With due deference to Jonathan, for pointing out that people across the globe like to read about where we live, and to Bill Blunt for being the catalyst to reminiscences about my home town, I thought I might share Oldham with the blogosphere.
Do a Google search on Oldham in the news archives and you get a picture of racial tension, right wing politics and football woes; whilst I recognise that image I also know that it is only a small corner of a much broader landscape. My task, it seems, is to do for Oldham, in words, what Lowry did for Salford in oils.
The 1970s brought, for me, the first awakenings of a consciousness about our town: I stopped thinking that everywhere was like this. Throughout the decade Oldham ran a national media campaign to attract business to the area; I remember the excitement when, ascending a London Underground escalator during a school trip, we saw the poster proudly proclaiming 'Oldham A Town In The Country'; and I suppose that is as good a place to start with a description of the town: a northern mill town nestled in the foothills of the Pennine countryside, preserving Lancashire life before, three miles up the A62, darkness descends at the Yorkshire boundary. But what of Oldham for the Yorkshireman descending the trans-Pennine route to the town? As you drive along Bottom Of' Th' Moor the magnificent Mumps rail bridge greets your arrival forming a massive iron gateway through which all must pass; for years the huge Victorian bridge was emblazoned with the proud proclamation of Oldham's industrial pedigree:
'Setons Welcome You To Oldham: The Home of the Tubular Bandage'
And, for me, there lies one of Oldham's persisting characteristics: a failure to be aware of its image. Who, with a mind to keeping up appearances, would have trumpeted the tubular bandage as Oldham's greatest achievement? As if to make my point about image, Oldham Athletic Football Club have, like many struggling lower league clubs, fought for the patronage of business; hence, at the Boundary Park ground, the players emerge into the gladiatorial arena not, as once was the case, through the proud Main Stand, but through the Pukka Pies Stand.
I believe that this image problem has its roots in the death of King Cotton; for generations Oldham thrived on the boom years of cotton; whole families, mine included, were brought up as skilled workers in cotton spinning and weaving. The town's Victorian municipal buildings are testament to the wealth was brought to the area in bales, hauled up from Lowry's Salford docks by horse cart by my great grandfather among others.My grandfather was a ring spinner, my grandmother a carder. When the cotton industry died an identity died with it; cotton was in their blood - my grandparents did not adapt easily to inspecting the filaments of light bulbs in the mill in which, for years, they had carded out cotton fibres and coaxed fine thread from ring spinning machines.
As my grandparent's generation gamely held on to their heritage and a clear, though fading identity, my parent's generation really messed up. The 1970s' saw investment in building styles so ugly and ill-designed little of their concrete slab construction remains today. St Peter's Precinct went to the pearly gates in the 1980s - only half of the retail units were ever occupied in a centre that funnelled the biting Pennine wind through its alleys, putting off all but the hardiest shoppers. St Mary's estate, where my grandparents were put after their terraced mill houses were demolished, has gone and is replaced by better quality housing association property.
So what image does Oldham have of itself now? I still don't know; Oldham seems ill at ease: we still talk of immigrant communities but, in truth, the majority of people that we mean by that have been here for two of three generations - so why do we still say 'we' and 'them'? Following the riots the Ritchie report highlighted many societal failings and brought massive investment to the town; but talk about Ritchie to the average Oldhamer and they will talk to you of Andy Richie, one of Oldham's favourite football heroes of the past.
An identity will emerge again; the pace of change may have outstripped our ability to keep up at the moment, but already the strands from the diverse communities that make up the modern Oldham are slowly combining to create a new, multi-coloured, many stranded thread that will be the stronger for its many elements.
That is the backdrop to my town, quirky, troubled and individual but still, after all, the place where the tubular bandage was invented - don't forget that.
Yesterday was a big day for me; those of you who have been following my path from surgery to recovery will have noted that I haven't mentioned Frankenstein's boot for a while - this was the inflatable, rigid foot device that replaced my plaster cast and enabled me to commence physiotherapy. It is in physio that I have graduated.
For former athletes like me, it does not come easily to be ranked among the weak and afflicted and when I met Phil, my physio, I could not resist telling him how many miles a week I used to run, or how often I used to swim. Only later did I reflect on how lame this must have sounded: the truth is that we are only good for what we do now (unless, of course you used to be a premiership footballer). I resolved simply to be good at whatever Phil asked me to do. So I balanced on the wobble board, traversed the foam balancing beam, cycled 2 virtual miles on the cycle and generally tried to be vigorous.
