Month: June 2010

Wheee! There goes today…

At the weekend my children passed two small but significant milestones.

Emily, not quite three months, is now too big for her pram. It’s a Silver Cross that converts from a pram into a pushchair, so I’ve had to convert it. She loves it, she can still lie flat when she needs to but now she can also sit up and watch the world. And she has the heart of a writer, she is taking everything in and processing it before my eyes.

That’s not really significant for anyone other than us, I guess. But it means it’s the last time I will push my babies in a pram, and another reminder that my babies are growing up way too quickly. I wasn’t quite ready to relinquish the pram yet.

Daniel, on the other hand, achieved a big milestone in anyone’s book, and I was very proud of him. He learned to pedal a bike! He didn’t go too fast, and he couldn’t keep one foot on the pedal while the other pushed, but he pedalled. He had forward (and backward) momentum. Good boy!

I do love that my children are growing up. Every stage is magical, and they constantly amaze me (well, while they’re not driving me round the bend). But the forward momentum that they have in themselves is also quite scary, and sometimes, just sometimes, I wish they also had that backward momentum, that I could pause and rewind like Sky+. But no, there goes today. Whoops! I blinked, and nearly missed it.

Rum Balls

I can smell rum balls. Someone is rustling a bag. A paper bag? They should be in a paper bag. I’m straining, but I can’t see who’s got them. Ah, my beautiful granddaughter. That’s right, pet, you enjoy them. No, I can’t have one, hinny. Can’t eat them anymore. Can’t eat anything anymore.

I remember rum balls. I remember going into the sweet shop and looking along the rows and rows of jars. Bonbons, sugar mice, cough sweets, chocolate limes…and rum balls. The bonbons got stuck in your teeth. The sugar mice were gone too quick. The cough sweets were what your grandma got. The chocolate limes were what your ma liked to pinch when no-one was looking. The rum balls were what your da liked. And I liked them too, he gave me one when ma wasn’t looking. I got them with my first ever wage. ‘A quarter of rum balls, please.’ I said that so often, soon I didn’t have to say it any more.

Then HE started working round that way. He was a conductor on the buses. He was shy, poor lad. I offered him a sweet when we got talking. He didn’t like rum balls much, I don’t think, but he took one anyway. Then he started buying them, and offering me one whenever the bus stopped near the Co-op. I would be out doing some job or other, whatever I could think of that took me outside. Checking the delivery boy’s bike, polishing the brasses, cleaning the windows. Them windows. Little sticky prints all over them. Little tinkers. But I’d get them shining again, and the bus would rattle past and five minutes later he’d wander along, pop into the sweet shop and come and offer me a rum ball. I’d eat it quick, before Mrs Milburn saw.

Can I have a drink, please? I need a straw, hinny. Ta.

It wasn’t bad, working on the buses. He stopped being shy, started chatting to the passengers. Started chatting to the sweet shop girls, too. But he always remembered to bring me a rum ball. In the summer, when he was in his shirt sleeves and the dust clung to his black trousers and he had to keep taking his hat off and giving it a wipe. In the winter, when he had his greatcoat on and the buttons shone and he stamped his feet and clapped his hands together to keep warm. There was one spring day, when the rain came down in sheets. It was dripping off the peak of his cap. It was running down his neck. It was soaking, even through his greatcoat. He came into the Co-op and I gave him a towel to dry off a bit. The fire made his coat steam a bit. There was a smell of coal, and damp wool, and, and, just him. Then he put his hand in his pocket. I won’t ever forget his face. He pulled his hand out, and there was a wet paper bag. Just a mush of rum balls. He said he was sorry, and we laughed about it. We laughed about it for years.

Your grandad never forgot about them rum balls. Me neither.

Can you turn the light on, hinny? It’s getting dark. Is that as bright as it gets? Ah, well.

Maybe I could try one of them rum balls, pet. Just a tiny crumb, just break it off for us. Just for a taste again. They can’t do any harm now. Ah, they’re not as good as they used to be. When I was young and the light was brighter and the colours were brighter and it was me and him laughing about soggy rum balls.

I can still smell them rum balls. I can still hear the bag rustling. I’m going to have some sweet dreams tonight, pet. I love you. Tell yer mam I love her. Time to sleep now.

Friday Flashing

I’ve meant, for a couple of weeks, to have a go at the #FridayFlash meme on Twitter. I don’t know if you sign up to anywhere – if anyone knows, can you let me know in the comments please? Much appreciated. Anyway, the following conversation took place yesterday on Twitter between me and @alisonwells (whose excellent blog is here). NB read bottom tweet first:

So, gauntlet thrown down, I went away and did just that and here’s my Friday Flash Fiction. It’s very unpolished, so be forgiving please!

