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End of the Month: Cheerio June with Nell Peters

June seems to be all but over? Anyone notice that happen? Nope? Nor me..I was probably in a dark corner somewhere writing a book…

Everyone ready? Got coffee, tea and cake? Great, let’s hand over to Nell. 

Morning all – I trust this finds you in fine fettle?

If it’s OK with Jenny, we’ll dive straight in shall we?

Two American professional wrestlers were born on this day in 1891. Frank Simmons Leavitt was born in New York City to parents, John McKenney and Henrietta (née Decker) Leavitt. He tried out various wrestling names for size: Soldier Leavitt (when he was on active duty both at the Mexican border and in France), Hell’s Kitchen Bill-Bill and Stone Mountain, before adopting Man Mountain Dean after meeting his wife, Doris Dean. I don’t know about mountainous, but at 5’11” and 310lbs, he wasn’t a small guy… As well as his wrestling career, he worked as a stunt double, appeared as himself in five films and studied journalism at the University of Georgia. He died of a heart attack, aged sixty-one.

Sharing his date of birth was Robert Herman Julius Friedrich, born in Wisconsin. Friedrich began wrestling at the age of fourteen using the ring name Ed Lewis but was subsequently known as the rather more sinister Ed Strangler Lewis after a match in France where he applied a sleeper hold, and the French, who were unfamiliar with the manoeuvre, thought he was strangling his opponent. Call me picky, but that doesn’t sound very sporting. A four-time World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion, he semi-retired in 1935 but returned to the ring seven years later, despite being legally blind from trachoma. It was another five years before he fully retired from the professional circuit aged fifty-seven, and he died destitute in New York in 1966. Ah bless.

Two more American wrestlers were born on June 30th – in 1985 Cody Garrett Runnels (now known as Cody Rhodes, or The American Nightmare) checked into Marietta, Georgia. He followed in his father – Virgil Riley Runnels Junior, better known as The American Dream (I see what they did there!) or Dusty Rhodes – and his older half-brother Goldust’s footsteps, into the professional ranks of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. (WWE). Cody’s godfather, Terry Wayne Allan is a retired pro wrestler who fought under the name of Magnum TA – so, it seems an aptitude for the sport and coming up with creative ring names are family traits.

Incidentally, Cody is also an ‘occasional’ actor (whatever that means – maybe he appears annually as the Easter Bunny, the Grim Reaper on Halloween, or even Poldark’s shirt?) and this wrestling/acting combination, with a bit of modelling thrown in, has also been embraced by one Victoria Elizabeth Crawford (ring name Alicia Fox), born on this day in 1986 in Florida. She is the longest tenured WWE female performer, having been with the company since 2006.

Step into the ring – the boxing type this time – heavyweight fighter, ‘The Greatest’ Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Marcellus Clay Junior, which he denounced as his slave name) who defeated Joe Bugner in Malaysia on 30th June 1975. Presumably he floated like a butterfly, stung like a bee?

Clay’s name change came about when he converted to Islam, as did Michael Gerard Tyson, who will need fifty-two candles for his cake today. He’s of course better known as Mike Tyson, alias ‘The Baddest Man on the Planet’. (By coincidence, I am known en famille as ‘The Baddest Cook on the Planet.’) One of his several dubious claims to fame was when he was disqualified during a World Boxing Association championship rematch in 1997, for biting Evander Holyfield’s ear – now that’s definitely not sporting! He has a bit of a dodgy history in his personal life too, but we won’t go into that here, as it’s a family show. It was during one of his banged-up spells that he converted to Islam – that’s OK then.

Another sportsman who has spent time on the Very Naughty Step is former National Football League running back, OJ (Orenthal James) Simpson, whose pre-trial hearing for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman began this day in 1994. Unless you’ve been living on Mars for the last twenty-odd years, you will know that Simpson was found Not Guilty by a criminal trial jury, but was subsequently deemed responsible for both deaths by a unanimous jury deliberating a civil lawsuit, filed by the Brown and Goldman families in 1997. They were awarded compensatory and punitive damages totalling $33.5 million (not far short of $52 million now), but have received only a tiny percentage of that.

OJ did go to jail, however; in 2007, he was convicted of multiple felonies, including use of a deadly weapon to commit kidnapping, burglary and armed robbery. Yikes! He was sentenced to a minimum nine, maximum thirty-three years (how does that work?) in Lovelock Correctional Centre, Nevada and was released on parole on 1st October 2017.

Who keeps up with the Kardashians? The late patriarch Robert K was part of his friend OJ’s defence team during the 90s murder trial. Although he had let his licence to practice law lapse before the case came to court to concentrate on business interests, he reactivated it to sit in as a volunteer assistant on the legal ‘dream team’. I’ve never seen the reality programme (I’m more of a Come Dine with Me fan tbh – love the voiceover) so had to research it (though I drew the line at actually watching!) – there’s a cast of thousands!

There appear to be six offspring – some are Ks and some are Jenners, on account of mum Kris’s two marriages, the first to Robert and the second to Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner. All five daughters have names beginning with K like their mum (or mom) and the only son, Rob was obviously named after his dad – lucky escape, as he could have ended up as a Kayne … oh wait, they have one of those by marriage. The show apparently focuses on the personal and professional lives of the Kardashian–Jenner ‘blended’ family, though what any of them actually do I’ve no idea and frankly don’t care. For me, the most surprising thing is that the programme has run for nearly eleven years. Seriously?

Enough of tinsel town. In 1971 Ohio became the 38th US state to approve the lowering of the voting age to eighteen (1970 in the UK), thus ratifying the 26th amendment. (I will refrain from mentioning here that the prefrontal cortex, which amongst other things assesses and judges consequences of decisions made, is nowhere near mature at eighteen, being the last area of the brain to fully develop.)

This was on the same day that the crew of Russian space mission Soyuz 11 were found dead upon their return to Earth – the only people to die in space.  In the early hours, the Soviet Union prepared to welcome its three latest cosmonaut heroes after a record-breaking mission; Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev had spent more than twenty-three days in orbit, and also occupied the world’s first space station.

The parachute of Soyuz 11’s descent module was spotted and helicopters touched down for would-be rescuers to make their way to the spacecraft, still superheated and charred from re-entry. Nikolai Kamanin, commander of the cosmonaut team, and veteran cosmonaut Alexei Yeliseyev, waited more than an hour for news of a successful recovery, only to hear three numbers: 1-1-1, which translated as the entire crew being dead. The subsequent investigation determined that an air vent had been jerked open during the separation of the orbital and descent modules and that all three men had been dead for some time from suffocation. How dreadfully sad.

Happily, safety in space travel has much improved and UK astronaut, Tim Peake became the first Briton to join a European Space Agency mission in December 2015, when he blasted into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. He spent six months on the International Space Station (ISS) and during that time the 44-year-old former helicopter test pilot took part in more than two hundred and fifty experiments. He also ran the London Marathon on a treadmill and engaged more than a million schoolchildren with educational activities – I thought he was brilliant. One of the highlights of Peake’s time in space was a space walk with Nasa astronaut Tim Kopra. While their repair work on the outside of the station was a success, mission controllers cut the walk short after Kopra noticed water leaking into his helmet. Peake will return for another stint on the space station, probably in 2019.

At the beginning of this month, the latest successful ISS mission was completed when a Soyuz capsule carrying Russian Anton Shkaplerov, American Scott Tingle and Japanese Norishige Kanai floated down to Earth after more than five months, landing in Kazakhstan. Footage from within the ISS had shown Shkaplerov practicing with a football, which he was reportedly going to take back to Moscow for the opening game of the World Cup.

Back on terra firma, on the last day of June 1984, Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott (known as Pierre) Trudeau officially stepped down as Liberal (15th) Prime Minister of Canada after serving two separate terms for a total of fifteen years. He was a charismatic personality described as a ‘swinging young bachelor’ when first elected in 1968 – even though he was almost forty-nine – and dated Barbra Streisand. However, he married much younger TV presenter Margaret Sinclair in March 1971 and they had three sons, the oldest being Justin, current PM. He and middle son, Alexandre (aka Sacha) were both born on Christmas Day, in 1971 and 1973 respectively, poor things – as #4 son (born on Christmas Eve) says, you have to wait all year and everything comes at once. The third Trudeau son, Michel was born in October 1975, but was tragically killed aged only twenty-three in a skiing accident. His body was never found.

Nothing to do with June 30th, but Michel Trudeau’s lost-forever body reminded me of Harold Edward Holt, ditto. I came across him a few years ago when I was researching for a book, never having heard of him beforehand. Harold was Liberal (17th) Prime Minister of Australia from January 1966 until his disappearance in December 1967 when he got caught in a rip current, swimming at Cheviot Beach, Victoria.

Although he was a strong swimmer, he had injured his shoulder at the time, but that didn’t stop the conspiracy theorists coming up with such gems as he was abducted by aliens, faked his own death to run off with his mistress, was assassinated by the CIA or (my favourite!) had been whisked away by a Chinese submarine so that he could defect. Holt was big pals with the US President at the time, Democrat Lyndon B Johnson (in contrast to his frosty relationship with UK Labour PM Harold Wilson, whose widow, Mary died earlier this month aged 102!) and supported the American presence in Vietnam, pledging ‘All the way with LBJ’. It wasn’t until 2005 that an inquest ruled Holt’s death as accidental drowning.

Staying Down Under, I’ll just mention here that Olivia Newton John married  businessman, John Easterling on this day in 2008 in Florida – that’s exactly thirty-three years after Cher married singer-songwriter Gregg Allman, having divorced Sonny Bono four days earlier. And the beat goes on…

Toodles!

NP

***

Another epic end of the month blog! Thanks so much Nell.

See you next time for our mutual birthday month!!

Happy reading,

Jenny xx

Opening Lines: Country Rose by Nell Peters

Don’t panic- it isn’t the end of the month!!

Nell Peters is with me today to share her ‘Opening Lines’ rather than her bloggish wisdom. So, get cosy to read the beginning of Nell’s work in progress- Country Rose.

 

Hello! How strange to be lurking on Jen’s blog in the middle of the month. Why am I here? Oh yes, it’s Opening Lines …

I’ve chosen Country Rose, the third book in a psychological/crime series and a work in progress – although in truth, the progress bit has been somewhat lacking over the last year or more. My protagonist is DCI Rose Huntingford, an atypical murder detective who’ll not see forty again and who wages a constant but losing battle with her weight, amongst other things. I’m very fond of her.

The real Rose was my paternal Great Grandmother, born in Kingston upon Thames workhouse in 1876. She and her single mother – also Rose and also born in the workhouse – must have experienced an unimaginable degree of poverty and hardship in those patriarchal Victorian days of extreme inequality. However, it seems Rose was made of stern stuff because she pulled herself up by the bootstraps and married a wealthy landowner. Well done her! The only picture I have of Rose is when she’s in her fifties, I would guess.

Blurb for Country Rose:

Rose Huntingford has taken a sabbatical following the violent death of a colleague, and rented a cottage away from it all hoping for a quiet life, while dangerously unaware that someone is watching her every move. When an old lag seeks her out to claim he didn’t commit the murder for which he was imprisoned, he winds up dead in her garden, before Rose herself is viciously attacked. And his corpse is just the first, as skeletons aplenty fall from cupboards and the past comes back to haunt those who wrongly thought they were safe from detection after so many years.

