Apologies for Spillages

Her cup of coffee was delivered with a sachet of sugar. As the café’s sole employee plonked the cup down on the formica surface a slurp of brown liquid spilled on to the table. “Sorry”, said the greasy-haired waitress.

With nothing else to do the customer opened the sachet and let its grains spill out on to the table. She didn’t take sugar in coffee but opened the sachet anyway. “I’ve paid for it”, she said in a low mumble, not intending anyone to hear.

The grains scattered on the table and some were absorbed by the split coffee. Others fell to the floor, where the waitress’s feet cracked them like ants’ eggs as she passed by to wipe down a neighbouring table with her filthy dishcloth.

With only half her lukewarm coffee drunk, the customer rose and bumped into the waitress as she threw back her chair.

“Sorry” she said, not looking at her.

Outside the café a man sat in the doorway of a permanently closed shop, holding up a plastic coffee cup. “Spare change?” he muttered.

“Sorry”.

A mother with a young child on a bike with stabilisers came by. The child careered into the man, knocking his beaker of coins to the ground.

“Say sorry to the man”. But the child did not, and the mother did not insist.

It was bin day, and the men were pulling wheeled bins into place ready for the truck to come along. One of the men did not see the café customer as she walked past and he bumped into her.

“Sorry”.

She took offence and pushed over the bin that the man was wheeling. The lid fell open and the rubbish spilled into the road.

“Sorry”, she said.

It lifted her mood to see the anger of the bin man as he tried to push the detritus backed into the bin as the bin lorry approached. She stepped backwards into the road, paying no attention to what was behind her.

That was why she did not see the car that sped past the bin lorry, being driven by a young man who was high on drink and drugs. Her body was flung high into the air and landed on the road. What spilled on to the tarmac was the colour of neither sugar nor coffee.

The young man drove on, not aware of what he had done. He did not say Sorry, but would not have been alone that day in not meaning it had he done so.

© John Welford

The Old Man and the Mountain

The old man had lived on his own in the white-walled cottage on the side of the valley for as long as anyone could remember.

He was an artist, and in his younger days he had toured round the local countryside, painting pictures of local people as they were going about their business or enjoying themselves in the local taverns, playing cards or dancing to a gipsy violin. It was believed by some that he was quite famous and that his paintings fetched good prices when bought by rich people in the city, but nobody had ever seen much evidence of his wealth.

Latterly, most of his work was done on the verandah of his cottage, where he could be seen at his easel painting the scene that lay before him. It was said that he had painted the same panorama more than a hundred times, and that every painting was different.

Prominent in all these paintings was the mountain that rose above the far side of the valley. It was the only mountain of any size for miles around, although it was by no means difficult to climb. There were well-trodden paths that led all the way to the top and people said that there was a marvelous view from the summit.

As he painted, the old man was often greeted by tourists who were on their way to the mountain, equipped with walking poles and rucksacks.

People sometimes stopped and watched him at work, occasionally asking him what could be seen from the top of the mountain.

“I don’t know”, said the old man. “I’ve never been there”.

“Never been to the top?” would be the reply. “But surely you want to see what’s on the other side?”

“Perhaps I will”, he would say. “One fine day I’ll climb the mountain and see for myself”.

But he never did.

The locals were quite correct to think that the old man was widely respected in the artistic world, and he would sometimes be visited by other artists who wanted to learn from him and see for themselves where his inspiration lay.

From time to time an artist would follow the tourists to the mountain-top and then come back and tell the old man what they had seen.

“It’s a splendid view”, they would say. “You really should go and see it. It would give you a whole new focus for your work”.

“Who knows?” the old man would say. “One fine day I might just do that.”

But after his guests had left the old man would get his easel out and paint his mountain one more time.

The view he had from his cottage was perfect for him. As the seasons changed and the day flitted from dawn to dusk there were so many variations in the colours and shades that the scene presented to him, that he saw no need to be anywhere else.

And yet, at the back of his mind, there was always the lingering thought that he might – just once – give way to curiosity and climb the mountain to look at what lay on the other side. However, he also believed that this would not happen until he was ready to stop painting. Would the magic of his view of the mountain be lost for ever if that view changed? If he conquered the mountain, would the mountain have conquered him? If that happened, he knew that he could never paint again.

But maybe, just maybe, one fine day …

The day came when he was no longer to be seen on his verandah, painting at his easel. He was found lying on his bed, perfectly still and at peace. A note was found next to him. It read “Please scatter my ashes on the mountain. The day of my visit is long overdue.”

So that is what they did. Had the fine day eventually arrived? Not exactly. The day when his ashes were scattered was the only thoroughly wet one all that summer.

