to him now. Let’s be as sturdy and stoic as Arthur would expect us to be. It’s not his death that matters in the end. It’s his good life we’ll take away from here.

Then I pressed a button I’d been shown by Pam at the Crem, keeping my finger on it as light green curtains closed and everyone stood and the song came again. Then Lin and I led people out
“Thank you Simon” she said ‘that was good”.
I couldn’t have asked for a sweeter compliment
We gathered and chatted a while in the car park then headed for a pub lunch on a long table at Toby’s Carvery. No photos were taken. That felt right.
“You left out my name” said Liz, not annoyed
“You’re family, Liz”
Several said how pleased they were that Arthur's funeral had been so simple.
“You said almost the same at Grandma’s funeral” said Richard
“True. It was what I thought then and what I think now”
“A good cut and paste job” he smiled.
"My life" I thought.
But Lin was child-minding outside the chapel when we said goodbye to my mum in Scotland nearly four years ago. She hadn't heard me speak then. I wanted her approval. It was a good arrangement.

Note: Lin was unsure where Arthur worked as a miner. Only recently we've learned that it was at West Cannock No 5 Colliery that Arthur was employed

Green kryptonite

What a difference a day makes. Over 24 little hours I stayed up late. Early Tuesday Lin drove me to Digbeth Coach station from where the 777 service got me from Birmingham to Luton Airport by 4.30. After being searched with everyone else, I wandered the familiar concourse, had a coffee and read David Thomas’ Ostland. In rain at dawn I board a plane that flies an almost straight course south-east for 1800 kilometres. In the last minutes of an unturbulent flight I slid from the aisle over two empty seats to peer down on the dark Albanian mountains above Saranda...

...merging into Butrint and the gentler heights of mainland Greece, familiar contours, the blue below scratched by an island boat for Igoumenitsa.

Then a steep curve back on ourselves, for the run in to Kapodistria up the east coast of Corfu, a glimpse of the beautiful Manessi mansion and church, San Stephano...

... hidden by an outcrop of rock from sight of the multi-storied skeleton next door - an hotel offered to a friend years ago for a knock-down price. Meeting the hopeful vendor in different circumstances, my friend reminded him he’d offered to sell 'the unfinished' project at 'a bargain'.
“Not a bargain, my friend, I was trying to sell you a problem!”
In minutes I’m landed, luggage collected, in a hire car driving familiar roads north to the village. The humming seems continuous – coach, airport, plane, car. I stopped at Kaziani to shop for milk and butter and food for the next few days. Then the car’s parked on Democracy Street; my bags unloaded and carried down the 13 steps and into the house. The humming becomes the buzzing of innumerable bees; though I’m reassured the water’s turned on, as, too, the electricity. The fridge hums. Relaxing with the french windows open I read my book sipping a cup of tea. A pair of chattering swallows enter the room, perch for a minute on the chandelier above my head, noisily debating the definition of inside and outside before leaving for outside where two garden trees are weighted with lemons, our orange rich with blossom, and the landscape, olive groves over many gentle slopes, stippled with full blossoming Kokykias trees της κοκυκιάς, with a strip of the bluest sea between me and the hazy shores of mother Greece.

As ever I’m greeted in the street. I explain why I’m here on my own but the news of my father-in-law’s death on 5th April and why Lin has stayed in England is already known; or I hear it being explained to others.
“You must go. I’m looking forward to having the house to myself” said Lin “You’ve got to pay our property tax and submit our no-earnings return to the tax office.”
Next day I meet Eleni P. Parking by the old port I cycle through town to the office of our accountant, off Alexandros Street. Eleni does the paperwork on-line. I must come back to the office early on Thursday to sign at the Corfu Tax Office declaring she represents me.
I find a leather worker in the city centre who mends the metal catch on my Leatherman holster in 30 seconds for €1.50. I buy a needed button, needle, needle-threader and thread from a small shop off San Rocco Square.
In the meantime I’m getting news. Everyone’s getting older. Someone must have an operation; another is most unexpectedly in depression; another has dementia; the toddlers as it seemed when we first came to Ano Korakiana are growing into colts and fillies, quieter with all that’s going on inside, more serious. It's so good to have the Greek double kiss, with a pause between for a warm and unembarrassed hug.
Having ticked a good few ‘to do’ boxes by evening, I took my olive stick with the deer-foot handle, an early gift from Mark, and headed uphill through Venetia and on up the hairpin bends to St Isadoras, the small church on one bend of the zig-zag ascent to Sokraki, over the crags above Ano Korakiana.