Because this is a WIP, I have roughed (very rough!) up a cover – use of (non-copyright) image with thanks to www.pixcove.com 

 

 

First 500 words…

Glancing up briefly at a sky the colour of a dirty dishrag, Rose tossed a generous handful of bird seed in a low arc, and immediately had to intervene as referee when an unseemly scramble ensued, ‘Hey Jasper, ladies first – remember your manners!’ When he ignored her, she resorted to flattery, ‘You’re looking very dapper this morning, by the way.’ She could have sworn the cockerel’s chest swelled with exaggerated masculine pride.

How typical of the male of any species.

Poking his head around the back door, and giving The Watcher a nasty moment, Drew mock-frowned at her; he didn’t need to say ‘you know you’re talking to the chickens, right?’ because his expression did that most eloquently on his behalf. She grinned, shame-faced. ‘Can you pass me the bag of meal worms, please?’

He reached back to the counter and lobbed it her way, ‘There you go. How come you feed them before me?’

‘You are quite capable of getting your own breakfast, whereas Pavlova, Svetlana and Jasper might struggle turning the gas on.’

‘There’s no hope for you … fancy coming back to bed, take pity on a condemned man?’

She shivered in the cool March breeze and pulled her coat firmly around her girth, ‘If you’re hoping for a sympathy shag, you’re out of luck. I promised to meet Liz in town to have coffee and check over wedding stuff, most importantly outfits.’

Once inside, Drew closed the door behind them, ‘Hers or yours?’

‘Both – since I’m Best Woman, we should at least co-ordinate.’ She dragged her coat off by the sleeves and flung it over a chair back.

‘I can’t believe she didn’t invite me.’ His bottom lip jutted like a spoiled child unused to being denied their own way.

Rose shrugged, ‘She can’t stand you, never could – as you well know, and you really don’t help yourself in that respect with your smart-arse remarks – so when I said you’d most likely be out of the country anyway, she didn’t bother wasting an invitation.’

‘But I’d have been your ‘Plus One’! Just an extra flick of the pen away … unless Rob Roy is hoping to dive in there?’

Ah, lovely Rob Carnegie – what are you doing these days?

‘For goodness sake, will you drop it – I’ll almost certainly go on my own. Have you finished packing?’

‘Now you’re trying to get rid of me – I know when I’m not wanted.’ He sniffed loudly, chronically overacting.

Rose was starting to feel tetchy, a combination of dreading Drew leaving so that she’d be on her own again twenty-four seven, and annoyance at his constant probing – which she accepted was a totally unreasonable reaction, after he’d been such a stellar support to her when she’d hit rock bottom, following Lydia’s death. However, she knew deep down that he really did have her best interests at heart and so made a supreme effort to appear bright and breezy, ‘Toast and scrambled eggs?’

‘If you’re sure the chickens won’t object?’

***

If the Opening Lines of Country Rose grab you and you’d like to read the self-published prequels, you can find them here:

Double You (Book I)       www.myBook.to/doubleyou

Santa’s Slays (Book 2)     www.myBook.to/santa

Thank you for having me, Jenny – great idea for a blog series!

Toodles. NP

***

Thanks Nell! Brilliant as ever.

Don’t forget to come back next Thursday for more Opening Lines with Heide Goody

Happy reading,

Jenny xx

 

End of the Month: Nell Peters is thinking April

Hang on a minute…no one asked my permission for time to pass so quickly! I am sure I should have finished this years novel by now. I obviously spend too much time reading Nell Peters’ blogs!

Why not procrastinate with me and enjoy this months fabulous end of the month special.

Over to you Nell…

 

Another month gone! Toodles, April 2018 – it’s been …

Anyone planning to watch the Eurovision Song Contest in May, coming from Portugal? I have to confess I haven’t bothered with it for many, many years – my bad.

I didn’t know that Canadian, Celine Dion won the contest in Dublin on 30th April 1988 for Switzerland (how does that work?), beating the UK entry by just one point. Yikes, that’s thirty years ago! She sang Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi (don’t leave without me) in the Simmonscourt Pavilion of the Royal Dublin Society, which was normally used for agricultural and horse shows. I just know a joke lurks there, but sadly it eludes me. Maybe just as well.

The same venue hosted the 1981 contest, but when the performers lined up to take part in the 39th sing-off in 1994, also on 30th April, it was held at the Point Theatre, Dublin. Perhaps having the psychological advantage of being on home ground helped, because Ireland won for the third consecutive year, when Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan warbled a number called Rock ‘N Roll Kids, composed by Brendan Graham.

That doesn’t ring even a vague bell for me, but the interval entertainment certainly does – the first ever performance of the Irish dancing spectacular Riverdance, featuring the Lord of the Dance himself, Michael Flatley, and Jean Butler. They are both American, although Flatley has duel US/Irish citizenship. He hung up his tap shoes at the end of 2015, after an incredible forty-six years of performing and suffering a whole range of orthopaedic problems over the course of his career – he’ll be sixty in July.

The last day of April features randomly in Dutch history, starting in 1804 when The New Hague Theatre opened. The Hague (Den Haag) is on the western coast of the Netherlands and nowadays is the capital of South Holland province; with a metropolitan population of more than a million, it is the third-largest Dutch city, after the capital Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Hague is home to the Cabinet, States General, Supreme Court, and the Council of State, most foreign embassies and the International Court of Justice, plus the International Criminal Court. It is also one of the host cities to the United Nations.

In 1905 on this day Holland played Belgium at soccer in the first of what would become a twice-yearly match, known as a Lowlands Derby.

The Netherlands won the International Friendly 4-1, but the next time the teams played on 30th April – in 1975, the Belgians were victorious, scoring the only goal of the game. According to statistics published in 2016, the Netherlands had won a total of fifty-six games, Belgium forty-one and thirty matches ended in a draw.

Moving along, wee Juliana Louise Emma Marie Wilhelmina was born on 30 April 1909, at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague to the reigning Dutch monarch, Queen Wilhelmina, and her husband Duke Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. She was the first Dutch royal baby since Wilhelmina herself was born in 1880 and as an only child, remained heir presumptive from birth. On her eighteenth birthday in 1927, Princess Juliana officially came of age and was entitled to assume the royal prerogative; two days later her mother installed her in the Council of State (Raad van State.) She reigned as queen from September 1948 until abdicating in favour of her first-born daughter (of four) Beatrix, on her seventy-first birthday in 1980 – the same day that the Iranian Embassy siege began in London.

Celebrations of the national holiday, Queen’s Day (Koninginnedag) on 30th April 2009 turned mighty sour when 38-year-old Dutch national Karst Roeland Tates, drove his car at high speed into a parade which included Queen Beatrix, her son and heir Prince Willem-Alexander and other royals at Apeldoorn. Narrowly missing the royal family, the vehicle ploughed through people lining the street before colliding with a monument, killing eight (including the driver) and causing multiple injuries. It was the first attack on the Dutch royal family in modern times and happened on the same day that the UK formally ended combat operations in Iraq. Exactly four years later in 2013, Beatrix abdicated in favour of her son, who became the first male monarch in one hundred and twenty-three years.

Cloris Leachman

One year before (the then) Princess Juliana’s eighteenth birthday, American actress and comedienne Cloris Leachman was born in Des Moines, Iowa – she’s celebrating her ninety-second birthday today. A former beauty queen, award-winning Leachman’s stage and screen credits are numerous, including Lassie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Rawhide, The Last Picture Show, Malcolm in the Middle, Young Frankenstein and The Muppets. Living in Canada, I watched US TV and remember her from The Mary Tyler Moore Show and her character’s spin-off sitcom, Phyllis – very funny lady, IMO.

Judy Garland

Somewhere along the line, she managed to have four sons and a daughter with her now ex-husband, director and screenwriter George Englund – best pal of Marlon Brando. During the 1960s, the Englunds were Bel Air neighbours of Judy Garland, her third husband Sid Luft, and their children, Lorna and Joey, (their half-sister being Liza Minelli.) Lorna Luft wrote in her 1998 memoir Me and My Shadow: A Family Memoir, that Leachman was ‘the kind of mom I’d only seen on TV’. Knowing of the turmoil at the Garland home but never mentioning it, Leachman prepared meals for the Luft children and made them feel welcome whenever they needed a place to stay. Awesome …

Rather younger than Cloris at thirty-six, American/German actress Kirsten Dunst also celebrates her birthday today, as does Canadian actor, singer and dancer Andrew Michael Edgar (Drew) Seeley who shares Kirsten’s date of birth. Could have been worse; I share my date of birth with Texan serial killer Genene Jones, who is currently serving a ninety-nine year prison sentence for multiple child murder. Bringing up the rear, today UK comedian Leigh Francis (better known as Keith Lemon) will have forty-five candles on his cake – a lemon sponge, perhaps? So sorry.

Drifting slightly off-piste, on 30th April 1988, the first Californian condor conceived in captivity was hatched at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. The avian celebrity was called Moloko, being the Northern Maidu Indian word for condor, thus acknowledging their respect for the birds. It was an immensely expensive project to save the condor from extinction, running to millions of dollars. Might I suggest this was the Day of the Condor? You’re right – I won’t do any such thing.

In July 1993, British forensic scientists announced that they had positively identified the remains of Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II, along with his wife, Tsarina Alexandra and three of their daughters. The team used mitochondria DNA fingerprinting to identify the bones, excavated from a mass grave near Yekaterinburg in 1991. It was on the night of July 17 1918 – almost a hundred years ago – that three centuries of the Romanov dynasty came to an end when Bolshevik troops executed Nicholas and his family, plus servants, almost certainly on the orders of Lenin – the details of the execution, along with the location of their final resting place remained a Soviet secret for more than six decades.

To prove the identity of Alexandra and her children, scientists took blood from Prince Philip, her grand nephew. Because they all share a common maternal ancestor, they would also share mitochondria DNA, which is passed almost unchanged from mother to child. The Tsar was identified by exhuming and testing the remains of his brother, Grand Duke George. That left Crown Prince Alexei and one Romanov daughter, Anastasia, unaccounted for – apparently it wasn’t her cavorting with Christian Grey in Fifty Shades.

Anna Anderson

Nor was it Anna Anderson, a Polish woman who persistently claimed (amongst others less convincing) to be the Grand Duchess. She moved to Virginia, USA and died there in 1984, still maintaining her spurious heritage. On 30 April 2008, Russian forensic scientists confirmed that DNA from remains they’d tested belonged to Alexei and his sister Anastasia. This followed the discovery in August 2007 of two burned, partial skeletons at a site near Yekaterinburg. Archaeologists identified the bones as from a boy roughly between ten and thirteen at the time of his death and a young woman aged between eighteen and twenty-three years old. Alexei and Anastasia were thirteen and seventeen years respectively, when they were killed.

Aleksei

Incidentally, Alexei had inherited haemophilia B from his mother Alexandra, a condition that could be traced back to her maternal grandmother, Queen Victoria. He had to be careful not to injure himself because he lacked factor IX, one of the proteins necessary for blood to clot. It was so severe that trivial injuries like a bruise, nosebleed or tiny cut were potentially life-threatening and two naval officers were assigned to supervise him to help prevent injuries.  They also carried him around when he was unable to walk. As well as being a source of constant worry to his parents, the recurring episodes of poor health and recovery significantly interfered with the boy’s education. According to his French tutor Pierre Gilliard, the nature of his illness was kept a state secret.

Disgustingly healthy #2 GD was five on 26/4 (which doesn’t seem possible!) and her birthday party was held on Saturday – she discovered ten pin bowling when we took her during the Christmas holidays and asked to have her party there. #3 son specifically timed his periodic trip home from foreign parts so that he could attend, in his capacity as everyone’s favourite uncle. Must say it was quite painless, as staff organised invitations, food, party bags etc – all the parents had to do was herd the guests from shoe swap to lanes and back again, on to the restaurant, provide a cake and pay the bill. Oh, and make sure none of the little dears sustained injury when heaving too-heavy balls around – plus it’s advisable to have at least one adult stationed to the rear of lanes requisitioned for party use, primed to dive in and rescue any child who gets their fingers caught in the holes and ends up gliding majestically toward skittles and machinery.

