All in the Mind 2

Number 2 Wednesday
Teaching was okay as a profession but occasionally it became repetitious and we found distractions to 'pep up' the mundane nature of the lessons. I once borrowed a glass eye, from whom I cannot remember. I found it fascinating, probably in part because I have one eye that is rather 'duff' to say the least. It was discoloured round its edges, the glass eye that is, some sort of unknown stain that added to its magic.
I took it into a lesson one day. I set the class a written test and walked round the classroom. I then proceeded to screw up my face as I pretended to 'lose' an eye. "Get on with your work" I commanded the class as I searched round the floor for the 'missing' eye. On 'discovering' it under a desk I triumphantly recovered it, held it aloft and, with my back to my audience, returned it to its rightful place. Dreadfully politically incorrect, I know, but the class were amused (I did eventually let them in on the act) and I'll bet it was one of the few lessons they remembered from my seventeen year career.
I also took the glass eye home to show my wife. She was quite unimpressed by it, it gave her the shudders. Then she held it up to the light. "What are you doing" I enquired. Evidently she was looking for the hole as she couldn't imagine how they could see through it without a hole! I've never let her forget, bless her.
Recollections from thirty years ago, what brought that memory back I wonder. (This has brought back other teaching memories but via 'triggers' which is slightly different.)

It's All in the Mind (Forever).

Some may consider Harry Lorayne's book naff, but it's got me thinking. I believe everything we have ever experienced stays in the mind forever, at least whilst we draw breath, so to speak. The brain is cleverer than any computer and seems endless in its capabilities. Its merely a matter of recall; but easier said than done sometimes. Beyond that I have no idea, there again I never was a threat to Albert, Einstein that is. Nevertheless I'm going to conduct a little experiment over the next four days. I'm going to try and recall four events, unconnected, of little importance, but events hopefully I've not recalled for some considerable time. Unscientific, of no value to anyone but, heck it may interest me!

Number 1 Tuesday

I remember visiting Skegness as a child and being fascinated by an exhibition concerning Japanese atrocities towards British and Commonwealth troops in WW2. Cost, sixpence, showing hangings and decapitations. The exhibition ran for several years. Who ran it, I wonder and when did it finish. Presumably it was done so that people would not forget what happened during the war. I remember as children we would inflict cruelty on insects, spiders, ants and the like. We would pretend they were German or Japanese soldiers. Remember we were children brought up in the aftermath of war. It's surprising in a way that we finished as normal as we seem to be. Though some might disagree concerning our 'normality'. One final thought. Fighting between Georgia and Russia is constantly in the news at the moment. Has this prompted this recall I wonder.

Don't Forget.

We have transported to our new home over one hundred boxes containing our possessions, a proportion of which can only be truthfully labelled as junk. Surprisingly a large proportion of the boxes contain books. (Books are also amazingly heavy in bulk thus the amount of boxes needed steadily grows.) I stop and read frequently as I unpack, thus the unpacking rate per hour is painfully slow.

To my surprise I rediscover a book I thought I had lent to someone only I couldn't remember whom! Called, ironically 'How to develop a Super Power Memory' by Harry Lorayne, published in 1958, it fascinated me as a twenty year old trying to impress. It has presumably been in the loft and emits a strong smell that is probably smoke from our wood burners via the chimney through the loft. Nearly fifty years on I study its pages and wonder at its original attraction.

It is full of 'memory tricks' or aids to a good memory. He explains the 'Link Method', 'Peg Systems' and memory by 'Association'. Plus there are numerous quotes to emphasise the importance of having a good memory.

'The true art of memory is the art of attention.' Samuel Johnson.

'A man's real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.' Alexander Smith.

'The memory is always present; ready and anxious to help-if only we would ask it to do so more often.' Roger Broille. (unfortunately I cannot trace a Mr Roger Broille. Can you do better.)

'All knowledge is but rememberence.' Plato.

Memory is 'the treasury and guardian of all things.' Cicero.

Lorayne evidently believed that the memory is like a muscle and must be exercised and developed if it is to give proper service. It has no limit as to its capacity and there is no such thing as a bad memory.

Evidently Lucius Scipio could remember all of the people in Rome; Cyrus could call every soldier in his army by name; Seneca could memorize and repeat two thousand words after hearing them once. So no excuses, get yourself a 'memory book' and you too will develop a super power memory. But time is money as they say, now what was I doing when I allowed Mr Lorayne to distract me! One thing is for certain, he certainly did not suffer from TGA.
I enjoyed Mr Lorayne's book and can't resist repeating the beginning of his chapter What's in a Name.