I have the place to myself and am regretting I forgot to bring a candle for Dorothy, my mum-in-law, in the same Sandwell hospital where Arthur passed away and Lin and I arrived minutes after and saw his body and went to pass the news to Dot, a ward away, helped by a doctor called Jeremy.
It wasn’t until, instead of saying “Do you want to see him?' which we all did, I said, instead, ‘Would you like to see Arthur’s body?”
Then she wept. Arthur was 98. He and Dot have been married 70 years. St Isadoras is tiny. I can stand in there, in its dim cool interior but hardly turn in any of its three spaces. A wick burns in oil by a small window. The silence is palpable. It is a serene place, freighted with every kind of sweetness a building can hold; memories too of previous visits alone and with Lin and with the family. I went onto the broad terrace perched on the same rock as the church and gazed over the island’s centre towards the central mountains and the sea and the forts of the city and – a dot – the outline of Pontikonisi beyond Kanoni and the airport where I’d arrived six hours before. I thought I heard womens’ voices coming up the hill; Anna and Angeliki Metallinos – daughter-in-law and grand-daughter of the laic sculptor. I was so delighted to greet them and they me – and in this sacred place, still Tuesday.
I told my news and why I was here alone. Mother and daughter prayed a while and Anna, renewed the floating wick on the oil. So I didn’t need a candle. We walked back down to Ano Korakiana together, Anna collecting from the verges a plant with a light blue flower to make a tea that’s good for the stomach. Above Venetia their car was parked.
“Can we give you a lift?” asked `Angeliki who’d been translating our chat to her mum. She’d been asking me about Arthur and what I would say at his funeral on 5th May.
** **** **** **
On my second night in the house I awoke with a stomach ache and nausea. Going downstairs I was sick several times. I returned to bed and tried to sleep but after an hour I had to go downstairs again to be sick again. I have always been so healthy, it always surprises me to be weakened by a sudden illness. I suspect I ate too much of my own cooking the night before while watching Bridge of Spies. I’d promised to go into town to the tax office in the morning. Getting myself up, I thought of what happens to Superman when he comes into contact with that toxic mineral from his home planet. My folding bicycle suddenly weighed so much. Every step was draining. I was thirsty without wanting much to drink, just a sip to wet my lips and mouth. Dehydrated. Having parked and cycled into Alexandros I made the excuse to Eleni that I’d had too much to drink the night before. Her colleague Georgia walked me to the tax office, stopping now and then to make sure I was keeping up, as I would do, slightly frustrated with Arthur, in his last months. She found me a seat for the hour long wait in the grey beige corridor of Corfu bureaucracy, as like a vigorous West End comedy, people exited and entered left, right and centre, in and out and back and forth between different doors, some employees, some clients, with no sense of a queue or sequence, but all polite. Georgia chatted cheerfully to people she knew. I tried to snooze and over and over licked my lips; a fool, I’d not bought a small bottle of water to sip. At last the business was done, and I had a signed and stamped piece of paper. I coasted downhill on Theotoki stopping to enjoy a strawberry sorbet and sip more water.

In town - errands on my trusty Brompton

Back at Democracy Street where, like a lizard, instead of shifting clothes, I shuffled carefully between places to relax that were neither too cool nor too hot; the balcony under an umbrella, the sitting room near a window, our bedroom, getting into to bed at dusk, waking up and shifting to night clothes around midnight, and, no longer thirsty, sleeping through to five in the morning when I felt up to a mug of tea and two slices of buttered toast, sensing strength recovering. By morning proper I was having a shower, doing a load of washing that would dry swiftly in a warm breeze from the east, starting to tidy the garden, clipping back the bougainvillea and other spreading greenery, hanging a tarp beneath the balcony to protect the veranda from rain; phoning Dave to get Summersong craned from her berth so she can be scrubbed and anti-fouled and put back in the water for when the family come in a week – but without Lin I fear.  She’s caring for Dorothy, her bereaved mum.

Arthur Reynolds, miner, - Dorothy Bentley, munitions worker: their wedding at St James' Church, Norton Canes, 8th Sept 1945

Πλήρης ημερών

Darling Mum, Grandma, and Great Grandma. All our love always...

Letter to my son-in-law:

Dear Guy
Amy asked me to send you a picture of the flowers for Barbara yesterday - the ones we're throwing into the rivers she loved. Also the music* we chose and my words in the small chapel at Inverness Crematorium where I was with Bay, Amy, Richard, Sharon and Elizabeth, while Lin stayed at Brin to take care of Oliver.