Tomorrow, of course, hails the beginning of May and for us the most horrendous month for family and friends’ birthdays! I’m off now to empty my money box …

Thanks again for having me, Jen – and toodles y’all!

NP

www.Author.to/nellpeters 

***

Many thanks as ever Nell!!

Happy reading everyone. 

(Note to self- work faster, it’s nearly June!!!)

Jen xx

End of the Month: March Madness with Nell Peters

It’s that time again! What wonders does Nell Peters have to share with us this month?

Grab that cuppa and get cosy!

Over to you Nell…

Morning all – and happy Easter Eve, on the ninetieth day of the year! I was going to say Easter Saturday, but apparently that’s the one that follows Easter Sunday. Not a lot of people know that, or maybe it’s just me. I don’t imagine too many folk will be around today, so who shall we be rude about? Perish the thought … although a few candidates spring to mind.

Anyone heard of the Bangorian Controversy? I confess I hadn’t. It all began when the Bishop of Bangor, one Benjamin Hoadly, delivered a sermon on 31st March 1717 to King George I. His focus was The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ, taken from John 18:36; ‘My kingdom is not of this world’. Hoadly’s interpretation was that there’s no justification in the scriptures for church government in any form, because Christ did not delegate His authority to any representatives. There are a few church bods who should perhaps take note? Whatever, obviously this was a pretty contentious viewpoint, hence the controversy bit – one of the main objectors being a chap called Thomas Sherlock (Dean of Chichester), whose name naturally appealed to my pathetic sense of humour.

The Bangor in question is the one in Wales, as opposed to County Down, Northern Ireland, which is why the item attracted my attention in the first place. If I had a quid for every time I’d passed through the station there, I could buy you all a slice of Welsh rarebit. This was while sons #1 and 2 were boarders at Indefatigable School, Bangor being the nearest train stop to the school’s location in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, although there is still a disused station there where tourists pose for pics in front of the sign. From Bangor it was a taxi ride over the Menai Suspension Bridge (Thomas Telford, 1826) to Anglesey and the seat of learning, housed in what used to be the Marquis of Anglesey’s sprawling estate. All very beautiful in the summer, but slightly grim during winter months. Llanfair PG (local shorthand) translates as ‘Saint Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio of the red cave’. Fancy that.

The one hundred and forty-two pupil establishment was run strictly in the naval tradition, with all boys and some staff wearing appropriate uniforms, and areas of the school referred to in nautical terms – most obviously the kitchens as the galley. All this was in homage to the original school being aboard a ship called Indefatigable, moored on the Mersey in Liverpool from 1864. In those days the ethos was to offer poor boys a home and education to equip them for a life in the Merchant Navy. Incidentally, it was on this day in 1972 that the rum ration in the Royal Canadian Navy was discontinued, and in the UK the official Beatles fan club (if I mention Yellow Submarine that’s a link to the sea-faring theme, right?) was closed – just thought I’d toss in those facts for good measure.

Where was I, ah yes – dry land Indefatigable sleeping quarters were called dorms (as opposed to cabins or similar) and there was a nocturnal fire in Raleigh House during #1’s residence. Try as he might, the Housemaster couldn’t rouse the boy as flames licked around ancient timbers, and ended up physically dragging him from his bunk (no hammocks!) Miraculously, no one was hurt and damage was contained. Said heroic Housemaster, Chris Holliday, was Head of English; he is now retired and enjoying a comparatively stress-free life in northern France with his dog, Einstein – we chat every now and again on FB. Chris and I that is, Einstein being more into Snapchat.

With grounds stretching down to the shores of the Menai Strait (Afon Menai), water sports and seamanship skills featured strongly in the curriculum, along with more mundane academic subjects. While #1 did well, became deputy head boy and left with a slew of impressive results en route for uni, #2 decided to buck the system and rebel. His biggest claim to fame – definitely one of his less bright ideas – was to lead a bid for freedom at the dead of night. Picture several thirteen year-old boys on foot traipsing down narrow, largely unlit, winding country lanes and over the bridge to Bangor, in a haphazard crocodile formation; those tiny roads are scary enough driving in daylight! When the intrepid ones reached Boots’ car park, inspiration deserted them and eventually a member of the public alerted the school – presumably, one of the lads was daft enough to wear part of the school uniform for ease of identification. The Great Escape that never was; I think I prefer the Steve McQueen version.

Coincidentally, some years before the sons’ time at the school, Super Blogger Anne Williams was studying at Bangor Grammar School for Girls, whose pupils used to be invited to Indefatigable school discos to trip the light fantastic with the older boys. What a weeny world this is, forsooth. The school is now occupied by the MoD, after it closed unexpectedly during the summer of the year we moved from London to Norfolk – and so after hasty negotiations, #2 went from being a pupil living several hour’s travel and hundreds of miles away from his school, to literally being over the road.

#3 was home for ten days at the beginning of March, catching up with his boss at the company’s UK base, as he does every now and again. He flew out of Bangkok in temperatures of 34 degrees C and landed at Heathrow early next morning in -1C and snow – nine minutes early after a thirteen hour flight.

Not too shabby, although he was with Thai Air and it was a dry flight because of Buddhist’s Day – something he learned to his horror only when he checked in and went off in search of his customary pre-flight pint of Guinness. From Heathrow, he then had a three hour drive back to Norfolk in scary conditions. The same day, a friend’s son flew from Germany to Heathrow en route for Edinburgh and his stag do. Alas, the guys were all stranded in London. Seriously? Air Canada pilots regularly land on six feet of solid ice!

While home, #3 did the usual rounds of brothers, plus nieces and nephews in his capacity as everyone’s favourite uncle – he spoils them rotten and lets them get away with murder. #4 had moved house since his big brother was last home and so received much gratis advice on interior redecoration; I didn’t notice anything as practical or exhausting as a paintbrush being wielded, though.

11th March was Mother’s Day in the UK and as has become a tradition, #4 arranged (for want of a better word!) my flowers in a lime green plastic jug thingy from Ikea, that the OH bought many years ago because he thought I’d like the shape. Shape is OK – hate the colour. When #4 was thirteen, he got his first pay packet from his paper round the day before MD, raided Tesco on his way home and put the flowers he’d bought into the Ikea jug. It was the first thing he saw as he charged through the kitchen en route for his room – where the flowers remained overnight, with his window wide open so they remained fresh. As if this house isn’t cold enough!

Our nomad (he’s getting far too much publicity in this blog!) flew back to Bangkok on 11/3, leaving at crazy o’clock in the morning. So, my celebration actually stretched from Friday night dinner, through Saturday lunch and on into Sunday, with various sons and their families appearing whenever they could, combining MD with saying adios to their brother. It was a brilliant weekend! Because he isn’t home for Easter (holiday in Sri Lanka, if you please!) I have had to warn him that the bunny may not have enough petrol in the Eggmobile to deliver his chocs. However, the annual Easter Egg Hunt will take place here, the Grands searching for spoils in what GD #2 refers to as ‘the dark forest’ – in reality a rather more mundane area of perhaps fifteen tall trees.

The Grand National has been run several times on 31st March, starting in 1905 (the 67th race) when it was won by Frank Mason riding Kirkland. The 116th race in 1962 was won by Fred Winter on Kilmore; 127th by Brian Fletcher on Red Rum in 1973; 133rd by Maurice Barnes on Rubstic in 1979, and in 1984 the 138th race was won by Neale Doughty on Hallo Dandy. Since 1839 the Grand National – a National Hunt horse race – has been run annually at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, with the exception of war years 1916-18 and 1941-45, when the land was requisitioned for military use.

It is a handicap steeplechase run over 6.907 km with horses jumping 30 fences over two laps and is the most valuable jump race in Europe, with a prize fund of £1 million in 2017 – note to self: learn how to ride a horse, although at 5’9” I may be a little tall to be a jockey.

I know nothing about horse racing, but even I’ve heard of Red Rum (and Shergar, who disappeared in February, 1983!), the horse that holds the record number of Grand National wins – in 1973, 1974 and 1977, coming second in 1975 and 1976. Plus for sixteen years he held the record for completing the course in the fastest time of 9 minutes and 1.9 seconds. The race is notoriously difficult and has been described as ‘the ultimate test of a horse’s courage’, but Red Rum’s jumping prowess was legendary; not one tumble in a hundred races. He was retired before the 1978 National after suffering a hairline fracture the day before the race.

However, he had already become a national celebrity, opening supermarkets and leading the Grand National parade for many years. He even switched on the Blackpool Illuminations in 1977 – no mean feat with cumbersome hooves, I imagine.

When the horse died on 18 October 1995 (aged 30) it was announced in the national press and he was subsequently buried at the Aintree winning post, with an epitaph that reads, ‘Respect this place / this hallowed ground / a legend here / his rest has found / his feet would fly / our spirits soar / he earned our love for evermore’.

Multi award winning actor and Scot, Ewan McGregor celebrates his forty-seventh birthday today, although it may be a slightly subdued affair since he filed for divorce earlier this year after twenty-two years of marriage and four daughters, only to be unceremoniously dumped by his new love interest. Hey-ho. His film, TV and theatre credits are impressive, including Trainspotting, The Ghost Writer and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, plus later versions of Star Wars, to name very few. His maternal uncle, Denis Lawson appeared in the original Star Wars. McGregor is heavily involved in charity work, including UNICEF, visiting some of their projects during the motor bike documentaries he made with mate Charley Boorman.

Another actor born today is American Gabriel (Gabe) Kaplan – he’s seventy-three. In Montreal, I remember watching him in an American TV series called Welcome Back Kotter – he played the eponymous role of Gabe (no chance of forgetting his character’s name) Kotter, a teacher who returned to his alma mater in New York to teach a remedial class of loafers, called Sweathogs. As a member of the original group of Sweathogs, Kotter befriended the current bunch and over time got his unruly pupils to realise their potential. The Sweathogs’ unofficial leader was Vinnie Barbarino, a cocky Italian-American, fan of Star Trek and resident heartthrob of the group. The part was played by one John Travolta (pre Saturday Night Fever and Grease etc), who was in real life a high school dropout.

Our third and final thespian birthday is another American, Rhea Perlman, who is seventy. She is separated from husband Danny DeVito with whom she has two daughters and a son. At 5’0” she’d probably stand more chance than me of riding in the Grand National – and DDV is even shorter, although a tad overweight. Perlman’s career began off-Broadway in tiny parts until her first notable TV (recurring) part as Zena, the girlfriend of Louie De Palma (played by DeVito), in Taxi. But her most memorable role has to be that of wisecracking Carla Tortelli, waitress in a sitcom set in ex-baseball player Sam Malone’s Boston bar. And that’s my last word on the subject – Cheers!

Thanks for having me, Jen – not too many Easter eggs, now.

Toodles.

NP

www.Author.to/nellpeters 

***

Huge thanks Nell- as ever. 

As if I’d eat too many eggs….wipes chocolate from chin…

Happy reading,

Jenny x

 

End of the Month Blog: Farewell February

Another month has whizzed by with lightening speed – and a few coughs and colds (and a broken foot in my case)

Let’s see what the lovely Nell Peters has to say for herself this month…

Over to you Nell…

Hi y’all! Good to see you again, on this last day of February – 28th, as it’s not a Leap Year (just in case you hadn’t noticed). The proposals will have to wait, ladies.

