These Foolish Things.

I thought I’d hit a wall, so early on in my self-published writing career. Talking like a late-Victorian wiseacre, convinced his voice spoke so much wisdom and his life story so interesting it needed telling, I floundered when I realised I’d not made full sense of it. This may sound like some faux-academia neurosis, but I really do need a reference, a counterpoint from which to work; and whilst I cannot claim that such a facility will guarantee a constant and easy to follow time-line of events, with randomly cobbled nuggets of information being the meat on the bones instead, I can promise that a beginning and an end will be present in each edition. I suppose that’s what the public platform phenomenon of ‘blog’ allows you to do. Be random, but make sense…of a kind.
So we’re fast-approaching this amateur writers’ block, when I happen to speak to one of my elder brothers. With a six-hundred mile gulf between us, Buzby is our main conduit of communication. Now whilst I cannot claim to have had a fulfilling relationship between one of my siblings and I (keep reading. It’ll be written at some point), a level of human peace has been made between ourselves, greatly aided by the distance.
Gossip and general talking hard-tack being the stuff of this not unique telephone chat, my elder happened to relate an incident relating to my father, with whom my relationship is good but progressively complex, (again, keep reading). That was the catalyst., and it’s telephone down and direct to the CD library.
Now everyone claims to have an earliest memory, which is supposed to signify the point at which consciousness kicked in. At three years-old, it’s conceivable that one can vividly recall time spent I the womb, but who’s to say? Memory develops and we log, or discard according to importance our psyche places upon them, particular experiences which are then carried through life. Some can allow the natural order of mental capacity to shunt certain data into the sidings, whilst some do what Google have been playing at for a few years. That is, particular parcels of data which are recalled on demand according to a few ‘alarm-bell’ words, but in this case sensory reactions. It could be a smell which reminds you of that holiday in Devon when you were 6, whilst a the image of a particular hue of purple reminds you of mixed caramel and fondant filled chocolates at Yule in your thirteenth year. As a part of my telephone conversation with my brother, a casual use of the word ‘foolish’ did it all for me, and Bryan Ferry’s debut solo album gets plucked from my CD library and then warp-speeds me back some 34 yrs and kicks that imaginary wall down. It's a stunning body of work, being masterful covers of an eclectic range of songs. Sadly, I listen to it for all the wrong reasons.

I can’t remember being within the age-bracket of 12-18 months, but I can certainly remember aspects of that time of my life. Clearer memories from those more developed at the time tell me I was taken daily, by my father, across Manchester to the newsagent’s shop which my aunt and uncle owned. Having been evicted from the public house of which he was licensee, a few months prior, my father took work with my mother’s sister and her husband in ‘71. The reason for my father taking me to his place of work have never been clarified to me, although my memories of being poked, prodded, and having my hair pulled out of my scalp by my elder cousins who knew no better have been galvanized on my mind.
Fast forward few years, and this is where ‘foolish’ becomes relevant.

Imagine, if you will, being a four year-old boy, waiting at the end of your street for your father to arrive home. Your mother has told you he should be home today, which is something she’s been saying and believing for three-or-four weeks. The only compensation for his absence has been the complete maternal devotion and attention of our mother, which has maintained the balance required in a rounded upbringing.
He’s not in prison and nor is he a man in service in some post-colonial outpost. He’s a radiographer for a construction company who build bulk storage containers. His current site is a cool 40-odd miles away in Ellesmere Port at a refinery called ‘Stanlow’ and for some repeated but unknown to me at the time reason simply cannot make it home to Manchester for the weekend when he clocks-off just after lunchtime on a Friday.
I did see him a few weeks back, when he met us on the train to North Wales for a short summer holiday. Nice time, but he got off halfway home.
Well this week is different, and my waiting has been worthwhile. He’s walking up the avenue and he’s got a bag. He’s got a few bags, more than he’d normally have.
He’s happy to see me, and he gives his youngest son the kind of hug which confirms security and gives a sense of togetherness , a sense of manhood in my tender years.
Even those tender years can not protect me from the immediate sense of friction which overcomes the household once he crosses the threshold. The time since he was last home means nothing to me, but to my mother it means 9 weeks of her scrimping on what she could earn whilst my father failed to send any money home. It means a long time for her sons to have no father around and for her to have an absence of the kind of companionship commensurate with married life. The little holiday was a break of a kind, but was there but for the grace of my mother finding the costs.
However, back then my father was as skilled at damage limitation as a Westminster spin-doctor is today. Satisfying himself that my mother still liked ‘Roxy Music’ he produces the vinyl platter of its’ front man and my mother asks my brothers and I to leave the room.

Playing it today, I can still hear the argument above the divine lounge-singer warbling of this son of Washington, and vividly recall that my mother never played the album herself. I did, however, hear it virtually every day for some time from then, as for some reason my father didn’t go away again.