2 (24) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY IV.

WELCOME TO CIVVY STREET!

The fifties (continued). 

The difficulty many servicemen found in adapting to civilian life had clearly been recognized in high places: it was rectified by six months of post services training. For me, therefore, 1957 started with two terms at Clark's Commercial College in The Avenue, Southampton. When I left I had become, at 26, the proud possessor of a GCE (Oxon) in English. (It remains my only worthwhile educational qualification.) I was supposedly studying accountancy, but had not the slightest interest in becoming an accountant. 
My father said: “It doesn't matter what job you do, just make sure it's one with a pension.” So, on Monday 2 September, 1957, I started work with the Portsmouth Executive Council (NHS) - miniscule salary but sound pension scheme - and at the end of the month was presented with my first civilian pay cheque (twenty nine thirtieths of the month's total, because that first Monday had been the second day of the month). That's accountancy, friends. (If, as many public service decrying journalists maintain, the NHS has wasted billions over the years, it certainly didn't waste it on me.) 
In the year before I left the army I took my first ever leave to the UK by plane: an Elizabethan from Dusselforf. Passenger flights had taken off and home leave had become a simple matter of booking a seat. The Elizabethan class airliner that flew us back and forth had never...it was proudly announced for the benefit of the wary...been involved in any untoward incident. Those of us who were the wary were glad about that. On 6 Feb.,1958, came the Munich air disaster and the decimation of the Busby Babes. Tragically, the Elizabethan turned out to be not that safe after all. 
My new post seemed to be safe enough, though. The Clerk of the Executive Council met me in the corridor a few months after I started. “Ah...Mr Ah...” he said, “how are you settling in?” 
“Very well thank you, sir.” 
“Good, good. Wasn't sure about appointing you, y'know. Well...years in the army...used to moving about 'n all that... thought y'might not stay...” 
I might not have stayed. 
In 1959, still single and living with my parents, I had filled out an application form to join the Essex police (failed the height stipulation for Hampshire), had been declared medically fit by my GP (late on a Friday evening) and was all set to post off the application the next day. 
Around midnight my father had a heart attack and was rushed into hospital. When my mother and I visited him on the Saturday he was awake and lucid. Before we could get to him on Sunday he suffered a second attack and died. It was, we were told, a massive coronary thrombosis. He was 54 years old. He was a smoker. He enjoyed a drink. And in the Portsmouth City Architect's offices (I was later reliably informed) there was an attempt made after his death to share his regular workload between three qualified (on paper) people. They all said it was too much. His qualification was practical experience. 
“You,” the head honcho once told him (before dispatching him to sort out latrine trouble or suchlike at a council build), “are the only one around here who has seen a loo chain pulled in anger.” 
So I guess nowadays we might have anticipated a coronary. Back then we, he and our doctor thought the chest pain was indigestion. Well, his mobile x-ray results were OK. Seems medieval now, don't it? 
So I saw out the decade clerking and writing monthly payment cheques for the work done by chemists on the Pompey NHS list. (What? Oh, 72 of 'em I think.) 
A police career was never going to happen. 
Just as well. I'd have been a lousy copper. (To be continued) 
HOME. 
A lovely story. 

Christine and Christopher Russell. 
Back in April 2011 (Post 165) I wrote that my Leader and I had met this nice couple when they were signing copies of their first two Warrior Sheep books at our local Waterstones. 
We bought the books on spec for grandson Ellis when he was a little older. He seemed to reach the right age this year and we introduced them into his bedtime reading. Great enjoyment. Great enjoyment. So I enquired and found that the writers had produced two more: The Warrior Sheep Down Under and The Warrior Sheep Go Jurassic (which is set in our home territory, the Isle of Wight). 
Waterstones could obtain Down Under; but Go Jurassic, they told me, was out of print. 
Well, to precis a long story, I emailed the Russells and they gifted Ellis a signed copy of Go Jurassic. It came by post earlier this week and was a gift simply made out of the kindness of their hearts. 
He now has the complete set to date and I know they will be treasured for many years to come. 
Thank you, my dears. 
Our place.
Seems that, subject to contract, we may have sold. 
It has come at a time when Maureen has seen her surgeon and been told she will need to go back into hospital for additional hip related surgery. 
At this juncture I have nothing more to say.
(Back reasonably soon.)   

2. (23) NEXT TIME IS HERE.

THE OTHER HALF. 

Stop press. Yesterday I tried to publish a lengthy blog post and was duly chastised by Google Blog. The section reproduced below looked as though the “We don't do the editing” editors had smacked me on the head so hard that my legs concertinsed. i.e. It was a bit squeezed up! (Check the last two lines.) 

I tried to remedy the situation, but eventually realized I was on a hiding to nothing and withdrew. (A bit like Suez in 1956.) 

Anyway, here is that other half with – I hope - improved printing.

TELEVISION.

The Detectives. 

Longmire is back and still a programme worth the watching. 