Last week the man-who-cut-off-my-heel-only-to-fasten-it-firmly-back-with-a-titanium-screw said that I could remove the boot and start to walk around unaided. Yesterday Phil reviewed my progress and gave me the good news: from next Monday I graduate into an exercise class: Advanced Ankle.
I loved the first series of the, award winning, medical drama House. I loved the irascible character played by Hugh Laurie and loved the medical accuracy of the complex diagnoses, arrived at by tortuous routes, just in the nick of time to the grateful - but unwelcome - thanks of relatives. On Thursday though, the scriptwriters let us down and treated us like idiots, here's why:
In a moment of inspiration House identified a case of scurvy on the basis that a young female patient had internal bleeding. He dashed into theatre where she was about to undergo unnecessary surgery. "Close her up." Shouts House, indicating that she was already 'open'. Why had the surgeons not noticed the fact that they could not stop her bleeding as the result of the scurvy, if she had had already had spontaneous internal bleeding?
In another miraculous moment, a patient who has been immobile and mute in a wheelchair for eight years is, again thanks to House's god-like intuition, given a large dose of Hydrocortisone which, with immediate effect, causes a resurfacing of consciousness. The grateful patient stands, admittedly with some difficulty, and hugs his family. Eight years! What muscles were left after eight years of muscle wasting? And, as if that wasn't bad enough, House mentioned to us, the gullible audience, that the patient had suffered significant muscle wasting.
Are we really that stupid? I for one will watch one more episode out of blind loyalty to the last series. If there are crass errors like this episode I'll abandon House.
I watched the fabulous Life on Mars last night; it really has to be the best and most entertaining drama on TV at the moment. This week I nearly fell off my chair when I saw my favourite children's TV programme of all time lampooned in a drug-enhanced hallucinogenic experience featuring DCI Gene Hunt, as citizen of Camberwick Green, beating up a nonce. But that wasn't the only high point in the programme, the series has also been notable for the accuracy of it's depiction of the 1970s, right down to the products that were popular.
As you know from previous posts, I'm a fan of advertising, particularly the psychology; so I was delighted last night to see, on the office shelf of Gene Hunt, a bottle of the classic male fragrance Hai Karate. What tickled me was the memory of the advertisements, not just for Hai Karate, but for Denim - the other classic fragrance - both guaranteeing sexual conquest to the man wearing the fragrance. And there we have the great advertising truth: no matter how slick or technologically adept we have become at producing advertising material, the ad-men still appeal to those basest instincts, pushing the buttons deep inside us that we don't always know are there.
Sex, as it always has done, sells. Consequently the bedroom shelves of my testosterone driven sons and their mates contain Lynx. Equally I know that by adding the label 'sex' into this post I will receive far more hits than normal - sorry if you've come here under false pretences.
Now in their late teens my sons are old enough to sort out Mothering Sunday without my supervision, so I left them to it; though, I must add, not without a degree of anxiety.
On Sunday morning at 8am Tom stumbled out of bed, made Val breakfast, took the dog a walk and presented her with an arrangement of tulips. Matt followed not long after, washed up and volunteered to tidy the house while we were at church. Now to put this in context:
Mum (to Tom): Thanks love, they are really nice. Did you have a good time last night? Tom: Yeah thanks, the band were good, do you like your lillies? - dad said you liked lillies. Mum: Yes they are beautiful ermmm... Tom: What? Mum: Nothing, what time did you get in? Tom: About two....can I go back to bed now?
Mum (to Matt): Thanks love, they are really nice, you chose well, I love Thorntons. Matt: I'll tidy up when you are at church Mum: That's nice, did you have a good time last night, I didn't hear you come in. Matt: Brilliant, it was quite late... Mum: You look a bit pale, what time did you get in... Matt: Ermm... Mum: ? Matt: About four...
Tracy who writes Gwelva Kernewek recently reminded me of my first experience of dancing classes. I have sons; we have taken them to karate, acting, rock music and drumming at various times. We have never taken them to dancing classes - who is Angelina Ballerina? My boys think that grace and beauty is a V8 Twin-Turbo engine.
I have two nieces; they dance; and it was to their show at a local civic centre that we were invited. Sat plumb in the centre on the second row we had a perfect view of the stage and the proceedings. The event progressed in order of age, starting with the youngest, my youngest niece was four years at the time and was a 'Great Ball of Fire' in a choreographed routine to the tune of Jerry Lee Lewis's rock and roll classic. The costumes were spherical and fiery; the dancing tots were fabulously entertaining as the teachers tried to herd them like sheep in the correct direction
"To the left now girls; no, the other left Britney..."