 © John Welford

Nautical Rainbows From a Long time Ago

After my mother’s funeral there was a cup of tea and a bun or two at the back of the church. While we chatted and renewed acquaintances with people we had not seen for a number of years, sometimes decades, a slideshow of thirty or forty old photos was projected in a continuous loop on a blank wall. These brought back a lot of memories, not only of my mother but of other family members.

One of them showed a long table on a stage at which sat a number of people, including a portly, middle-aged man wearing a chain of office, and his wife who was wearing an impressive hat and a somewhat less impressive chain that was a pale imitation of that worn by her husband. At one corner of the photo was a small boy in a sailor suit being directed on to the stage by a large hand on his shoulder.

That small boy was me. I could only have been four or five years old, but I remember the incident very well.

The photo had been taken only a few yards from the wall on which it was being projected. At that time the church held an annual bazaar in the halls just behind the church. This took place over two afternoons, and it was customary for the town mayor, or his deputy, to declare the event open on the first afternoon, which was always mid-week.

The bazaar always had a theme, and in the year in question it was named the Nautical Sale, which is why I was wearing a sailor suit.

My job was to present a large bouquet of flowers to the Lady Mayoress. I was simply told to walk on to the stage and give the flowers to the lady. Unfortunately, I was not told which lady that was, and there were several to choose from. I simply shoved the bouquet at the first lady I saw and ran back to safety as the hall erupted in laughter.

A year or two later I made another appearance on the same stage, but in a very different role. This time the bazaar was the Rainbow Fair, and on the Saturday afternoon the children of the Sunday School put on a short dramatic presentation before the buying and selling began.

My role was that of a grey cloud. I had to run round the stage in the company of a small girl who was dressed as a white cloud. After a few circuits we had to bump into each other and pretend to burst into tears. At this point another young thespian wearing a huge yellow disc appeared, closely followed by seven others, each wearing a different colour of the rainbow.

The costume mistress must have had a wonderful time getting everyone dressed, especially when it came to the kid playing the role of Indigo. I think a lot of crepe paper was used in the production.

Had I gone on in later life to become a famous actor, I would probably have recounted my portrayal of “grey cloud” as the first step on my path to greatness. Things did not quite work out that way, although I did take part in many dramatic productions during my time at school and university. The only claim to fame I can make as a stage performer is that I did once play opposite somebody who went on to achieve a certain amount of fame and fortune as an actor. I knew him as John Marshall but he later changed his name to John Sessions.

Perhaps my early childhood memories did teach me a couple of lessons for what life might throw at me. One of these was that giving expensive gifts to the wrong woman is never a wise move. The other was that crashing into strange women and making them cry is more likely to lead to assault charges than rainbows. 

© John Welford

Your Next Station Stop

I seem to have spent an awful lot of my life travelling on trains, and my journeys have not always gone according to plan. Odd things have happened from time to time, such as the time when I was returning from university in North Wales to the south of England on a particularly crowded train and I had left my suitcase in the only place it would go, which was not far from a doorway. As I glanced out of the window, just as the train was about to depart from its stop at Oxford, I spotted a suitcase standing on the platform that looked remarkably like mine. I was able to rescue it just in time.

Then there was the time when the guard made an announcement that a passenger who had left the train had forgotten his box of live snails, which he had placed underneath his seat. Would all passengers please check to see if their seat was the one in question? Needless to say, I was the snail guardian.

My first professional library post was in London, and my wife and I lived in a top-floor flat that overlooked the main line from Kings Cross to the North. This was also close to Harringay Station, so I had quite a straightforward journey to work.

At least, it was usually a straightforward journey, apart from the time when I was a bit late for my usual train and got on the one that was waiting at the platform I usually used, without checking where it was going to stop.

As a result, the train sailed through Harringay Station and did not stop until it reached Alexandra Palace, two stations up the line.

No problem, I thought, I’ll just get on the next one heading south, even if it means I have to go all the way back to King’s Cross. There was a train waiting on the adjoining platform, the sign on which read King’s Cross, so I promptly got on board.

However, when the train moved it headed north, not south. I had, naturally enough, relied on the sign that was telling me where the train had come from, not where it was going. This happened to be Hertford North, which, although some distance from where I wanted to be, was not a complete disaster as far as getting home in reasonable time was concerned. There were plenty of trains that went from Hertford North to Kings Cross, including many that stopped at Harringay. No problem.

At Hertford North, I saw a train that fitted the bill, standing at the platform for southbound trains. I got on board, confident that I could not possibly make the same mistake twice.

Of course I could. How was I to know that the platforms had been switched for operational reasons that week? Next stop Peterborough.

As I stood on the platform at Peterborough, 75 miles north of where I should have been, I realized that any further slip-ups could have much worse consequences, given that trains from here ran to York, Newcastle and Edinburgh. I therefore made absolutely certain that my next train would go south.