Fortitude ended in a mishmash of fantastic incredibility: My Leader and I shook our heads and asked: “Is that it, then?” 

And Vera, the most improbable CDI in Britain, continues to impress as probable, thanks to the brilliant Brenda Blethyn who, to me and a worldwide viewing public, would be credible in any part she cared to play.
The Rest. 

The Musketeers departed in a rattle of steel and a popping of single shot pistols. (Marc Warren stole the show as loathsome Rochefort.) I enjoyed it but it was very much Boys' Own stuff. 

It is followed by a returning Atlantis, which is also very much Boys' Own stuff: I shall enjoy that, too. Show me an old guy who's not a big kid at heart and I'll show you a sad old guy. 

The death of author Terry Pratchett has led to the reshowing of a couple of his televised stories. The Colour of Magic featured David Jason as the world's worst wizard, Rincewind, together with the Luggage, the Librarian and a hugely formidable supporting cast. I found it enjoyable, but thought it lacked the wicked humour that is the trademark of Sir Tel's books. (I also - and some may regard this as sacrilege - thought that Martin Freeman should have been Rincewind.)

Going Postal was another brave attempt that somehow missed the mark. Lovely cast. (Sir Tel himself came on at the end - speaking role, too.) But there was a faintly laboured feel about it all. I just don't think it was the best Discworld example with which to finish a film trio of the great humorist's work. That's the trouble when you've read his books, though, ain't it. 

READING. 

Re-read some Pratchett and M.C. Beaton and have started on Noddy Holder's The World According to Noddy and on Sir Terry's Men At Arms. Keep an eye on this space if you're at all interested. 

I'm off again now. 

Plenty of reading to do. 

2 (22) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY III.

YOUNG ADULT MEMORIES. 

The Fifties.

At the age of twenty (see picture) I was a barely noticeable cog in the Middle East Land Forces machine stationed in Cyprus. Posted there, via Egypt, at the age of eighteen, I returned to England a couple of months before my twenty second birthday: (via the S.S. Asturias which came from Australia: the Aussies had drunk nearly all the beer before it reached Port Said). There was drizzling rain when we finally got to Soton. We stood on deck and cheered. 
I have never since been bedazzled by the promise of a sunshine holiday. 
Came a break and then British Troops Austria, where I nervously learned to ski, became a cricket follower, obtained expertise in putting up bivouacs and regularly won free seats to the BTA cinema in Klagenfurt by correctly answering questions on films set by a pleasant little British Forces Broadcasting bloke, Willis Toogood, who was also 'Uncle Willis' on the kids' programmes. My answers were both correct and in verse (way before Pam Ayres made a career of it) and ol' Toogood - always, I gleaned, a reluctant 'Uncle Willis' - liked that. 
After a couple of years in Austria and keen for a return to England, I sought and was given the coveted home posting: it was to British Army of the Rhine. 
Y'know, I was not until then aware that the war with Germany had been a civil war. Anyway, off I went to the fatherland; first to a coal dust begrimed barracks at Essen Kray, then on to Rheindahlen where, since I spoke neither French nor Flemish, by some weird logic known only to the military I was appointed troop sergeant of Belgian Liaison Troop. 
I Liked the Belgians. Civilized people. 
Came 1956 and I was all set to leave the service when Anthony Eden, a Prime Minister who, until then, had been little more than a homburg hat on legs, ordered our troops into Egypt to escalate the Suez Crisis. Their action was proceeding with scant hindrance when America demanded it be discontinued. 
Eden was no Churchill. We complied with the demand. It brought to an end our fallacious 'special relationship' with the US; put paid once and for all to the British Empire; finished Eden's career; and kept me in uniform somewhat longer than expected. My final day of Service with the Colours was January 8, 1957, the day before Sir Anthony resigned as prime minister of Britain. (To be continued) 
HOME. 
Our house. Somebody came on Good Friday: told the estate agent they liked the place and thought it would be ideal for 'letting,' but were too concerned at its Grade 2 listed status to proceed any further. So why on earth did they come in the first place? Couldn't they read? Actually, the Grade 2 listing of the house has caused me far less bother than has my Grade 2 listed diabetes. Ah well. Keep taking the tablets. 
A cute present. 

The little bubble quilt seen above was made by my Leader (prompted by, and with some input from, daughter Roz) as a present for the baby girl of close family friends of Roz. It concluded with hours of stitching by hand and I did wonder whether the esteemed Leader would ever finish it. 
Worth every hour, Mo, worth every hour. 
Brother Harold. 
Harry, who I could not like and respect more if we were related by birth, has recently undergone a knee operation. We spoke on the phone this morning and last week he walked around the block with the aid of crutches (and accompanied by his daughter), but feels that his recovery is not as fast as he would like it to be. 
Never is, old mate, never is. 
We will talk again in a fortnight's time when I hope he will have taken more steps towards abandoning those crutches and Pompey will have accumulated a couple of wins (plus a tough, astute new manager).

Enough for the half month.

Television next time 
(including Terry Pratchett films).