The next age group included my older niece who was, I think, ten years at the time. This was a floaty balletic affair and, of course, my niece was the best and most floaty ballerina. It was during this performance that I noticed how parents and grandparents clapped along to the rhythm - of everything, no matter whether the tempo demanded it or not. The comments that accompanied the clapping demonstrated that it isn't just sport parents who are competitive:
"I don't think much of that fat lass, she keeps getting in the way of our Jade; you can 'ave a word with that teacher after, Terry."
"That Ibiza's mother hasn't made much of an effort with her costume 'as she. Well, it's not that she hasn't the time; doesn't work you know - although from what I've heard she finds plenty to do."
During the interval I checked the programme for the second half selection and started to feel uneasy. It seemed that the second half was to be the Senior Section, though what senior meant wasn't explicit. It is a simple matter to watch tots tottering around unselfconsciously - it is also a simple matter to know how to respond: laughing and oooing and ahhing. My fears were well founded.
The Senior Section consisted of girls aged fourteen plus (and, as you will see, I do mean plus). I know how to be the parent of boys and I know all about the pubescent happenings of the male species, having had the surprising and, sometimes, shocking experiences myself. What I do not know about however, is how to react when girls become women. Dancing requires Lycra; Lycra clings to every curve leaving no doubt about pubescent development. Teenage girls are greatly influenced by the erotic posturings to be seen in pop videos; whether they know what the posturings represent is another thing; but the moves are copied assiduously. The phrase 'I didn't know where to look' about sums up my response; I stared ahead like a rabbit caught in the headlights trying to adopt the sort of expression that a man who knows about dancing might have; thus I added comments along with the other parents "Well done." I said applauding, not knowing whether or not it was done well at all.
The final part of the show was the second half of the Senior Section: senior as in senior citizen, almost. These were grown-up ladies-who-dance and want to show everyone their dancing; not just satisfied with dancing for fun, or keeping fit, these mature ladies wanted to show off their talent at tap. It was awful; a tap dancing Lycra ladies' exercise class taking place feet from my face, this time I did know where to look, the spectacle was too much to miss it. I'm not sure what other people were thinking but in true Emporer's New Clothes style, an older man, presumably someone's grandfather, summed it up with his stage whisper,
"By gum, yon big lasses aren't shy are they."
I thought it might be fun to include this photograph, taken in our lounge, of me doing my rehabilitative physiotherapy exercises.
Popular gardening expert and TV presenter Sarah Raven produced a lovely book called Grow Your Own Cut Flowers a while back;it's beautifully photographed and contains excellent advice - but don't be fooled by her suggestion that Briza Maxima or Greater Quaking Grass is a useful addition to your garden. It does, as she says, look lovely in a cut flower arrangement, and its tear drop shaped seed heads rattle as they waft in a gentle summer breeze; but the plant has all the charm of Uma Thurman in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: beautiful but deadly, the plant is a garden thug.
The reason Briza Maxima rattles so fetchingly in the breeze is that the darling little tear drop seed heads are full of seeds; the plant is a prolific self seeder and this year, due to our mild winter, it has done exactly that, all winter. The garden is covered all over in a lush green growth of Greater Quaking Grass and has taken two whole days of weeding to get rid of it.
A lesson for life: do not be fooled by superficial beauty; always look for the big sword.
This Sunday, 11th March 2007, brass bands from across the North West of England will congregate at Blackpool's Winter Gardens for heats of the National Championships. Why do I tell you this? Because it is an important event in our part of the world.
The sound of a brass band playing is quintessential to the Northern shires; redolent of summer afternoons in the park or crisp winter days anticipating Christmas. But who are the people who make this music; who still goes to village halls or band clubs twice a week to rehearse; and for what purpose?
We each live in individual worlds that overlap others'; it is the overlapping of these worlds and the way in which that takes place, that defines how we live together. My sons play in brass bands, consequently the world of brass bands is significant to me. It was brought home to me, however, how far removed this world is from others' worlds when queuing to get into the Winter Gardens one year. Our turn came to pay the man at the entrance desk, looking like a throwback from a former age, with slicked back hair and a cigarette dangling from his mouth that tipped ash as he spoke; he asked:
"Are you chess, brass or George Formbys?";
and I realised in that moment that he didn't care which world we were in; indeed he lumped us together with other minority interests at the Winter Gardens the same day. Some of some of whose participants looked like they were short of daylight and fresh air; others dressed in 1940s clothing carrying ukulele cases...how could he rank brass bands with them?