'This fellow was very proud of the way he could remember names by association, until he met Mrs Hummock. Mrs Hummock was quite heavy, and had a large stomach, so he decided to use 'stomach' as his association.

Three weeks later, he met the same lady, glanced at her stomach, and, feeling very pleased with himself said, "Good day, Mrs Kelly!"

Can you believe I had to get my wife to explain!

I'm Not a Happy Chappie.

I've just been 'thwacked' by a car and caravan travelling in the opposite direction, one new mirror now required and boy oh boy do I feel a grump coming on.

Now I know he's arguably as much right on the road as my none too tiny motorhome but does he really need mirrors on mile long sticks. Obviously a rhetorical question. Of course he needs them when his motor is five feet wide and his caravan's seven feet six. Mind you, it would have helpful if he'd stayed on his own side of the road.

Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against caravanners. I'd even go so far as to award them their own time to travel. How about one to three am. It's not as if they'd be lonely as they seldom travel alone.

When I was a trailer tenter I was quite worried as I was unsure as to whether I was now under caravan rules. I had no friends to travel with and I wasn't sure if I was allowed out on my own. I did think of waiting for another trailer tenter to pass and tucking in behind but I was unsure as to whether this was ethical. Plus my inexperience of 'driving in pairs' would be embarrassingly obvious. For instance, when an ordinary mortal decided to pass me, how would I know when to accelerate in order to close the gap between me and my friend in front. Are there books on driving in pairs or do you learn by experience.

Then there's the experience 'on site'. Never mind if your fellow caravanner couldn't travel with you. Just save his place alongside your pitch, anything movable will suffice: fire bucket, chair, your car, all warn fellow travellers you've got a friend coming. Who probably lives on your street, works with you and you haven't seen since half past four and it's now six o'clock. Besides, it wouldn't do to have to walk half way down the field when you've got so much to tell each other.

So get the chairs out, open the wine and get chatting, usually louder and louder as the wine takes effect. No need for an early night, a lie in beckons tomorrow and watching the 'tele', courtesy of the generator. Good job we carry plenty of cable so it's not positioned too close to our caravan. (I was once told by a caravanner it was a violation of his European Rights when I asked him to turn off his generator after several noisy hours. I have also seen generators hidden in toilet tents; whom did they think they were kidding.)

Grump over, the last one for a while. There must be many 'nice' caravanners who are acutely aware of their fellow travellers. Have I just been unlucky. You tell me.

Home Sweet Home Four

I obtained the post as Warden of the Eagle Centre, a church run organisation in Newbold, Chesterfield in 1965. I was brash, enthusiastic and single. The centre was home to various groups, my home was the adjoining house next door. Completely undomesticated, I survived, and I choose the word carefully on tinned Irish stew, complete meals in vogue at the time in tinfoil trays, including roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding and chips and chicken from the local 'chippy'. Plus dinners at both the YMCA in town and the local C of E junior school (the latter on provision that I did not eat left handed as the head suggested it was a bad example to set children). Also various meals with sympathetic parishioners who perhaps not coincidentally often had spinster offspring of a higher than average age.

Tidiness was not a strong point though I did occasionally wash up (hose piping a weeks pots in the sink was not unknown) and some of my washing and ironing was delegated to Christian ladies in the congregation who were sympathetic to my plight. (Until one day a pile of immaculate washing and ironing was returned in the middle of a hectic jumble sale I was running for much needed funds. And promptly sold unknown to me for pennies to delighted customers ever ready for a bargain.) Which left me without spare socks, shirts and underwear for some considerable time on wages that did not lend themselves to replacing half of my limited wardrobe.

It was my first experience of living on my own, though various youngsters used my house as an emergency abode when they rather than I deemed necessary. A hectic, disorganised period of my life but in the main good fun in a novel sort of way. Definitely a house but being my first attempt, home in a bizarre sort of way.

Lost, or was it Forgotten.

Today's Times includes the story of the airline passenger who, travelling from Tel Aviv to Paris with five children, his wife and eighteen pieces of luggage, managed to leave one of the children behind.

One's immediate reaction is to be horrified at such incompetent parenting but is that necessarily fair? 'Let him who is without sin' and all that springs to mind.

I remember as a proud father of a two year old visiting the local pub with two friends for a convivial couple of hours. Only to remember after the first pint that we had been left in charge of the infant who was fast asleep in bed, blissfully unaware of our wilful neglect. All three of us were teachers at the time but still hopelessly inadequate beings it seems. Our wives were unimpressed with our dereliction of duty and we were all reminded of it for many a day.