Alison’s Story

The peace was unprecedented. The hot weather meant that the children were out in the yard with a ball. The chores were done. The fire crackled in the grate with the kettle just beginning to bubble, and Alison pushed the window open a little further before checking everything was set up on her desk.

The tealeaves were carefully measured out. The tea cup was perfectly lined up with the milk jug to one side, while in the centre of the desk a sheaf of pristine paper stared at her, beckoning her. The quill and ink pot were positioned carefully to the other side. Neat, organised, just the way she liked it but so rarely managed to achieve. She poured hot water into the teapot and sat down with a sigh, wondering for the umpteenth time what it would be like in a world where women did not wear corsets or petticoats or have fires roaring in the heat of summer just so they could have a cup of tea or hot water. Shaking her head out of her fantasy, she picked up her pen, carefully shook off the excess ink and carefully wrote, ‘Chapter One’.

“Mama!” Alison sighed and pushed back her chair, going to the window and asking what the problem was. “Jamie kicked the ball out of the yard. He did it on purpose, Mama, he did!” She went out, restored peace and recovered the ball, just before the coalcarrier’s cart went over it. Returning to her desk, she sipped her tea and recaptured the story that was still hovering at the front of her mind.

“Mama!” Alison sighed and pushed back her chair, going to the window and asking what the problem was. “Jack pushed me. He did it on purpose, Mama, he did!” She went out and presided over the peace process, gave the stew a stir on her way back through the kitchen (fearing her sister Jane’s wrath should she let it burn before she returned) and took another sip of tea. The story still danced within her reach, and she picked up her quill again.

“Mama!” Alison sighed and pushed back her chair, going to the window and asking what the problem was. “Jenny stole my marbles from me. She did it on purpose, Mama, she did!” She went out, discussed the stolen marbles and checked the washing on the line. Another sip of lukewarm tea helped her grasp an elusive thread of the story that was slipping away from her, and she picked up her quill again. This time she managed to write another word, ‘Once…’

“Mama!” Alison sighed and pushed back her chair, going to the window and asking what the problem was. “Joe called me a nasty name. He did it on purpose, Mama, he did!” She went out, delivered a short but pithy lecture on appropriate language, and returned to the desk, stirring the coals on her way past before they died to glowing embers. She stared into her cold cup of tea, wondering if there had ever been a story or if she had only imagined it.

“Mama!” Alison sighed and pushed back her chair, looking up to see a line of small faces in front of her desk. “Can we have some paper and your pen? We want to be writers, just like you.” Alison looked at the paper, the pen, then the hopeful gazes fixed on her. She pushed her chair away and, leaving them busy pouring their words onto the paper, she put the kettle on to boil again.

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Challenge The First

My Home Area

Can I suggest a topic – an easy one – tell us about your village/town. What’s to do. What the countryside is like. Your community? Any disadvantages.

I am suggesting this only because I love being able to visualise where bloggers are in their day to day lives!

If you’ve been keeping up with my challenge to write about new topics (if you have no idea what I’m on about, look here and here), welcome to the first result! Barbara suggested this topic for me and I’ve spent a while thinking about which angle to take, as our home area has many different aspects that I love and probably nearly as many that I hate. I’m sure you are exactly the same. In the end I’ve decided to interpret the question literally, so here you are: The Whirlwind MyLittleNotepad Guide to County Durham & Teesside.

If you want to place where we are exactly, picture the map of Britain. See the border with Scotland? If you go down a bit – a bit more…bit more…there, that’s it – you get to Newcastle. This is probably the closest big city to us. Now, go down a wee bit more. Durham and Middlesbrough are our next two large centres, although calling Durham large is stretching it a bit. It’s a beautiful city, and crammed as full of history as you can get, but you can’t call it large by any stretch of the imagination. Middlesbrough is…well, it’s bound to have a few good points. To be fair, it does have Captain Cook. He was born in Marton, a suburb of Middlesbrough although it was Yorkshire. That’s Middlesbrough for you – one of its few claims to fame was stolen from another county.

I may have been a little scathing so far, but the truth is I am actually quite fond of our little, often-overlooked corner of the world. Most people know Newcastle (coal-black ex-miners drinking ale and supporting a football team who are, shall we say, up and down in their fortunes) and Durham, if mentioned, will probably bring an image of the Cathedral to mind. Did you know, by the way, that the Harry Potter films were filmed in the cloisters here? Or that the Cathedral was one of the first places in the UK to be recognised as being of Outstanding Universal Value when it was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1986? It attracts 600, 000 people a year. Rather more, I imagine, when the film crews are in for Mr Potter. Yarm, a mile from where I live now, was an important site in the development of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, the first public railway in the world, and my home town has a little-known fairytale spot that shelters the oldest surviving railway bridge in the world, Causey Arch. I used to spend magical hours here as a child, walking up to the bridge, looking down into the gorge and making up all sorts of stories in my head.

