A student's Sunday afternoon

I first had a place of my own in Leicester in 1963. It was a bedsitting room in Stoneygate, in Albert Road. I was doing my year in industry at Bostik in Leicester. I had started off in August in lodgings. This had been arranged for me by a local lad who was a fellow student via his local church. The lodgings were fine in a way. I was not expected to spend too much time in my room but rather to sit with my landlady in her lounge. Her daughter lived nearby and was a frequent evening visitor. They would both sit knitting, happy in each others company while I felt quite desperately bored and out of place.

This was OK during the late summer/early autumn when I would go out on my new motor scooter ( new to me that is ). I had L plates and needed to take my driving test in the autumn. I drove around and around the streets by the test centre until I knew them backwards. For some reason I was particularly apprehensive about the emergency stop. The idea was the examiner would step into the road at some unknown point. I practiced from far higher speeds than likely in the test. I was probably a nuisance to the locals.

In the event the whole stop was slightly farcical. The examiner tried to hide behind a parked car but could easily be seen as I turned a corner. The stop was achieved very easily as I barely had time to pick up speed.

I had been going out with Annette for three years, two of which she was in Leicester. Looking back it was difficult. Not so bad in summer when we would meet up and walk through Swithland Wood or elsewhere in Charnwood Forest. But winter was fairly dire. I wasn’t allowed into her lodgings or hall of residence. She could visit me at Loughborough although I shared a study and had not too much privacy; and visits were hedged around with restrictions. This was 1963 remember. We spent a lot of time in coffee bars. A regular haunt was the Knighton Kinema. On a Wednesday when I visited ( it was half day for me ) we went when it opened about 5.30 and ate our picnic tea when the lights went down. I watched a lot of films of that era as we went irrespective of the showing. Unsurprisingly, as there was never more than a handful of patrons, it closed.

I determined that I would get a place of my own where we could go. A park on a wet winters day was not conducive to courtship. The City Tourist office produced a duplicated sheet on a Saturday morning of potential properties. Annette was lodging in Evington so we looked there first. The options didn’t look good. Communal kitchens ( in one case on the landing! ) and dismal places. We broadened the search and found my room. It was on the top floor of an old 3 storey house. The room was at the front looking down on a quiet road with intriguing decorative brickwork among my neighbours. I was high enough to look at the roof features.

On my first Sunday Annette cooked lunch for us with limited scope using the two gas rings. I think we had hard boiled eggs and baked beans then individual apple pies with custard. The baked bean saucepan hadn’t been thoroughly cleaned and the custard was tinged pink. Then we settled to listen to the radio, Annette in the only easy chair so I was lying on the bed.

It was absolutely wonderful to be warm and dry and not to have to go out. The Beatles had released their first LP in the spring and “please, please me” had been successful enough that a documentary about them featured on the radio. There wasn’t really too much to say and the Hamburg experience was a major part. They had played in the seedy Reeperbahn area and often in strip clubs. John Lennon cackled “ I played with my back to the girls so I wasn’t distracted”

A life in science

As soon as I realised my early ambition to become a pilot was impossible through short sightedness I determined on a career in science. Generally although I was poor at many things at school ( and too lazy to do anything about it ) I was fairly good at science. Taking science in the sixth form I soon found I wasn’t much good at maths so I decided on chemistry as a degree subject.

At university under good teaching my maths flourished but ironically I rather lost interest in chemistry even planning to switch to physics at one stage. After graduating and being disenchanted with practical chemistry I got a job in information science. This was a very young discipline but I was fortunate to join a crack team, and even more important to join Unilever Research. When I was asked to go on secondment to a development group I was hesitant at first. However it worked out well and I never went back to Information Science.

Unilever also paid for me to do a research degree at Liverpool Polytechnic as it was then. It is to my lasting regret that I didn’t convert to a doctorate as I could have done. Again the demands of family meant I didn’t write my thesis for several years.  So I emerged with a master’s degree by research by the end of the 70’s ( this type of degree is unusual ) . I also took on a new job with Unichema, the Unilever chemicals subsidiary on Merseyside.  This could have been my breakout opportunity but company rationalisation saw the Merseyside operation close.

In a difficult period I first took a job with a small company on Teeside and then with Castrol at Hyde near Manchester. Working in a small company helped my self confidence immensely. Essentially I did everything from formulation through to pilot scale production and had customer involvement unthinkable with Unilever.

Eventually in the mid eighties I left Castrol reluctantly. After they talked of moving me  to Pangbourne near Reading the move was delayed so many times over several years that planning for our family future became impossible. I joined a small company , Techtron, in the West Midlands. After my previous experience in a small company I rose to the challenges which were by no means all scientific. I literally built my own lab from kitchen units in a bare space which just had plumbing.

Although fairly settled I had remained in contact with Castrol and after a while they made a very attractive offer to return. I took charge of an expanding group developing various production cleaners and temporary corrosion inhibitors. This technology was very much on the periphery of the main interests in lubricants and oil products. This did mean that I had a lot of leeway to choose our way forward but it also meant I had little support within the company.

In some ways this was a very confusing period as Castrol was busy hoovering up small companies which I found had small operations which paralleled my activities. I like to think I played some part in rationalising the resulting mess. I certainly started some co-operation in Europe and to a much lesser extent in the US.