Our mother left us with extremely imprecise – actually no instructions.
We’re making this up as we go along and I want to thank the staff here and William Fraser and his family for the craft and professionalism they’ve contributed to this quick farewell.
This is not mum, or grandma
These small fragile remains on which we repose our care – and grief – are neither mum nor grandma
She’s already left us – and is becoming part of everything
We here need her remains for a little while, but she is not her remains, any more than she is her possessions – treasure them though we may; a talisman here, a memorial there.
Even mum – for all the precious care and love bestowed on her in these last months – had little time for what lies here.
Don’t remember this as mum, or grandma or Poppet or Theodora or Baba.

Progeny: a picnics by Dell Loch in 1987

What we now say farewell to is a symbol, a means – time-worn, traditional, valued - for lament, for grief and tears – all things that in time should not be any great part (for all our present feelings) of the vast treasure chest of memories we carry with us – some in our DNA – for the rest of our lives
Let’s say goodbye to her now; and be as brave as her; as brave as you know she'd insist we be. It’s not her death that matters in the end.It’s her life that we’ll take away from here.

Love
Simon

*Ω! γλυκύ μου έαρ, γλυκλύτατον μου Τέκνον, πού έδυ σου το κάλλος;
"Oh! my sweet Spring, My sweetest child, where has your beauty set?" - and deep thanks to Chris Holmes and Aleko Damaskinos in beloved Kerkyra for refining the translation and pointing me to where I could buy the music we wanted and to our tutor Nikos Mytikiotis in Birmingham for first pointing me to 'Ω γλυκύ μου έαρ'

Richard and I walked by the Nairn today

My mum was born 11 February 1917 in Hereford Square in Kensington. North of the Ancre the British took about 600 yards of enemy trenches near the Beaucourt-Puisieux road.

1918: Great grandma Jackson, my mum - Theodora Barbara - and her mother Bar Maine

Mum - Poppet - with Motley at Mill End in 1931

Barbara at Mains of Faillie in 2005

Now we're at Brin Croft - Lin, who drove up to the Highlands with me on Thursday night, Richard who flew up on Thursday evening, Amy who flew up with Oliver on Monday, and our dear friend Liz who's been here four months. Bay's flown back to New York to be with her husband after five weeks at Brin Croft helping care for mum. Sharon, her carer for five years, has driven south to be with her son in Nottingham and to rest.

Supper at Brin Croft this Saturday evening

**** ****

From: Andrew Coulson
Sent: 31 October 2012
To: Deepa Patel
Cc: Simon Baddeley; John Cade; Sue Platt
Subject:: Request for Quotation: Coaching Support for Scrutiny Chairs in Hounslow

Dear Deepa. Here is our proposal for delivery of your coaching sessions for scrutiny chairs. We have done our best to make clear how we would deliver what you need.  We appreciate that you will do your best to assist us to carry out the sessions with a reasonable number of visits, and are more than happy to clarify anything in the bid if that will assist.
Best regards. Andrew Coulson. Scrutiny Lead, Institute of Local Government Studies

One to One Coaching for Scrutiny Chairs - Hounslow LB
Proposal from the Institute of Local Government Studies

We have unique experience of scrutiny training – having been involved since 2000 when the legislation first made it mandatory. This training will be delivered by the following team:

Dr Andrew Coulson - former councillor, cabinet member and scrutiny committee member in Birmingham, has been a staff member of the Institute since 1984, written extensively on scrutiny and its position in local government, and been instrumental in creating the first assessed training course on scrutiny.

Simon Baddeley - a Tavistock Institute trained psychologist and counsellor, with special interest in relationships within organisations. He has conducted many one-to-one or one-to-two interviews with scrutiny chairs and scrutiny officers, and explored the relationships which are needed for scrutiny to succeed.

John Cade - former Head of Scrutiny at Birmingham City Council, with special interests in scrutiny at times of financial pressure and retrenchment, in topic selection, in managing the scrutiny processes, preparing high quality reports, and ensuring that they have maximum constructive impact.

Identification of Needs
If this is to be done effectively, and to deal with some of the sensitive issues which may arise, we do not see any alternative to undertaking it face to face. It would also be worth having a check-list to hand of some possible topics or issues, see below.

Our preference would be for the four sessions to be undertaken on the same day, e.g. a day when three or four of the councillors are present. The 27 November full council day is a possibility for this – and would still allow time for one coaching session for each of the four chairs to be held in December. The discussion of tailored sessions which follows shows that we understand that there is a great range of possible needs and opportunities for developing skills.  The task here will be to make the task manageable.