Let’s dive straight in, shall we? Looking at a web site listing those with birthdays today, I noticed quite a few of them described as YouTube or Instagram stars – seriously? Needless to say, they’re all very young, mostly American, and I’ve never heard of any of them. Best of all, however, has to be Australian Kai Saunders, seventeen today, whose slightly iffy claim to fame is that he’s a Scooter Rider. My first thought was that the older Grands are scooter riders also – even I can ride a scooter, though it’s been a while – but I hope their achievements later in life will be a little more worthy and substantial. Kai’s mini bio includes the info that he rides for Phoenix Pro Scooters who competed at the Auckland Street Jam in 2017. Now we know.

I wonder if TV chef Ainsley Harriott will be baking his own birthday cake today – he’ll need sixty-one candles. Born in London of Jamaican heritage, as well as training and working as a chef, he dabbled in comedy and singing and formed the duo Calypso Twins with old school friend, Paul Boross. They released a hit record in the early 1990s and went on to be regular performers at the Comedy Store, before crossing the pond to appear on American TV and radio shows. It was via radio that his prolific UK TV career was launched. And he never seems to stop smiling that brilliant smile.

Celebrating his seventy-eighth birthday today is Barry Fantoni, whom I knew very briefly eons ago. As a gangly late teen, I was at St Martin’s Art College (I had a few false starts before I decided what I wanted to do) when Gary Withers, as editor of the college mag, took advantage of students and Private Eye bods frequenting the same Soho pub (St M’s was then in Charing Cross Road) to approach BF bar side and request an interview. Gary couldn’t keep the appointment and asked me to go instead, as chez Fantoni wasn’t a million miles away from where I lived, a smallish detour on the way home.

I duly presented myself at the door of the Clapham Common basement flat, pad and pen poised for action and absolutely no idea what I was doing, as I seldom read the publication let alone contributed to it. It went surprisingly well, as I recall, and for someone very much in the public eye at that time, he came across as super-friendly and refreshingly modest. I learned later that he had a bit of a dodgy reputation for female conquests, but I have to say he was a perfect gentleman while I perched on his uncomfortable sofa. I sent him a copy of the piece I’d written for approval and we stayed in touch for a while. I once met cartoonist/artist/writer Ralph Steadman at the flat – which impressed the OH last Christmas when I revealed that snippet from my shady past, rather more than the Steadman coffee table book his mother gifted us. It wasn’t great.

For those sweet young things amongst you who have no idea who Barry Fantoni is, meet the London-born author, satirist, cartoonist, TV/radio presenter and jazz musician of Italian and Jewish descent, who was in many ways the epitome of Swinging Sixties cool. Already writing scripts for That Was the Week that Was (from 1962) and cartoonist for Private Eye (from 1963), his TV break came after he was asked to design a Pop Art backdrop for Ready, Steady, Go – the rock music programme that kicked off the weekend on Friday evenings for a whole generation – which he also sometimes presented.

From there he went on to have his own show, A Whole Scene Going On (named after the Bob Dylan track) which went out live, had sixteen million viewers and earned Fantoni the 1966 award for TV Personality of the Year, ahead of Cliff Richard, Tom Jones and Mick Jagger. The Daily Mirror wrote of him in 1967, ‘Barry doesn’t so much know what is in – he decides it.’ Strangely enough, like me he now churns out crime novels, only his desk is in Calais.

And what of the aforementioned Gary Withers? While I shamefully never used the qualification I earned at St M’s (now Central Saint Martin’s) and wandered off elsewhere, he was driven by an overwhelming need to succeed, coming from a single parent home in a rundown area of London. And succeed he most certainly did – he is now the zillionaire head of a global design company, The Imagination Group Ltd, which he founded while still at college. The boy done good – hats very much off to you Gary, old chap.

On this day in 1646, one Roger Scott was tried and punished for nodding off in church in Massachusetts – judging by some of the soporific sermons we had to sit through during monthly Girl Guide church parades, he would be neither the first nor last; talk about a captive audience. Massachusetts (who has the Bee Gee’s song bouncing around their head now? You’re welcome!) was probably not the best place to grab forty winks during worship, with its wall-to-wall devout Puritans, rabid intolerance of heretics, and (albeit forty-odd years later) the Salem witch trials.

Roger was roused from his nap when a tithingman – a powerful officer of the church – whacked him over the head with his trusty staff. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Roger hit back and it was decided he should receive a whipping as punishment, as well as have his card marked as ‘a common sleeper at the publick exercise.’ Oh the shame …

Staying in Mass – the US state, not the religious rite – 1704 was a Leap Year and it was on 29th February that the Deerfield Massacre took place during the Queen Anne’s War. The French and their Native American allies fought many tit-for-tat battles against the English between 1702 and 1713, in an effort to gain control of the continent (shouldn’t that have been the birthright of the indigenous Red Indian tribes anyway? Just a random thought …) Under the command of Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville, the English frontier settlement at Deerfield was attacked before dawn, and much of the town burned to the ground, killing forty-seven. The colonial outpost was a traditional New England farming community, the majority of settlers being young families with wives and mothers who had moved west in search of land – the labour  that these women provided was essential to the survival of the settlement and its male inhabitants.

You might think that earned the women and their descendants an automatic right to absolute equality? Nope – in the US, much like the UK, from the mid 1800s several generations of women had to fight for the right to vote and although concessions varied from state to state, it wasn’t until the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in August 1920 that all women were given those rights. In practice though, the same restrictions that hindered non-white men’s right to vote now also applied to non-white women – that took rather longer to sort out. In Canada, the enfranchisement of women timetable happened according to Province, starting in 1916 with Manitoba and good old (French Canadian) Quebec coming very much up the rear in 1940.

This month in the UK, we celebrated the centenary of suffrage for (some) women. Under the 1918 Representation of the People Act; women over the age of thirty who either owned land themselves or were married to men with property, or who were graduates, were able to put their cross in the box. The same act also dropped the voting age for men from thirty to twenty-one – so, not exactly on a level pegging. It was another whole decade until the 1928 Equal Franchise Act granted women in the UK truly equal voting rights, almost doubling the number of eligible females. That doesn’t really compare too favourably with democratic New Zealand, where all women were given the vote in 1893.

I mentioned the Girl Guides several paragraphs back: I so looked forward to meetings on a Friday evening (pre the Ready, Steady, Go years) and the two best hours of the week when I was free to let my hair down and actually have fun. We were exposed to all sorts of activities most of us would never have dreamed of or encountered otherwise – I can still recognise the star constellations I learned, but might struggle to tie a round turn and two half hitches knot – and we went away to an annual (usually wet, cold and muddy) camp for a week. Heaven – burned bangers, leaky tents, stinky latrines and all!

This was before Health and Safety turned the sensible world upside down, which was just as well, as our means of transport was a huge home removals van with our luggage (kit bags) thrown in, followed by perhaps thirty Guides and their leaders who simply piled in the back on top of one another. Not a seat belt (no seats!) between us, just bodies diving in to make themselves as comfy as possible for the duration. Scariest of all, the back was left open so that we could actually see – as far as I remember, we didn’t ever lose anyone overboard.

And now I’m going to pinch the opening line of all Barry Fantoni’s rhyming obits to the famous in Private Eye, written under the by-line of E J Thribb; So. Farewell then …

Thanks, Jen – and toodles!

NP

Author.to/nellpeters 

***

Another smashing blog! Who knew our Nell knew Barry Fantoni!? (Who I have to admit I have never heard of until now…ummm….xxx)

Have a smashing March everyone,

Happy reading,

Jenny x

End of the month: January’s End

I don’t know about you, but I am very glad to see January coming to an end. It seems to have been a very long, dark, wet, dismal month. What better way to cheer us up than to read Nell Peter’s end of the month round up?

Time for a cuppa and five minutes with m feet up I think.

Over to you Nell…

Hello! How’s it going, old fruits? Broken all those New Year resolutions yet? That’s the bulldog clip spirit.

A fair bit of that there spirit was required on NYE for anyone attending the London Eye fireworks. As I mentioned in my Dec 31st blog, the OH and I met up with three sons and a GF (#3 made it from Bangkok/Heathrow in good time!) to watch the display and stay over in Docklands. Next year, we will just do the hotel thing and watch the fireworks on TV – much safer!

We knew something was definitely amiss as we walked toward our entry point and met masses of people who were determinedly heading in the other direction. Never a good sign … They had the right idea, because very soon we hit the huge tailback to the entrance bottleneck, where people were waiting for literally hours to make it through security and ticket verification. A zillion crushed bodies were being pushed in whatever direction those behind chose. Felt sorry for the GF, who is only 5’3” and spent rather too long with her nose stuck in the back of whoever was in front of her – and none of us could see kerbs up or down, or the various Road Closed signs strategically placed in order to inflict maximum injury. Then there were the lethal baby buggies, despite the web site clearly stating that the event was unsuitable for children.

We made it through to our allotted area on Embankment with just a few minutes to spare before the whizzes and bangs started, and in no time had to rejoin the crush to make it out again, herded by marshals who had closed off a ridiculous number of exit roads, apparently on a whim. One hundred thousand tickets were sold at a tenner each, so that’s £1M – I think a few quid of that could be spared for better organisation? We used to take the boys before it became a ticketed event and it was all very civilised and secure, with a much better and relaxed atmosphere. #4 son was particularly disillusioned, because he so fondly remembered our visits when he was a young’un and wanted to recapture the experience.

Been chilly enough for you? Yours truly’s timbers have most definitely been shivering. I feel the cold really badly – in summer I always wear several layers more than everyone else, and from September through to May I do a pretty nifty impression of Michelin Man, even indoors.

Readers as ancient as me will remember the infamous winter of 1962-3, aka the Big Freeze. The beginning of that December was very foggy, with London encased in its last real smog before the Clean Air Act (1956) and the decline in coal fires had a real impact. These were the pea-soupers that Hollywood directors still appear to think are a typical and atmospheric part of London living, especially if Jack the Ripper happens to be lurking around the corner.

Snow fell over the UK on 12/13th December 1962, and an anticyclone formed over Scandinavia on 22nd, drawing cold continental winds from Russia. Over the Christmas period, although the Scandinavian high collapsed, a new one formed near Iceland, bringing northerly winds and significant snowfall to southern England late on 26 December and into 27th. I remember my elderly maternal grandparents were staying and wisely made no attempt to return home to Wimbledon (from Twickenham); in fact, they were still with us several weeks later, as the treacherous conditions were extended by further heavy snowfalls and freezing temperatures until March 6th.

 

But elsewhere, the bulldog clip spirit was snapping very much into action – the beginning of January meant a return to school, a bus trip or one stop on the train for me. We’d never heard of Snow Days – as declared nowadays at the drop of a regulation brown velour school hat; perish the thought!

No wellies allowed, we slipped and slid our way hither and thither in regulation outdoor shoes – dreadful clumpy brown lace-ups with leather soles that held no purchase whatsoever, our spindly legs encased only in white knee length socks. Brrrr! PE and Games carried on as normal – we gels jogging up and down the frozen hockey pitch in ridiculously thin culottes, trying to restore blood flow to our extremities, whilst the games mistress stood on the sidelines, barking orders and blowing her whistle, clad in a huge sheepskin coat and fur-lined boots. ‘Tis a wonder any of us survived – no ChildLine then to come to our rescue.

Incidentally, the hideous brown-on-brown uniform didn’t improve much during the summer months, when gymslips were replaced by cotton dresses in a luminous flame colour so bright it was guaranteed to sear the retina, and could be easily spotted from outer space. And don’t get me started on the straw boaters …

On this day in 1597, John Francis Regis, French priest and saint was born – interesting occupation to have listed in your passport, if that were still a requirement (hasn’t been since 1982). John F died in 1640, thirty three years before another French priest and saint was born on 31st Jan – Louis de Montfort (died 1716). Say what you like, the French seem to have cornered the priest/saint market.