And of course, we have the Angel of the North, overlooking a notoriously busy stretch of the A1 dual carriageway. This pretty much sums up the area – a piece of art covered in scars from its industrial heritage.

One thing this area doesn’t do particularly well is prettiness. Our bordering county to the south is North Yorkshire, which is full of more pretty villages than you can shake a stick at. North of us is Northumberland with its castles and beautiful coastline and more pretty villages and towns – Alnmouth and Alnwick are particularly worth a mention (and of course Alnwick Castle is another Hogwarts location). To the west over the Durham Dales you come to Cumbria – I do not need to tell you how pretty the Lake District is. But Durham and Teesside? Not so much. There are nice bits. Quite a few green, flat bits, and the Durham Dales are lovely. We do have a couple of pretty villages but mostly we are left with the remains of the Industrial Revolution, consisting of brick terraces and town centres that were ‘improved’ in the 70s and not since. This is true throughout Durham and Teesside, and my own home town is a prime example.

Stanley, in the north of Co Durham, is an ex-mining town and if you can picture the description I just gave, you can picture Stanley. I have a kind of love-hate relationship with this place. There is virtually nothing to do – for most regular entertainments such as cinema, bowling, decent shopping, you need to go to Newcastle, the Metrocentre (the largest shopping centre in Europe, by the way) or Durham. We have a small but surprisingly decent library, a moderate supermarket (with a Tesco monster on its way) and a few pubs and working men’s clubs. If you’ve got small children, there’s a pretty good little play park (Oakey’s Field, I believe on the site of a former mine) and a nice enough swimming pool. There is a multi-purpose hall that serves as a theatre for a cluster of pantomimes around Christmas, the occasional local production and the odd touring production. This place, recently renamed the Lamplight Arts Centre in testament to the town’s mining heritage, is a source of sadness to me – I was in several amateur productions there when I was growing up and revisiting it lately it is unfortunately clear how little investment has gone into it. The seats are faded and even damaged, and the equipment has been depleted by other local venues. Ah well. Back to Stanley. As I reached the end of my teens, I couldn’t wait to leave. The town seemed to represent deadness and a lack of hope. I still can’t spend more than a few days there without remembering why I was so glad to leave. But it is my town, and it will always have a tiny, irrational pull on my heart.

One of the best things about Stanley is Beamish Museum. This is a large site with various areas set up as a town, a colliery village, and a farm (all set in 1913)

and a manor house, set in 1825. Almost all the staff are costumed, and trams and a replica bus take you from one area to another. It’s a really magical place, and has extra special associations for me as I met my husband when we both worked there for a season (11 years ago now!). The buildings are relocated from their original homes around the region – for example the Town street was a terrace in Gateshead, and the Co-operative store is part of the Co-op that was originally in Stanley, that my dad remembers visiting as a boy. It makes me imagine what Stanley was like in its heyday, when the town was living and busy and had a purpose as a community. It is also set in a lovely bit of countryside – drive along the outskirts of Stanley and you look down over a green valley that drops down into Beamish then sweeps away towards Newcastle and, far in the distance but just visible on a clear day, the North Sea.

There is more that could be said about the area. The people have problems like any other community in the Western world, but they are among the warmest, most passionate people that you could meet. There are still heavily industrialised areas such as Teesport, a few miles east of where I live, but a quick drive along the River Tees brings you to Teesdale which is wild and woodland and windy dale, a retreat from the real world. But this was a whirlwind tour after all, and although this is the end of the first post of my challenge, I may expand on the topic another time.

What is your home area like in comparison to mine? Anything you can identify with, or anything wildly different?

Keep Pushing!

Thought you might like a quick update on the challenges (see here if you don’t know what I’m talking about).

I am gathering info on my topics and have a pretty good idea on how I’m going to approach at least three of the subjects. I’ve also been given two more since the last update: 10 Reasons Why Glasgow is Better Than Edinburgh and Why Asian People are thinner than Western. Yikes, this should keep me busy!

The first post, about my home area, should be arriving in the next few days so keep an eye out. I have to say, this one (which I thought would be the easiest) is actually quite difficult, as I am putting quite high expectations on it. The subjects I’ve started to look into, ukeleles and football, are surprisingly fascinating! Though whether I’ll still be saying that after the World Cup is anyone’s guess. What I could really do with is a video of someone playing football songs on the Ukelele – Three Lions anyone? Kill two birds with one stone. 😉

If anyone’s got any more challenges, keep them coming. Unless they’re time-specific I’ll put them onto the end of the list and work my way through. I suggest subscribing to the blog to stay notified of new posts so you don’t miss your suggested / favourite topic (shameless plug over now). Or you can follow me on twitter: @rebeccaebrown.

Thanks for reading!