Delivery of Tailored Sessions
Good scrutiny depends on good chairing, and there are many different facets to this. Thus scrutiny chairing involves providing leadership and direction, ensuring the work is member-led, that other scrutiny members have the necessary skills for questioning, evaluating evidence and understanding the stages of a scrutiny project;  engaging all committee members in the process; ensuring adequate resources are provided or knowing how to work effectively within limited resources; acting as a ‘gatekeeper’; prioritising work, minimising some of the  common pitfalls of scrutiny; co-ordinating work with other scrutiny committees; sharing learning; developing constructive relations with the executive and relevant portfolio holders, with chief officers in the departments the committee scrutinises and with external witnesses.
For those who have doubts about their chairing skills, the best initial approach may be for the trainer to attend a scrutiny panel chaired by that member, and then meet either after the meeting or the next day to discuss conclusions and lessons that can be learnt from what happened, and other relevant issues.
More specifically, the chair will also need to ensure that the committee contributes actively to the scrutiny of the authority's policies, budget, strategies and service delivery, as well as evaluating and monitoring the performance of the authority and other agencies with whom the council works in partnership. It may also entail creative and inventive approaches to one-off investigations that contribute to the work of the council and the needs of the communities it serves.

Thus scrutiny chairs need to be confident, and able to:
·      chair the overview and scrutiny panels (already mentioned)
·      present the findings of the committee to the council, executive, the press and public where appropriate
·      promote the work of scrutiny and organise its work programme
-      work effectively with the officer or officers who serve scrutiny, constructing trust across the council and its departments
-      develop good working relations across parties so as to be able to work outside the party political framework
-      be able to engage with senior officers across the council to strengthen their respect for and involvement in the scrutiny process
-      work well with key figures in outside organisations, e.g. in health, housing, transport, etc etc

The practical one-to-one tutoring would, where possible, entail close observation of actual scrutiny sessions, with pre-meeting briefing and reflection and post-meeting feedback and preparation for the next meeting on the basis of what has been learned via this process of observation, reflection, feedback, and planning. There could also be sessions in which the tutor sat in on working meetings between the scrutiny chair and the relevant scrutiny officer. The feedback and reflection sessions following these observed meetings could involve both member and officer and could be enriched with video demonstrations from Inlogov research on members and officer working together on the scrutiny process. The initial session or sessions for each councillor would be conducted by our experienced counsellor, Simon Baddeley.
If these sessions identify needs for practical discussion, of matters such as selecting topics for investigations, scoping investigations, working with officers to manage the scrutiny process, drafting recommendations, or working with external agencies, then these sessions would be delivered by Andrew Coulson or John Cade.

Costings...etc

Reply - 8 Nov'12:
Dear Andrew
Many thanks to you and colleagues for taking the time to answer the questions in the quote documentation. I am pleased to say that Councillors have decided they would very much like to accept your quote! In particular they felt your quote showed a very thorough understanding of the wider role of the scrutiny chair both in and outside of meetings.
I need to get a formal letter out to you confirming acceptance of your quote. I shall do this early next week. If you can contact me next week we can start discussing next steps and get some dates fixed in the diary as soon as possible. I really look forward to supporting you with this project. Best wishes and have a good weekend. Deepa 

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As Richard and I strolled at sunset along the river, with the terriers, Mum's Lulu demanded her usual play in the cold clean water taking mum's flowers down to the sea.

Lulu in the Nairn

Γλυκό παιδί μου - once upon a time

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Dear Niko. Thanks you so much for the epitafio lament you showed me when we last met.
We played it at my mother’s funeral on Friday.
Everyone loved the music and the lament. It is of course sung at Easter in Ano Korakiana. Lovely as it is sung by the women’s choir in Ano Korakiana, we did not at first recognise it enhanced by Vangelis and Irene Papas.
Once again you and Greece support me at an important  moment in our lives. I know my mother would have loved this music. I will remember it for ever.
Much love to Christina. We have seen a few photos of your wonderful wedding but we want more…and perhaps to hear more of the music at the church and at the reception.
I am in Scotland now at my mother’s house but Linda and I will return to Birmingham in about a week. Much love and respect. Simon 

Dear Simon, Linda and Family. I was looking to my emails, who actually pointed me to Facebook that I do not follow that closely, and I've learned about your loss. Please accept from me and Christina our Sincere Condolences - Τα Θερμά μας Συλλυπητήρια και τις Προσευχές μας Υπέρ Ανάπαυσης της Εκλειπούσας. We know that her loving memory and personality will live in you and your family. Looking forward meeting you soon to express the above to you in person.
Deeply Saddened. Nikos