Having run out of French deities, let’s nip forward in time to the births of some people we may actually have heard of, starting with American Constance (Connie) Booth, writer, actress, comedienne and since she gave up acting in 1995, psychotherapist. Born in 1944, she has seventy-four candles on her cake today.

Connie was married to John Cleese for a decade from 1968 – she appeared in various Monty Python productions and both co-wrote and played the part of Polly the waitress/chambermaid in Fawlty Towers. Away from comedy, she starred in the title role of The Story of Ruth (1981), portraying the schizophrenic daughter of an abusive father – a performance for which she received critical acclaim. Maybe that sparked her interest in psychotherapy … maybe not.

Actor Anthony LaPaglia was born in 1959, although not as you might expect in the US, but Adelaide, South Australia – the inverse of Mel Gibson, who was born in New York, but sounds Australian, after his family relocated there when he was twelve … or is that just me?

Back to Anthony – a keen amateur goalie (Association Football), to earn a crust he has been in many series, including Murder One and Without a Trace, but was unable to take up the role of Tony Soprano due to other commitments. His younger brother, Jonathan, did appear in an episode of the Sopranos however as Michael the Cleaver – possibly not someone you’d want to meet in a dark alley. Jonathan followed his brother to the US and into acting, because he felt ‘restricted’ as an emergency room doctor. Go figure.

A year after Justin Timberlake was born on 31st January 1981, 1982 produced a bumper crop of bonny babies who all have one thing in common – I’ve never heard of any of them. In no particular order, they are Maret Ani, Estonian tennis player; Yuniesky Betancourt, Cuban baseball player; Jānis Sprukts, Latvian ice hockey player; Yukimi Nagano, Swedish singer-songwriter; Brad Thompson, American baseball player; and a trio of footballers, Andreas Görlitz (Germany), Salvatore Masiello (Italy), and Allan McGregor (Scotland). Phew!

Moving along, broadcaster Terry Wogan died two years ago today, four years after the magnificently-named Tristram Potter Coffin, who didn’t quite make it to his ninetieth birthday on 13th February. His older sister was called Trelsie Coffin Buffum Lucas (1918–1987) – you don’t get many of those to the pound, I’m guessing. Through his father, TPC was a direct descendant of the Tristram Coffyn who was one of the original permanent settlers on Nantucket Island in 1660. Arriving in Massachusetts from Brixham, Devon, in 1659, he led a group of investors who bought Nantucket from Thomas Mayhew for thirty pounds and two beaver hats. Brilliant! He became a prominent citizen in the settlement and a number of his descendants established their importance in North American society, even without inheriting those all-important furry hats.

For example, Sir Isaac Coffin (1759–1839) served during the American Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and became an admiral in the British Royal Navy. Descendant Charles A Coffin (1844–1926) was co-founder and first President of the General Electric Corporation, and then a member of the ninth generation, one Robert P T Coffin (1892–1955), was an American poet who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1936 for his book of collected works, called Strange Holiness. Quite a dynasty. And the Coffin I started off with was no slacker – he was a folklorist and leading scholar of ballad texts in the 20th century. He spent much of his career at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a professor of English and a co-founder of the Folklore Department. He published twenty books as well as more than a hundred scholarly articles and reviews. Way da go, Tris!

This day in 2000, GP Dr Harold Shipman was found guilty of murdering fifteen of his patients, making him Britain’s most prolific convicted serial killer – in reality, he is thought to have killed somewhere around two hundred and fifty people (the majority women) aged between forty-one and ninety-three, over a period of twenty-four years. Born the middle child of a working class family in 1946, Harold was known by his middle name Fred(erick), and was the favourite child of a domineering mother, Vera. She instilled in him a sense of superiority that tainted most of his later relationships, leaving him an isolated adolescent with few friends.

When his mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, he willingly oversaw her care as she declined, fascinated by the positive effect that the administration of morphine had on her suffering – in terms of his future method of dispatch, the die was cast. Mum succumbed to her illness in June 1963 (just after the Big Freeze thawed!) Devastated by her death, he was determined to go to medical school, and was admitted to Leeds University for training two years later, having failed his entrance exams at the first attempt.

By 1974 Harold had joined a practice in Todmorden, Yorkshire, where he initially thrived as a family practitioner, before becoming addicted to the painkiller Pethidine. He forged prescriptions for large amounts of the drug, and was forced to leave the practice and enter a drug rehab programme, when caught out by his colleagues a year later. An inquiry led to a fine and a conviction for forgery, but he wasn’t struck off by the General Medical Council – they merely wrapped his knuckles in a stiff warning letter. Big mistake.

I imagine Connie Booth would agree that in many ways Shipman is an analyst’s dream – middle child syndrome; overbearing mother; egocentric; lack of compassion for his victims; lack of conscience etc. etc. He obviously thought he was invincible, as he worked his way through his mostly elderly case list, eventually coming to grief only when the lawyer daughter of one of his victims smelled a big fat juicy rat because a second will emerged, leaving everything to Shipman. She had always handled her wealthy mother’s affairs, so alerted authorities and the investigative ball was set in motion.

The doctor hung himself in his cell on the eve of his fifty-eighth birthday, ensuring that his wife Primrose (who had quite possibly parachuted into the domineering female role vacated by his mother) received the maximum pension payout, since he died before he was sixty. Morally questionable? I couldn’t possibly comment.

As Franklin D Roosevelt’s Vice President, another Harold – well Harry, actually, as in Harry S Truman, (OK, a bit of a stretch there!) had been inaugurated into the post of chief banana when FDR died suddenly. This day in 1950, as 33rd (Democrat) President of the US he publicly announced support for the development of a hydrogen bomb. Scary. But perhaps he’d been consulting his crystal ball, as in June that year, the North Korean army under Kim Il-sung (are they all called Kim?) invaded South Korea, starting the Korean War; plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

 

With that stunning demonstration of linguistic ability, I’ll bid you adios, amigo.

Thanks for having me, Jen!

Toodles.

NP

***

Thanks Nell! So glad to have this month ticked off the list! Let’s hope February gives us the chance to warm up and put the umbrella’s away for a while!

Happy reading,

Jenny xx

End of the month- and year- blog from Nell Peters

Once again- and for the last time in 2017- I welcome the fantastic Nell Peters to my blog to give us a monthly roundup of events.

So grab a cuppa, settle down, and have a read.

Over to you Nell…

Hi, everyone! Take a break from eating the leftover turkey sandwiches for a mo and step inside – don’t panic, that’s as far as my Cilla Black impression goes … chook.

New Years Eve is always a time for reflection and resolution, past times and planning – plus any other alliteration you care to come up with. What have I learned this year? More than anything to Carpe the jolly old Diem, since none of us knows what might be lurking just around the corner to lob a spanner in the works. The fickle finger of fate may well interfere to ensure you don’t actually get to do those things you are putting off until it’s more convenient/you can better afford it/there’s an R in the month. Just do it!

Other sage pieces of advice from me to me include, in no particular order;

  • Don’t bother ordering a gluten free meal in BA Business Class in future (assuming you ever get to fly at the front of the plane again) – you know they are rubbish and you are better off chewing the plastic tray, or staying hungry while you enjoy the ‘free’ drinks.
  • You shared a childhood with your cousins, Keith and Barbara – keep in touch! This after I met them again at my dad’s funeral after 22 and 8 years respectively.
  • Try to remember Carey Mulligan is an actress, not a singer – you have even seen Suffragette! Barbara mentioned that her daughter is now married to CM’s brother – thought the name rang a vague bell, just picked the wrong option … Duh! And no, the tenuous connection that she is married to Marcus Mumford of the band, Mumford and Sons does not get you off the squirmy hook.

  • Don’t go anywhere with the OH’s colleague, Richard. He survived being badly stabbed and beaten on London Bridge in June only because a) he’s super fit and b) an off-duty soldier lay on top of him to stop the bleeding and save his life. Richard then emerged unscathed from the shootings in Las Vegas – there for a charity swim. Things happen in threes.
  • Remember James (Jim) Angel as the huge personality he was when you cavorted around California with him decades ago, not the shell he became through dementia. He flies high now – so should you.
  • No matter what your mother drummed into you repeatedly, you do not have to keep a stiff upper lip at all times.
  • There are many, many fantastic people around and you know a lot of them, either in person or on line. Perhaps consider that since they associate with you, you are not totally bad yourself?
  • Remember the AA Milne quote, ‘You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.’ You gave each of the GDs a locket with that engraving, so maybe take it on board yourself?

  • Even though you live in a draughty old house that costs a small fortune to heat, turn the boiler on!
  • You need to majorly improve your work/life balance.
  • Having said that, you also need to get back to some serious writing – there’s the third part of a trilogy to finish and two other WIPs wanting attention, plus so much more. You have been faffing around for many months doing dutiful daughter stuff. Enough! Oh, and while you’re at it, get a decent publisher.
  • You have skinny legs – so what? They’ve held you up for decades, haven’t they?

I think that’s enough of that, don’t you? As you are reading this (and assuming all goes to plan) we will be travelling to London for the New Years Eve celebrations and meeting up with three sons and partners. We used to go every year before the boys fled the nest and stay over, but we haven’t done so for a few years. You have to buy tickets now and take up your position in the zone you’re allocated – we are all A, which is just as well, as there is no hopping around wherever you fancy. In a truly insane moment, I said I’d treat everyone to their hotel rooms – NYE has always been premium rate, but now the cost is astronomical and my debit card is weeping buckets. Note to self: look up prices before opening stupid mouth. I didn’t take up the breakfast option … Speaking of buckets, I hope there will be large numbers of handy Portaloos.

#3 will typically be cutting it fine, as his plane lands at Heathrow around 5.30 pm – he’s not home for Christmas as he has a previous engagement, sailing around the Philippines on a luxury yacht for a week and then a week in Phuket. How very stressful for him. As I type, I’m not clear where he’s flying from, but I hope he turns up! And when he does, I’ll bet he still hasn’t got a suntan – he’s never been a sun worshipper, but how anyone can spend all that time in really hot climates and remain whiter than the whitest maggot, is quite beyond me. His brothers have christened him ‘Insipid of India’. His is a flying visit – back to Mumbai on 3rd January.

Once we are into January, it will no doubt be impossible to avoid being bombarded with stuff about the royal wedding – snore. I see it is to be held in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, which is where I was almost christened. Let me explain; Unc – my great uncle Keith, more formally known as The Reverend Canon Keith Harman – lived in Bermuda and within his island parish (or whatever it would be called) were both a military base and a leper colony. He was married to and divorced from a famous American concert pianist, though if I ever knew her name it’s now forgotten. I don’t know if the disgrace of divorce was the cause, but Unc was sent to Windsor for a year on some sort of exchange programme.

Not much of a punishment though, because as a keen photographer he was given the run of the castle and permission to take pics of the royal nippers. He was regularly invited to lunch with the Queen and Prince Philip and somewhere in Windsor there is the Harman Clock, presented to him as a token of thanks. His big sister – my paternal grandmother – must have dined out on that for years. I was a baby during Unc’s Windsor sortie and said grandmother arranged every detail of my christening at St George’s Chapel, unfortunately neglecting to consult my mother – a battle of control freaks ensued and my mother won. Incidentally, I don’t know if it’s in the genes or name, but my aforementioned cuz Keith is a pro snapper of some renown.