I now had two worries. One was what I was going to say to the ticket inspector when he questioned why I was on a train from Peterborough when my ticket only allowed me to travel as far north as Harringay. Fortunately, he was in a good mood that evening and let me get away with it.

My second concern was what my wife was going to say when I eventually got home. Had we had a dog, there would be little doubt that my dinner would now be inside it, but it was her withering stare and expressions of contempt that I was not looking forward to.

Oddly enough, the story I told went down quite well. I think she was happy to have an example of my monumental stupidity that could be stored away in the memory bank for use on some future occasion.

Needless to say, I did not make the same mistake again. Shortly after this, I switched from trains to buses as my means of getting to work.

© John Welford

RIP: a funeral and an ankle

“Requiescat in Pace”. May she rest in peace. That is what is said not only when the body in lying in a grave but when it has been cremated, which was the case with my mother on 19^th June 2019. Perhaps scattered ashes can be regarded as doing the same.

After a life of nearly 104 years that included very few episodes of pain or illness, and without the awful semi-death of dementia that plagues so many people in their final years, the funeral arrangements had an uplifting atmosphere throughout. We chose excerpts from Bach’s Brandenburg concertos to begin and end the Crematorium service, and sang stirring traditional hymns as part of the Thanksgiving Service that followed at Poole’s High Street Methodist church where Mother had worshipped all her life and where she had been christened and married.

I gave a “Reflection”, as it was termed on the Order of Service, which outlined a life that had indeed been a generally peaceful one.

However, she began her life during a war, namely World War One, when one of her earliest memories was of watching a parade of soldiers as they marched through Poole on their return in 1918. There was only one family loss during the war, namely a much older cousin whom she hardly knew.

Mother also had vivid memories of World War Two, particularly of the events surrounding D-Day when Poole Harbour, which had been filling steadily with small ships prior to the invasion, was found to be completely empty when the locals looked out over the water on the morning of 6^th June 1944. She remembered being kept awake in the night as hundreds of planes droned overhead as they towed gliders towards their landing in Normandy.

Poole, being a port, was always on the lookout for enemy action, particularly air raids, and the occasional bomb did fall on the town. Mother remembered the morning after a bomb fell in the High Street and she saw the terrible scene of limbs and torsos scattered across the street. She also remembered her immense relief when it was pointed out to her that the victims were mannequins blown out of the windows of the 50 Shilling Tailor’s shop.

Mother’s own life did include a certain amount of turmoil, of which the devasting experience of suffering two miscarriages must constitute a large proportion. This followed the very difficult birth of my sister, who was not expected to survive but fortunately did. The desire to have a second child was the reason why I was adopted a few years later.

Another less than peaceful time was when the young family had to give up their home and move to that of my father’s parents. Mother found herself being both a parent and a carer, her charges being two elderly and increasingly frail people. It was not long before another extra family member turned up – my father’s unmarried elder brother who lived on at the house, of which he was part-owner, until long after the parents had died.

I think it says a great deal for my mother’s character that she took all this in her stride.

We – by which I mean me, my wife Sue and son David, together with the dog – rented a small house in Poole’s Old Town for the nights before and after the day of the funeral. We were therefore able to take the dog for some quite long walks around the town and out onto the area called Baiter which is a large open space that was reclaimed some years ago on the edge of Poole Harbour. 

After the funeral was over, followed by much catching up with relatives and people I had known decades ago but never seen since, the dog had to be rescued from the house and given a very good session on Baiter. 

Sue has long suffered from a problem ankle – she has had all sorts of treatments and investigations, but nobody is really sure why it just flares up from time to time and makes her life uncomfortable. She can go for months with no trouble at all, but it can suddenly make life difficult with absolutely no warning. The day of the funeral, following the long dog-walk, was one such occasion.

Sue finds that using an ice pack offers very good relief, and this usually takes the form of sitting with her leg up, supported on a bag of frozen vegetables. However, we had not taken such a thing with us down to Poole, so we had to buy one. We needed in any case to buy a few things from the branch of Sainsbury’s Local just round the corner, so a small pack of frozen petits pois was added to the bill. It would easily stay cold for long enough to give Sue some welcome relief from the pain in her ankle.

We therefore spent the evening sitting in front of the TV without really watching it but reflecting on the events of the day as the ice pack worked its magic. 

I’m not one of these people who believe that people who have died in the recent past are looking down on their nearest and dearest and expressing their approval or disapproval of what they are doing. However, if that had been the case, I can imagine the gesture of up-rolled eyes that Mother would have given had she heard the appalling pun that was produced by my twisted mind.

So – Rest in Peace, Mother.

Rest on Peas, Sue’s ankle.

© John Welford