But why would he know that brass bands matter, how they are inextricably linked with Britain's industrial heritage. The names of bands still echo that tradition: Grimethorpe Colliery Band or Fairey Engineering for example; of course if you Google Grimethorpe Colliery now you only get the band, not one sackful of coal. Players in today's bands are as likely to be nurses, electricians or call-centre workers as hard bitten manual workers from the pit face, but they continue the tradition, the shift in Britains industry is reflecting in the make up of the bands.
Yet, having queued to listen to the heats I wondered about the extent to which the brass band movement helps itself. The process of many brass band contests involves each band playing a test piece of music; they all play the same piece; sometimes the piece of music is dreadful and there may be twenty bands to listen to. It does take a particular type of madness to sit through twenty versions of the same tune trying to divine which is better than another; perhaps George Formby doesn't sound so bad after all.
This idea of dipping into different worlds is one of the reasons I like blogging and reading blogs; it gives me an insight into vastly varying lifestyles - but not, incidentally, so many different cultures, or am I not looking hard enough.
Away from the acutely competitive side of brass bands we should be grateful that the traditions persist, I for one say you can't beat a march contest on a summers day in a Yorkshire village with a glass of beer; hope to see you there.
We have a music group at church about which I promise I will write in the future. Today though, I was browsing YouTube for some Corrs songs that we are to cover at a social evening in March. I found some superb live versions but here is the star of my day. I loved the Zuton's last album, particularly the single Valerie (I'm biased; you may have noticed that my wife's name begins with the letter V), so browsing on I found this version recorded live, by Amy Winehouse, in someone's living room by the look of it.Not only has she got a stunning voice and cool tattoos; she has an engaging un-self concious way of singing that I love.
Sorry to go all parochial on you, but I've discovered a facility that is worth sharing. Oldham Freecycle is a Yahoo Group where, rather than take unwanted items to the tip, you can pass them on to someone who might have a use for it. Yesterday I got rid of a portable heater that had been lurking in the garage for ages. The whole thing from posting on the site to the nice chap collecting it took less than twelve hours.
I'm sure that there are similar schemes like this everywhere, I commend them to you!
P.S. If you do live close to Oldham there's a button at the bottom of this page somewhere - click on it to join.
My recent post Ten Years Younger featured my 'inner idiot'. Searching for an image for that post I came across a painting by the French impressionist artist, Chaim Soutine. The painting is titled L'idiot and depicts a young boy sat on a dining chair dressed in, what looks like, a sailor suit. The child has much bigger hands than might be expected and his head and ears don't look in proportion to the rest of his body. My guess is that this poor child had a learning disability. I found the brutally titled picture haunting and disturbing, as I wondered about the circumstances of the child's sitting for the portrait; he looks well dressed and, perhaps, was cared for by well off parents, though Sebastian Faulks' depiction of one of the central character's mental illness in his novel Human Traces, set in late 19th centuryFrance makes me wonder.
I like to watch TV advertisements; I like it almost as much as I enjoy the programmes they interrupt; I like trying to work out the target audiences and influencing factors that advertisers use. For instance, the other evening an advertisement baffled me. Why would anyone want a product that reduced the appearance of scars? Yet unsolicited testimonials praised the efficacy of Bio-Oil.
"What?" I incredulously railed at the TV set, "My scars are fading quickly enough as it is; twenty six stitches and clips, at this rate, I'll have nothing to show-off when I finally get back to work."
Clearly, men were not the target audience for this product; men would have bought it immediately if the blurb had read: 'Bio-Oil, make your scars tell your suffering.' Or perhaps 'Bio-Oil, because you've suffered', that would have had men queuing out of the door at Boots; they could have sold off a stall outside the local Accident and Emergency department. Another favourite of mine at the moment is the advertisement that makes constipation look like a lifestyle choice. In the advertisment for DulcoEase a group of well dressed, comfortably off ladies-who-lunch, are shown enjoying a lifestyle that many aspire to thanks solely to the ablility of the product to make it easier for them to...well, you know.
With no apparent strain, the advertisers have stolen what used to be sketch material for gritty northern comics and made it look unseemly to snigger at toileting. You can picture the sort of thing:
A dowdily dressed woman hesitantly approaches the busy pharmacy counter and, having built up her courage, whispers something to the assistant who, in a broad northern voice, shouts to the pharmacist in the rear:
"Mr Barker, lady here says she can't go, 'ave we anything to 'elp 'er" The pharmacist mutters something back which the assistant repeats: "'e says is it 'ard or soft?"
The woman, having now committed herself to a course of action, persists; you can imagine the rest.
But now constipation is out of the closet, we can march up to the chemist's counter with pride and declaim our difficult passage in the full knowledge that people will admire us for it.