Quite a few musical events have happened over the years on NYE – starting with the premier performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s light opera, The Pirates of Penzance in New York City, 1879. A mere eighty-two years later (1961), the Beach Boys gigged together for the first time using that band name. In the original line-up were brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis (drummer, and the only one in the group who actually surfed) Wilson, their cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine.

In the summer of 1968, when everything was sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, Dennis took under his wing an unknown and strange long-haired rocker called Charlie, who sang in a random way and talked of mystical things.

The Beach Boys – along with the Beatles and others, were already disciples of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, guru of transcendental meditation, so perhaps the mystical bit appealed. Peace, man. Not much peace and love the following year, though, when Charlie – better known as Charles Manson, who died in November – incited his ‘family’ to commit brutal and ritualistic murder.

On NYE 1963, a young Jerry Garcia and an even younger Bob Weir played together for the first time – but not at a gig. Weir (16) was wandering the back alleys of Palo Alto (San Francisco Bay area), with another underage friend, looking for a club that would admit them, when they heard banjo music. They followed the sound to Dana Morgan’s Music Store, where Jerry (having forgotten the significance of the date) was waiting for his students to arrive. Weir and Garcia spent the night playing music together and then decided to form a band – take a bow, the Grateful Dead via a couple of other names.

In 1966, the Monkees’ I’m a Believer made it to the number one spot and hung on there for a further seven weeks. Paul McCartney chose NYE 1970 to file a lawsuit to dissolve The Beatles. 1st January did not become a bank holiday until 1974 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – that was the year Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac. Two years later The Cars played their first gig.

Rick Allen became Def Leppard’s drummer aged fifteen in 1978, just before the band signed their recording contract. Result! He lost his left arm in a car accident 31/12/84, but ignored medical predictions that he would never play again, and re-joined the band less than two years later to perform with the help of a semi-electronic drum kit. His live performance comeback was an emotional event, and Rick admits to shedding a tear – quickly followed by the fear that he’d be electrocuted if the tears hit his metal pedals.

Barbra Streisand seems to enjoy warbling on New Years Eve – in 1993 she gave her first live public concert in twenty-seven years at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas, when ticket prices ranged from $50 to $1500. That made her the highest paid concert performer in history. Six years later in 1999, Streisand returned to the concert stage, tickets selling out in the first few hours, eight months before the show. At the end of the millennium, she was the number one female singer in the US, with at least two #1 albums in each decade since she began performing. Not too shabby.

Who has a NYE birthday? #4 son was expected on 31st December, but feared he might be missing out on presents and so brought things forward to Christmas Eve – the only one who was early. Our beautiful niece, Francesca, was far better behaved and turned up on her due date – she’s twenty-seven today. Way da go, Fran! French modernist artist and sculptor Henri Matisse would be blowing out a lot of candles on his cake today, if he hadn’t died in 1954 (aged eighty-four.) He began painting at twenty while recovering from an appendectomy and his style was influenced by (amongst others) Vincent Van Gogh – although he quickly developed his own unique approach to colour and form. Matisse was arguably one of the most influential painters of the twentieth century.

North of the border, we have some Hogmanay birthdays, starting with Prince Charles Edward Stuart in 1720, who was born in Rome to exiled Stuart King James VII (Scotland) and II (England and Ireland) – the last Roman Catholic monarch.

Bonnie Prince Charlie spent just a year in Scotland, in his attempt to rally support and battle his way to London to claim the English throne for his father from George II. His was a win some, lose more campaign, and following a decisive defeat at Culloden Moor, he spent months on the run, disguised first as a ship-wrecked merchant, Mr Sinclair, and then as a woman, Betty Burke. Aided by wee Flora MacDonald, he eventually escaped to France.

The not so bonnie Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond checked into Linlithgow, Scotland in 1954. The Former First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party was originally an economist and worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland – enough said. Following the referendum result in September 2014, he resigned both positions and left us to the mercy of Nicola Sturgeon, keeping up the fishy surname theme.

Next up is (Paul) Dominik Diamond born in Arbroath in 1969, a television and radio presenter and newspaper columnist (Daily Star – that’s a newspaper?) who spreads (get it?) himself around the UK and Canada. I’ve never heard of the guy – who studied drama at Bristol Uni with David Walliams – but apparently he is best known as the original presenter of Channel 4’s video gaming programme, GamesMaster from 1992-8. This was the first ever UK TV show dedicated to computer and video games and featured star man Sir Patrick Moore in pre-recorded inserts as the ‘Games Master’ – with or without monocle, I wonder?

Last but not least, vocalist, songwriter and musician Malcolm Bruce Middleton (any relation, I wonder?) rocked up in Dumfries on the last day of 1973, which was a Monday. It was also the day that as a result of coal shortages caused by industrial action in the UK, the Three Day Week electricity consumption reduction rules came into force. Oh happy days – I wonder if the first-footer-bearing-coal Hogmanay tradition was affected by the shortage? I doubt little Malcolm cared. Before teaming up with Aidan Moffat to form Arab Strap (a post-folk indie band) in 1995, he played bass, guitar and sang in several bands in the early 1990s, including Purple Bass Plectrum, Rabid Lettuce (I so love that!), Pigtube and The Laughing Stock.

So, Happy Birthday to all those mentioned who are still breathing, and Happy 2018 to everyone else.

Thanks for having me, Jenny – see you next year!

Toodles.

NP

Author.to/nellpeters 

***

A huge thank you Nell – another wonderful blog. 

I can’t thank you enough for all the laughs you have given myself and my fellow blog readers this year. You’re wonderful.

Have a fantastic – and less stressful – 2018!!

Happy reading everyone

Jenny xx

 

End of the month blog with Nell Peters: Goodbye November

As we speed with way too much haste towards the end of 2017, I’m delighted to hand my blog over once again to the brilliant Nell Peters. I wonder what she has found out for us this month…

Over to you Nell…

Thanks for having me again, Jenny! Happy St Andrew’s Day, everyone – and to all NaNoWriMo participants, take a break! Your job is almost done.

November didn’t start brilliantly chez moi. The Saturday before we came home from our brilliant-but-too-short hols, #2 son supervised installation of a (ludicrously expensive!) high-rise, disabled-friendly upstairs loo at my mother’s house. The old one was low-ish and being a bit wonky on her feet now, she sometimes had difficulty sitting down on it, despite the grab handles each side. Super Plumber did a grand job, as always, but mentioned in passing that he didn’t have absolute confidence in the flushing mechanism.

How right he was – I had hardly made it down the aircraft steps at London City, when I had a text from the early carer telling me that the new toilet had stopped flushing. Since I’m four hours away, quite what she expected me to do about it, wasn’t clear. The rest of the day passed with me tearing my hair out in clumps, trying to get the damned thing fixed at such time when a carer (any carer!) would be at the house to give access. No joy – eventually #2 ended up driving two hours from Cambridge after work, to meet Super Plumber at the house at 8.30 pm. We also booked SP to replace the faulty unit asap. Two days after Flushgate, I got a call from another carer to say the washing machine had broken …

The stressing didn’t stop there – I didn’t see the OH for over two weeks because his colleague’s son was rushed to hospital with suspected (later confirmed) meningitis and so OH was working insane hours down at their London base, holding the fort. I’m pleased and relieved to report that the little boy responded very well to treatment and made a full recovery. Kudos to the parents who didn‘t hang around and got him immediate treatment as soon as they realised something was wrong. Not such a happy ending for #4 son’s much-admired boss, though – he died soon after being diagnosed with cancer and #4 was heartbroken, especially after losing his beloved grandfather a short while before.

But let’s move on. Hands up who has a birthday today – I mentioned Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Gary Lineker, David Nicholls and John Bishop last year, so best not repeat myself or Jen will give me the sack. The first fist I see waving madly in the air belongs to William Michael Albert Broad (one of the Norfolk Broads, I hear you ask?) who is better known to most as Billy Idol – he’s sixty-two, so perhaps a little long in the tooth to still be described as a punk rocker. You decide. The stage name Idol evolved from a school teacher accusing him of being idle, but not wanting to be confused with Monty Python’s Eric Idle (as if!) Billy opted for the alternative spelling – so perhaps not the huge ego trip that calling oneself Idol suggests.

Next up, we have journalist and TV presenter, the ubiquitous Lorraine Kelly, who is fifty-eight today. I’ve never watched any of her programmes but I have seen her prancing around the screen advertising frocks and fripperies – just don’t ask me the brand name.

In a survey, Kelly was voted the celebrity from whom most people would like to buy a car – an honour of sorts, but not really comparable to receiving an Honorary Doctor of Law degree from the University of Dundee (2008), being made an Honorary Colonel in the Black Watch Cadets (2009), and receiving an OBE in the 2012 New Year Honours List.

American Criminal Minds actor and singer, Mandel Bruce (Mandy) Patinkin is sixty-five today. Born in Chicago, Illinois he got the smell of the greasepaint as a young teen, singing in synagogues, before training at the Julliard School performing arts conservatory in NYC. One of his contemporaries there was Kelsey Grammer (Cheers!) and other alumni include Robin Williams, Kelly McGillis, Kevin Spacey (can I still mention him?), Val Kilmer and Linda Kozlowski – better known as the ex-Mrs Crocodile Dundee. Keeping his tonsils exercised, Mandy P sings a rather lovely version of Younger than Springtime from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific here; www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii465lXLp8w In our local cemetery, a baby girl’s tiny teddy bear gravestone is touchingly engraved with the song title.

What has happened historically on this day, I hear you ask? Well … way, way back when, there were a few Pope-related shenanigans, starting when St Marcellus I began his reign as Catholic chief banana, in the year 306. Skip forward a little over four centuries and Pope Gregory II declared Boniface (previously known as Winfred – not sure which is worse) as a missionary bishop to Germany (722.) Not sure what that is, but I assume Boniface was a happy bunny.

Pope Innocent III was perhaps inappropriately named – I couldn’t possibly comment – being a little big for his papal boots. He even looks a bit shifty in his portrait *cowers, awaiting well-aimed boulder to land on head*. Surrounded by intrigue from the moment the white smoke billowed forth to gas everyone and signal his election – on the very day in 1198 that his predecessor, Celestine III expired – the Pontiff previously known as Lotario de’ Conti, became ever more autocratic.

Papal power was already based on far more than scriptures – previous popes had acquired large amounts of land, so that bishops and clergy were, in effect, agents of Vatican business. Pope Innocent III’s increased involvement in elections escalated when he formed the Fourth Lateran Council and summoned approximately twelve hundred bishops, abbots and nobles from around Europe to assist in amending current laws and creating new ones – thus further influencing the masses (religion being their opium) to support the Pope as the universal authority of the Empire. Rocking a bit of a superiority/God complex there … Innocent (wonder if he liked smoothies? Sorry!) shut up the FLC shop on this day in 1215.

 

In 1406 Angelo Correr was elected Pope Gregory XII, exactly one hundred and forty-eight years before England reconciled with Pope Julius III in 1554. That was less than nine months after Nine Day Queen, Lady Jane Grey was executed for treason aged just sixteen. Thought I’d throw in that random fact for general consumption, to check if you are still awake. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (The Condition of Labour) was published – or that’s what it says on the onthisday.com site that I frequently consult. However, when I went on to do further research, more than one other web site gave the publication date as 15th May 1891 – I shall write to my MP and complain.

Meanwhile, back in the real-ish world, Rerum Novarum examines the history of Catholic social thought, establishing the RC position on issues surrounding the relationship between capital and labour (sound familiar?) – a hypothesis that emphasizes the duties and obligations that bind owners of capital and workers to each other.