As a teacher also I remember taking, with twenty other staff, five hundred secondary school pupils in eight non too luxurious buses to Drayton Manor for an end of term treat. (Alton Towers declined to accept such numbers on one trip and I don't blame them.) We returned with four hundred and ninety seven. The missing three returned under their own steam some time later. It was all very reminiscent of the 'Albert and the Lion' saga though with a less serious ending. Ironically one of the three tragically drowned in a local river days after the school term ended.

I remember too as a youth leader returning from Blackpool to Derby after a youth club outing minus one young lady. I had to knock on the door of her parent's house and explain we had lost the daughter they had lovingly brought up for the past sixteen years. Not funny, I can assure you, even less funny when she arrived home hours later, having found a 'young man' on another trip from Derby and travelled home with her new found friend on their bus.

Contrary to what people might think we were and hopefully still are conscientious if sometimes flawed individuals. But times have changed and in this 'Madeleine McCann' era woe betide any mistake by those in charge, be they parent or teacher. Sometimes, just sometimes I'm glad I'm just an old fool whose main occupation in life is merely watching the world go by. Or is it only me that did daft things; you tell me.

A New Season Beckons.

Every waking moment is taken up by the move. Trip after trip after trip, the new bungalow will only take half of our belongings. Choices have still to be made, hard, sometimes anguished decisions as to what to keep and what to part with. With no end in sight, trying to stay positive without screaming. But never fear, we'll get there and, you lucky people, the new football season is just around the corner. Only joking, honest, I do realise football is anathema to many, and I confess, it doesn't seem five minutes since the season ended.

Derby is very much a footballing town and Derby County were one of the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888. A friendly game on Saturday prior to the start of the new season included in the Derby County team the names Pereplotkins, Albrechtsen and Kazmierczak. How times change.There will be over twenty five thousand people in Pride Park at the first game on Saturday versus Doncaster Rovers including my wife and myself. The majority home supporters of a team that won only one game last season and ended with the worst result ever in the history of the English League.

I have been a Derby County supporter, man and boy for over sixty years. The old ground, the Baseball Ground was an infamous, dilapidated, wooden and corrogated iron structure, with a pitch reminiscent of a ploughed field and offering minimum facilities and maximum discomfort. Two or three years ago I wrote a short, somewhat nostalgic story entitled The Autograph Album. (One of the stories in 'There's Nowt so Strange as Folk'). The story may be fictional but the memories are real; happy days.