Leo articulates the dignity of labour and labourer, renouncing both radical socialism and unrestrained capitalism – call me picky, but that’s a bit rich coming from the leader of a regime that owns much land, and enjoys massive wealth and obscene privilege, while the peasants bow, scrape and starve. The work defends both private property (cue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx and others spinning in their graves) and the right of workers to form unions.

Now, I invite you all to hop aboard the Tardis and fly with me to 2015, when the current incumbent, 266th Pope and ex-nightclub bouncer, Francis, urged peace while visiting a controversial mosque in Bangui, Central African Republic on 30th November – a champion of inter-faith dialogue, it perhaps wouldn’t have hurt to mention his previous career to any would-be agitators. As popes go, Jorge Mario Bergoglio – who took his nom-de-Pontiff in homage to St Francis of Assisi (a contemporary of ol’ Innocent III) – does seem like an OK guy.

He is the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas (born in Buenos Aires), the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first from outside Europe for many centuries. Plus, of course, he’s the first to ascend the throne after his predecessor did a bunk while still breathing – though in Benedict XVI’s case he presumably didn’t use the well-worn excuse that he wanted to spend more time with his family. Francis favours a less formal approach to office, championing the poor and preferring to live in a boarding house rather than Vatican magnificence – even his vestments are less opulent than those who poped before, although he still walks around in a dress.

Someone else who wore a dress, albeit fashioned from a bed sheet, was Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi, who is getting a mention for the second month running – he can pay me later in wine. The eponymous film, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Ben Kingsley and John Gielgud (all Sirs, I believe) premiered in New Delhi on this day in 1982. At the 1983 Oscars, it walked away with the gold painted statuette for Best Picture.

Any one for tennis? On 30/11/1986 Ivan Lendl became the first player to earn over $10 million in his lifetime – a massive amount of money now, even more so thirty years ago … Surprisingly, and although he won zillions of titles worldwide, the one that eluded him was Wimbledon (where I was born!) On-off coach to Andy Murray – I never could warm to him – Ivan must be a brave man to take on Judy Murray’s little boy, though not quite as brave as Kim Sears who now calls her ma-in-law. Scary woman.

You know there’s always a most-popular name for children of every era, sometimes influenced by slebs, sometimes not? When I was weeny, there were wall-to-wall Susans – but my mother had decided from a very young age that should she ever have a daughter, she would be called Anne. This was after she read Anne of Green Gables, by Canadian author Lucy Maud (LM) Montgomery, who was born on the last day of November in 1874. Like Lorraine Kelly, LM was awarded an OBE (in 1935.)

Princess Anne arrived a month after me and threw a spanner in the moniker works – the world was suddenly swamped with girls called Anne, which must have wiped the smug look from my mother’s face in record time. She called my sister Gillian – not, as far as I know, after any fictional character – and Gill/Gilli/never Gillian has hated it for every second of her sixty years. Oh, in case you were wondering, Nell Peters is a pen name, pinched from my parents’ Christian names because my real surname is an awfully big mouthful.

#3 son came back from India/Thailand on 15/11 for a couple of weeks and hasn’t stopped complaining about the cold since he landed. I’m just waiting for him to mention that his accommodation isn’t a patch on the rather swish apartments he now has in Mumbai and Bangkok – however, our house is free, which may make it a little more attractive. He’s flying out again on 4/12, and we’ll see him again on NYE when most of us are meeting up in London for the celebrations.

Over Christmas, he’s sailing around the Philippines on what looks like rather a flash yacht – just to compete, I may ask for a ride around The Wash on one of our neighbour’s fishing fleet … His wife appeared on the doorstep recently, asking if the OH (who is very big on fish – eating them, that is) would like a few spares for the freezer. Transferring from her plate to mine, one of the corpses did a Lazarus and leapt onto the path in a bid for freedom – cue embarrassingly girly squeals from both of us. She assured me it was definitely deceased, but once in my kitchen it did another death defying leap from draining board to floor and flip-flopped around, making itself at home. Enter the ‘fisher of men’ to sort, while I averted my eyes, and along with its shoal buddies, it’s been reclining in the freezer for a few days now – no more flying fish acrobatics.

And now I too must fly – away on my broomstick to wrong rights.

See you NYE?

Toodles

NP

Author.to/nellpeters

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We certainly want to see you In the New Year…if you can face it! In the meantime…go and have a rest. No ones watching- go on…sneak five minutes before life strikes again!

Happy reading everyone,

Jenny xx

 

End of the month with Nell Peters: There goes October!

Somehow we’re here again. The end of the month- and that only means one thing…

Over to you Nell…

Hi, y’all – and happy Halloween, All Hallows Eve, or Samhain if you prefer. Like the proverbial bad penny, I’m back again – well, at least I hope I am. Let me explain:

I’m writing this blog even more in advance than usual because we are away from 22nd October to 30th – flying back then from a late break in the sun (hopefully!) That’s assuming the OH is still in one piece after his flight to Monaco on Friday 13th (cue spooky music!) – he’s due back practically minutes before we set off. Could be worse; I’ve had to meet him at the airport before now. With all the shenanigans going on with air travel recently – so glad we are booked on BA and not Monarch or Ryanair – I have fingers and toes crossed that our flight isn’t delayed until the 31st, because historically that has been a very bad day for plane crashes.

Exactly a hundred years ago during WWI, a Fokker (careful how you say that) piloted by a Lt. Pastor suffered structural failure and crashed – it was the second such accident in three days, and needless to say, all those aircraft had to be grounded until the design fault could be identified and rectified. Pastor was under the command of infamous fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, aka as the Red Baron, because he held the hereditary title of Freiherr (free lord) and painted his plane red – all the unit’s planes were brightly coloured, hence their epithet, The Flying Circus.

I’ve mentioned before that my grandfather was a youthful pilot with the Royal Flying Corps – a sepia photograph of him sitting in his flimsy plane hangs on one of our landings. As I drift past and glance his way, it never ceases to amaze me how incredibly brave those young airmen (of whatever nationality) were, when their life expectancy was a mere seventeen flying hours – they were indeed ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’. Unlike my grandfather, the Red Baron didn’t survive to see peace declared despite his eighty air combat victories; his luck ran out in April 1918. Drat – I have that song rattling around my head now … they go up tiddly up up, they go down tiddly down down.

 

Coincidentally, The Battle of Britain ended on this day in 1940 – since 10th July, nearly three thousand RAF pilots, including many from what was then the British Empire plus refugees from Nazi-occupied countries in Europe, had been defending British air space over southern England against the Luftwaffe’s relentless attempt to wipe out airborne defences. Flushed with his successful infiltration of much of Europe, this was the prelude to Hitler’s ultimate plan to invade and conquer this ‘Sceptred Isle’. The pilots of Fighter Command, dubbed ‘The Few’ by Churchill, had an average age of just twenty and were paid £264 pa (a little over £30,000 in today’s money). Sadly, during ‘Our Finest Hour’ (Churchill again) five hundred and forty-four fliers were killed and over a thousand aircraft lost – but (fortunately for us) they were victorious and Adolf backed off to lick his wounds.

In 1949 a pilot conducting secret tests of a prototype aircraft died when he crashed into houses in Yeovil, also killing two victims on the ground – and the following year a British European Airways (now part of BA) Viking failed to make it off the runway at Heathrow (then London Airport) in foggy conditions. Of the thirty people on board, only a stewardess and one passenger lived to tell the tale. Fast forward to 1964, when NASA astronaut Theodore Freeman perished after a goose smashed through the cockpit canopy of his Northrop Talon jet trainer in Texas, causing shards of Plexiglas to enter the engine, which caught fire. Although Freeman ejected, he was too close to the ground for his parachute to open properly. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.

More Halloween air disasters in 1979, 1994, 1996 and 1999, and in 2000 there were two – in total, hundreds of passengers and crew lost their lives. Most recently, in 2015, on the day that New Zealand beat Australia 34-17 during the Rugby World Cup final at Twickenham, a Russian airliner came to grief in Egypt and two hundred and twenty four people died. So you see my point? Maybe not a good day to fly, if you have a choice. There have been some good aeronautically-associated events on 31st October, however – like Rear Admiral George J Dufek becoming the first American to land an airplane at the South Pole in 1956, and BA taking on its first female pilots in 1987. Shall we move along, feet firmly planted on terra firma?

George Dufek

No more cheerfully, Indira Gandhi was assassinated on this day in 1984 (very George Orwell) by two of her security guards – you can’t trust anyone, can you? Both men were in turn shot by other guards, and although one survived, he was executed when found guilty of murder. In a speech given on the day before her death, Mrs G declared prophetically, ‘I am alive today, I may not be there tomorrow…I shall continue to serve until my last breath and when I die, I can say that every drop of my blood will invigorate India and strengthen it. Even if I died in the service of the nation, I would be proud of it. Every drop of my blood will contribute to the growth of this nation and make it strong and dynamic.

Indira Gandhi

Indira (no relation to Mahatma) was India’s first and so far only woman PM. Politics were obviously in the genes, because her dad was India’s first PM, Jawaharal Nehru. She had two sons – Sanjay, the younger, had been her chosen successor politically, but died in a flying accident in 1980, leaving Rajiv (a pilot) to take up the reins following her death. He was himself assassinated in 1991.

Dangerous stuff, politics, as Italian fascist PM Benito Mussolini may have noticed in 1926, when an assassination attempt was made on his life – not a brilliant way for him to celebrate his fourth anniversary of taking office. Fifteen year-old schoolboy, Anteo Zamboni tried to shoot the leader in Bologna during a parade, but the unfortunate youth missed and was immediately set upon by squadistri (fascist squads) who didn’t ask any questions and lynched him.

This was the second unsuccessful attempt on Il Duce’s life that year – in April, middle-aged Irish woman, The Honourable (but not very) Violet Gibson, daughter of Lord Ashbourne, shot him as he walked among the crowds in Rome after delivering a speech. Armed with a revolver disguised by her shawl, she fired once, but Mussolini moved his head at that moment and she hit his nose (no ‘on the nose’ jokes, please); when she tried again, the gun misfired. Poor old Vi was almost lynched (what is it with Italians and lynching?) by an angry mob, but police intervened and escorted her away for questioning. Mussolini’s wound was slight, and after being patched up, he and his bandaged nose continued walkabout. Violet was deported to Britain and spent the rest of her life in a mental asylum.

This was the day in 1959 when ex-marine and accomplished marksman Lee Harvey Oswald decided to visit the US Embassy in Moscow and declare he wanted to renounce his American citizenship. It was a Saturday, so perhaps he was at a loose end. Officer Richard Snyder accepted Oswald’s passport and a written note, but told him that further paperwork would need to be completed. Oswald didn’t follow through with the process and when he became disaffected with life in Russia (not too many burger joints there at that time, I imagine) returned to the United States in 1962. News of the defection made the front pages of American newspapers, four years before he would be reviled globally as the alleged assassin of JFK. Speaking of the late President, he held his last meeting with FBI Director, J Edgar Hoover this day in 1963.

Lee Harvey Oswald

31st October falls within the zodiac sign of Scorpio (23/10 to 21/11). Honesty and fairness are two qualities that make Scorpios a good friend to have – they are dedicated and loyal, but if they feel let down, it’s curtains. Quick-witted and intelligent, they are full of surprises but also very emotional. Ideal careers for Scorpios include scientist, physician, researcher, sailor, detective, business manager and psychologist.

 

I can think of only four Scorpios I’ve known – although I’m sure there are probably many others – one being super-blogger and lovely lady, Anne Williams (23/10) of Being Anne, a great supporter of writers and thoroughly good egg (whatever that means?) Then there’s a sister-in-law (10/11) who is mad as a box of frogs … seriously.