“Fame is but the breath of the people”
- T Fuller, Adagies and Proverbs, 1732

The Autograph Album

They told me you were coming. You want to interview me about me album, now why would anyone be interested in my football memories? You’re new to reporting, you say. You have to fill a little column once a week and you get all the jobs experienced reporters don’t want. At least you’re honest, lass, so what do you want to know?
Do I mind if you record what I’m saying as we go along? No me dear, as long as it’s not going on the wireless, I’d feel daft hearing misen talk.
When did I first go to the football? Well I were born in 1939 so I’d be eleven in 1950. It would be any time after then I suppose. I used to stand in the Boy’s Corner behind the goals. Boy’s Corner, mark you, no mention of girls in them days. Big boys, little boys, all ages, shapes and sizes, but I don’t remember any girls. Not that I’d have noticed, the football were more important.
Three o’clock, every other Saturday, two fifteen in winter. No floodlights in them days. Then at the end of the match queuing for autographs outside the player’s entrance. And sometimes at the railway station if the teams travelled home by train. We were often cold and wet, but we didn’t mind. Now here’s me album, where shall we start?
Let’s see, who played for my team, Derby County. Jack Stamps, Albert Mays, Bert Mozley, Ray Straw, Ray Middleton, Cecil Law. Reg Harrison. My, how they bring back memories.
Jack were an old fashioned centre forward. Went blind in later life, they reckon it were from heading those old leather footballs. Albert ran a snooker hall after his football career ended. Bert, the first footballer I ever heard of who wore contact lenses. Saw him once looking in the mud after one came out during a match. Ray Straw, not too sharp, Ray, to put it kindly. See his autograph, you can only just read it. Mind you, he scored more goals for Derby County in one season than anyone else, thirty seven; a record that’s never been beaten. Mr Middleton, now he must have been bright because he became a JP. How many footballers do that? And Cecil Law, now he were Rhodesian, and there weren’t many Rhodesian footballers in them days. Not too many now, come to think of it. Reg Harrison, played in the Cup Final in 1946. There’s only him and Jim Bullions left from that team. Over eighty now is Reg. Still walks to the shops for his paper. Takes him ages, everyone insists on chatting. And he still goes to Derby County matches with his wife. A very popular man is Reg.
Do I remember all of the players in my album? Remember them all, good heavens, no, lass. In fact half of them you can’t even decipher their names; they were footballers, not scholars! And funnily enough, I don’t remember seeing individual players who were household names. Yet there they are, in my little book, as Arthur Askey used to say, “Right before your very eyes.” Whose Arthur Askey, did you say? Oh dear, I’m really showing my age!
Can I give you examples of players who were household names? Now let me see. Here you are, Wilf Mannion, and Tommy Lawton, oh, and here’s another, Len Shackleton.
Wilf Mannion were a slightly built man who were a wizard with a football. Played for Middlesborough and England, one of the best ever. Funnily enough, I were introduced to him in a working man’s club in North Yorkshire when he were in his seventies. He were ever so interested when he knew I came from Derby. A frail old man who had made no money from a game he had graced at the highest level.
“I remember Derby County well.” I remember his eyes lighting up at his memories.
“How’s Jacky Stamps?” he’d enquired.
“I’m sorry, Mr Mannion, he died.”
“Oh Dear.” A short silence followed.
“How’s Chick Musson?”
“Chick’s been gone a long time, Mr Mannion.” I remember squirming with embarrassment, but Mr Mannion were oblivious to my discomfort.
A much longer silence. “And how’s Leon, Leon Leuty?”
“He’s gone too.” I hated to have to pass on such depressing information, but we were, after all taking of an era long since gone. Mr Mannion returned to the housing complex he called home and I returned to Derby. Not long afterwards I read a glowing tribute in the Times in memory of the late Wilf Mannion.
Tommy Lawton, now there’s a famous name if ever there were one. One of the best centre forwards who ever lived. Here you are, see, playing for Brentford. Who are the others? A J Bloomfield, a Cliff Jefferson and a Bill Dare. How lucky they were to have played in the same team as Tommy Lawton. And what a privilege for me to have seen him. You’ve no idea what that means to me, my dear. And do you know how he ended up? So poor that he were caught shop lifting to make ends meet. His old club, Notts County had to play a match so that the poor man didn’t starve. Bigger than pop stars, they were, yet paid a pittance.
Len Shackleton, now there were a character if you like. A brilliant footballer, played for Sunderland, and wrote a book about football after he finished. One chapter were about what football directors knew about football. Left it blank, he did. He were his own man, were Len.
Are you getting bored, my dear, for you it’s all so long ago. Can you look through the album, of course you can.
What do you say you’ve found? A B G Palmer, Hasland 18c. What did you say, he doesn’t sound like a footballer.
You’re quite right, my dear. One day I lost my album. Distraught I were, I’d no idea where I’d lost it. I weren’t half upset. Mr Palmer were a railwayman who picked my book up on Derby Railway Station and posted it back to me. Thank you, Mr Palmer, you made a small boy very happy.
You’ve found another? Let me see. H Gartside JP, Chairman of Oldham. As Tommy Trinder would say, “Now’ there’s a funny thing!” Who’s Tommy Trinder? Don’t even ask! Strange that a football chairman would want to sign a small boy’s book. I reckon he were right proud to be chairman, don’t you. Strange too that a small boy didn’t know the difference between youthful footballers and ageing chairmen.
Why did we collect autographs, you ask. I don’t rightly know, if truth were known. In search of heroes, I reckon. Role models if you like, only such terms hadn’t been invented in them days. A bit of excitement, what do they say nowadays, getting a piece of the action.
Famous players, famous teams, the stuff dreams are made of. Cardiff, Swansea, Oldham and Chelsea. West Bromwich Albion, Bury, Birmingham and Bolton; Blackpool, Burnley, Stoke and Charlton. Such wonderful teams, with marvellous players.
Sam Bartram, Willie Watson, Malcolm Allison, Davie Drurie. To you, nothing, to me, magical memories to savour on dark winter nights. Nat Lofthouse, nicknamed The Lion of Vienna because of a wonderfully brave performance for England against Austria, one of the finest teams in Europe. George Robledo, a South American player for Newcastle when most players were home grown, and Lindy Delapena, a Middlesbrough player and the first black footballer I ever saw. What were it that young girl used to sing, “Those were the days my friend.” What were her name, Mary Hopkirk, something like that.
Is my autograph album worth anything, you ask. I suppose it might be. Would I sell it? What do you think. It might be dropping to bits, but it’s still my most prized possession.
I hope I’ve been of help to you. Thank you for coming. Do you like football yourself? You do? And who do you support? Manchester United! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!