She’s the sort of person that if you pick up the phone and hear her voice on the other end, you really, really want to pretend nobody is in and you are the answering machine. Another I haven’t been in touch with for many years now – he (7/11) was a member of the Bomb Squad and worked in all sorts of hairy situations worldwide. I don’t know if it’s true, but he told me that a group of them were drinking in a bar (are the military allowed to drink in uniform off-base?) and someone asked what the bomb insignia on their sleeves stood for – they told him they were the Army darts team. The third (21/11) is a lecturer in Sociology, has OCD by the bucket load and is tattooed almost everywhere on his body (he tells me!) Typical Scorpios? You decide – I know who I’m voting for.

Boston Custer was born on 31st October 1848 – one of the younger brothers of Lt Colonel George, of Little Big Horn fame, or infamy. Boston – unlike brothers George and Thomas – was unable to officially join the army due to ill health and so became a civilian contractor. In this capacity he was a guide, forager, packer and scout for the regiment on the 1876 expedition against the Lakota Indian tribe. On June 25th, along with his teenage nephew Henry Armstrong (Autie) Reed, Boston was with the pack train at the rear of George’s troops when a messenger reported that his big bro had requested ammunition for an impending fight. Boston and Autie left the train to take the ammo forward and joined the main column, as it moved into position to attack a sprawling Indian village along the Little Big Horn River. If they had stayed put, they might have survived the battle that became known as Custer’s Last Stand. But they didn’t, and perished along with George and Thomas. A fourth brother, Nevin, became a farmer because he suffered from asthma and rheumatism and was not fit for the military, even as a civilian contractor – strangely lucky for him.

A century after Boston Custer, English actor Michael Kitchen was born in Leicester – although he’s been in many TV and film dramas, he’s perhaps best know now as DCS Christopher Foyle in Foyle’s War, who is driven around by the splendidly-named Honeysuckle Weeks and always gets his man.

Continuing the parts of a house name theme, American soap actress Deidre Hall was born a year before Michael, so Happy 70th today! – her twin sister, Andrea, is also an actress. In sharp contrast to MK’s prolific and varied career, Deidre has played the role of Dr Marlena Evans in Days of Our Lives for forty years – wow! She won her first award for the part in 1982 – the year another set of twins, aka the Cheeky Girls, were born on Halloween. I’m sure Monica and Gabriela Irimia have heard all the jokes, so I’ll leave it there.

Thanks again for having me, Jenny – and no, I am not wearing a horror mask, I always look like this.

Toodles.

NP

Nell Peters writes mainly Crime. Her two Accent Press novels can be found here: www.myBook.to/hostilewitness and www.myBook.to/BAON and other books are on Amazon KDP.

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Thank you ever so much Nell. Another stunning blog. Loved it.

Happy reading everyone,

Jenny x

End of the month round up with Nell Peters

OK- I am in denial. It is not the end of September! It can’t be…except, it is…

Over to Nell!

Good grief! We’ve reached the end of September already – how did that happen? Anyway, let’s not waste any time as I’m sure you have better things to do, like giving your pet rhino a pedicure, or similar.

Red-headed actress Rula Lenska was born seventy years ago today as Róża Maria Leopoldyna Łubieńska – wow, pity her poor teachers calling the register. And she must have had custom-made, extra-long name tags for her school uniform. The family claim membership of the Polish aristocracy, with her parents being a count and countess – I wonder how impressed the good folk of St Neots were by that, because that’s where Rula was born. Perfectly nice town though it is, St Neots doesn’t quite conjure the same mental image as Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk or even Radomsko, does it?

Early on in her career and certainly by the time she hit thirty, Lenska had renounced her countess title. She said at the time, ‘In England it doesn’t count, if you’ll excuse the pun.’ Oh, how very droll. However, a good few years afterwards in January 2006, when she signed up for Celebrity Big Brother, she justified her decision to take part with the words, ‘I’m a crazy Polish countess who likes a challenge’. Do make up your mind, dear.

I’ve never seen CBB – a fact that horrified near-neighbour Peter, who is a designer on the show, when we were chatting at a party locally. Even I, though, knew about RL cavorting with MP George Galloway in a role-play task where he pretended to be a cat licking milk from her cupped hands, and Lenska stroked his ears and moustache. Eew … or perhaps mew. Apparently, she also managed to lock herself in the toilet during her time in the house, giving late singer Pete Burns the golden opportunity to quip, ‘Oh dear, what can the matter be, clapped-out actress stuck in the lavatory.’ How brutal – made me laugh when I read it, of course, but rather mean. I’m hanging my head in shame … really.

My mother also managed to lock herself in the downstairs toilet, a few days before my dad’s funeral. I got a call from the Bluebird lunch carer saying Mum had been in there quite some time and seemed to have forgotten how to slide back the basic lock in order to get out. When Sally (said carer) tried to relay instructions through the door, my mother said she didn’t know what she was talking about and became abusive. So, Sally rang her office and some bright spark there told her to contact me. What sensible advice, when they were in Twickenham and I was at home in Norfolk – a buck expertly passed if ever there was one.

Sally decided a chisel to jimmy the lock was the way to go and so I guided her through the idiosyncratic locked door system of the ground floor – each lock with ever more weirdo-shaped keys that need to be persuaded into action – out into the back garden and around the house to the potting shed. My father was always one for ‘we’ll get a man in’ but did have some basic tools and I was pretty sure that was where they’d be, along with various lawn mowers and other garden machinery, an ancient bicycle or two, a zillion disused flower pots and industrial strength spider webs. After she managed to get the shed door open, Sally quickly located a chisel and squealed with delight when she saw an axe. I persuaded her (with much difficulty) to leave that where it was.

While she was attempting her breaking and entering, she had to hang up the phone, promising to call back when the prisoner had been sprung. An hour passed and I was beside myself with worry, when she finally rang back. Mission aborted. She’d called the Fire Brigade. We had to end the call once again, as she was expecting them to ring. By the time I heard from her again, I was (even more of) a basket case – but job done. Not impressed by three hunky firemen setting her free with a strategically placed crowbar, my mother had spat harsh words at Sally for letting strangers into her house and insulted the poor guys loud and long – nothing to do with dementia, that’s how my mother rocks.

Going back to aforementioned Rula Lenska, Marc Bolan shared her date of birth, but died just two weeks short of his thirtieth birthday when the Mini being driven by his girlfriend hit a tree on Barnes Common – I passed the spot on many an occasion when I lived in London, and there were always flowers placed there. The singer/songwriter/poet/musician was actually born Mark Feld and tried out stage names Toby Tyler and Mark Bowland along the way, before settling on Marc Bolan. Through his father Simeon’s bloodline, he shares Rula Lenska’s Polish (plus in his case, Russian) ancestry, but does not appear to lay any claim to the nobility – so, just dead common like the rest of us.

While at school (from which he was expelled at fifteen for bad behaviour), he played guitar in the trio Susie and the Hula Hoops, with vocalists Helen Shapiro, twelve at the time, and Helen’s cousin the appropriately-named Susie Singer. I can remember Helen’s hit, Walking Back to Happiness – boy I’m old, but not as old as her, because she was born on 28th September 1946, the year before Lenska and Bolan.

The glam rock band T. Rex recorded Ride a White Swan in 1970 with producer Tony Visconti (who also managed David Bowie) – it was the single that changed Bolan’s career, and was inspired by Mungo Jerry’s success with In the Summertime, tempting Bolan away from predominantly acoustic to a more electric sound. Friends Bolan and Bowie both inflicted pretty awful names on their sons – Rolan (although he was named as Rolan Seymour Feld on his birth certificate) and Zowie, who wasn’t so lucky but is now rather more prosaically known as film director Duncan Jones.

The band were originally known as Tyrannosaurus Rex, named after one of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs – a ferocious beastie capable of the ultimate in bone-crushing action. Ouch. These prehistoric predators were approx 40’ long and up to 20’ tall, with strong thighs and long, powerful tails built for speed, plus a 5’ skull which drilled into prey. They suffered from a bit of a design fault, though – while the two-fingered forearms could seize prey, they were too short to reach the mouth and deposit the poor unfortunate victim. Doh! That’s when their serrated, conical teeth came in handy (sorry!) – to pierce and grip flesh, and then rip it away from the body of their quarry. That could become the latest diet craze – tie up your arms somehow to make their reach shorter! Because we don’t have T. Rex-type teeth, no food would make it as far as the lips, ergo no calories consumed – sorted! I may yet become rich and famous …

On this day in 1955, another young man died as the result of a car crash – one James Dean, twenty-four year old American actor and cultural icon of teenage disillusionment, angst and social estrangement, as portrayed in arguably his most famous film, Rebel Without a Cause. American teens of the era easily identified with the dilemma of his character, Jim Stark, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him.

A keen participant in motor racing, Dean was driving his Porsche 550 Spyder to a race meeting when the accident happened, having been stopped less than two hours earlier for speeding. The crash occurred at an intersection, when a 1950 Ford Tudor driven by Donald Turnupseed (I kid you not!) turned in front of the Porsche. Because he was driving too fast, Dean was unable to stop, colliding side-on with the other car. The actor died instantly, while Donald walked away with minor injuries. A subsequent coroner’s jury delivered a verdict that Dean was entirely at fault due to his speed, and found Turnupseed innocent of any criminal act. Fellow actor Humphrey Bogart observed about JD’s image and legacy: ‘Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he’d never have been able to live up to his publicity.’ Harsh, but possibly true. Unbelievably, according to Forbes Magazine (a US bi-weekly business publication, maxim The Capitalist Tool), James Dean’s estate still makes around $5M annually. Not too shabby …

This year, the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur is observed on 30th September, being the 10th of Tishri in the Hebrew calendar, or the tenth day of the seventh month, and is regarded as the ‘Sabbath of Sabbaths’. It is considered the most important holiday in the Jewish faith. Falling in the month of Tishri (variably September or October in the Gregorian calendar), it marks the culmination of the Ten Days of Awe, a period of introspection and repentance that follows Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

I wonder quite how that sits with International Blasphemy Day, observed annually (mostly in North America and Europe) on 30/9 since 2009, after a student contacted the Centre for Inquiry in New York proposing the idea, which the CFI supported. Ronald Lindsay, president and CEO of the CFI said of Blasphemy Day, ‘We think religious beliefs should be subject to examination and criticism just as political beliefs are …’ For those who – like me – haven’t heard of the CFI, they are a non-profit educational organization, their primary mission to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. In January 2016, Richard Dawkins hitched his foundation’s wagon to the CFI. Probably enough said.

Today is also Chewing Gum Day (a lot of blaspheming going on when folk tread in the damned stuff?), International Lace Day and Family Health and Fitness Day USA – the latter two taking place on the last Saturday in September rather than a specific date. And then there’s National Mud Pack Day, also an American affair. The blurb says, ‘This holiday is for learning and appreciating the use of mud on the face or really any part of the body. Mud packs have been popular for years for facial treatments to keep the skin young, soft and supple, so let today be the day you learn how to nourish your skin with mud.’

No sooner said than done – it has been raining, so I’m off to dig up the garden (or maybe I’ll get a man in) and then luxuriate with a homemade concoction slathered over all the wrinkles. You may not recognise the youthful creature who guest blogs next month – plus, of course, I will be super-skinny from trying out and perfecting The T. Rex Short Arm Diet! May have to work on the name …

Thanks, as always, for having me, Jenny!

Toodles.

NP

Many thanks to Nell for another entertaining and fascinating blog. I will never look at Rula Lenska in the same way again!

Happy reading everyone.

Jenny x

 

 

 

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