It was while I was working for Castrol I suffered a stroke and although I went back to work with some success I chose to leave early. I was then able to work part time for Techtron. Before too long I expanded my role into IT ( only elementary stuff as little existed ) and with my experience I was able to do development on a shoe string. Money and facilities were very limited. I stayed with Techtron for 10 years finally taking definite retirement at 65.

After retirement I retain an interest, now much broader, in science. I do attend the U3A science and technology group but I find my interests are kept up by “New Scientist” and selected books. With no professional pressure I have indulged my interest in aerospace technology and also discovered new areas such as evolution about which I knew little.

It is being said that the 21^st century will be the era of rapid progress in molecular biology and so it has proved so far. The progress in physics awaits the grand unification of two theories, quantum theory on a small scale and relativity on a large. So far no grand synthesis has appeared although ample evidence for both exists. The key technological advance in my lifetime has been microelectronics. From being unknown when I started the advance has been remarkable and the future promise is stunning with the application of artificial intelligence. This AI is in fact of a limited sort but with everything from self driving cars through to artificial translations a great vista is opening.

The Profumo Affair

I don’t suppose anyone under the age of 70 remembers the Profumo Affair. In the spring and summer of 1963 it rocked British political and social life. It provided days and months of newspaper titillation and speculation. I was a second year undergraduate at the time and I was as transfixed as the next person.

It was brought back to me as I’ve started to re-read “the Pendulum Years” by Bernard Levin. This account of Britain in the sixties written by one of the most acerbic commentators of the time opens with a view on of the febrile atmosphere of the sixties as old certainties were blown away in a gust of change. Incidentally the title is taken from a popular ditty of the sixties which had the line “England swings like a pendulum do”

The Profumo Affair is too complex to describe in detail. Broadly the Minister of Defence had an affair with good time girl who at the same time was also sleeping with a minor Russian diplomat. Crucially he opted to lie about his relationship to Parliament when there was evidence enough to prove he lied.

I rather suspect that without the lie and with present day morality he might have got away with it but at the time it was a gigantic deal. There were ample lurid details which slowly emerged over many weeks. The truthful details were accompanied by even more lurid rumours. These included judges in sexual orgies and perhaps the most bizarre was that a cabinet minister served an orgiastic dinner party naked except for a small lacy apron and wearing a notice around his neck saying “If I don’t satisfy you spank me”.

There was absolutely no evidence in these rumours but with the real and true evidence which slowly emerged these rumours were widespread and found their way into the press. It would be hard to exaggerate the influence on English life. Sexual matters had figured very discreetly in the press until then but suddenly the floodgates opened. Levin partly traces the press prurience to the Vassall case a year earlier. This gained much less coverage and what there was turned out to be wrong. Vassall was a Soviet spy who was also a homosexual. It was incorrectly alleged that he used his proclivities to seduce a minister. This was untrue and the press was humiliated in getting the facts so wrong.

The Profumo Affair had all the juicy sexual detail and most of all it was true. For example Profumo met the girl as she was swimming naked in the pool at Cliveden, a stately home. For months there was revelation after revelation so that even wild suggestions were produced and gained some credibility just because the real events seemed so bizarre.

Bernard Levin, author of the Pendulum Years, came to prominence thanks to a slot on a weekly television show “That was the week that was” now always called TW3. Starting in 1962 this was a completely new comedy show lampooning politicians and spawning the satire boom. It only ran for two series but was amazing, startlingly different to anything which had gone before. Showing on a Saturday night it was compulsive viewing for us students. I remember coming in from Leicester, after seeing Annette back to her digs, one Saturday night and squeezing into the packed common room to watch. Sexual themes never before seen on TV were subject to sketches. I recall one about a public schoolboy hiding his heterosexuality in the homosexual public school environment feeling he was abnormal..

Using a comedic theme covered a lot of really quite serious commentary on the news. The Levin role was to aggressively interview some public figure adding his own savage comments. One was with Emil Savundra, a fraudster who ran an insurance business for some time. Part of his downfall came after being skewered by Levin.

It would be completely exaggerated to say that the whole decade’s social change stemmed from TW3 and the Profumo affar but they certainly contributed strongly to change in public mood. The press certainly saw that sex and scandal sells papers and  adapted accordingly. The content which until then had been the staple of the “News of the World” became widely used. The sixties were a decade in which attitudes, particularly towards sex, changed rapidly. In this 1963 was a pivotal year of which Philip Larkin in his poem “Annus mirabilis” remarks “sexual intercourse began in 1963, which was much too late for me, between the Lady Chatterly trial and the Beatles first LP “

Five and two day weekly boarder

I was reading about people who work away from home, most usually travelling and spending the week in London and then back again at weekends. It came as a shock when I realised that for about 8 years I was also a 5:2’ er living in Oxford in the week and meeting up with my wife at weekends. Most often I travelled back to our home in the Midlands but on about 1 in 4 my wife travelled to me.

I should say straightaway that we always saw this as a temporary state of affairs even going so far as to put our Midlands house on the market for a while. Becoming a 5:2’ er arose largely by accident. I was offered a job returning to a company I had left some years earlier. It was an attractive offer but the difficulty was it was based at Pangbourne near Reading. This was too far to commute. I had quite enough long distance commuting for a year from Wilmslow to the West Midlands before we sold our previous house.

Our children were established in school, my wife had just got a permanent job after a series of temporary posts. The new company were ready to help with local accommodation so it was an easy decision to become a weekly boarder.

Initially I had a flat at Bucklebury ( where Kate Middleton hails from ) and then I bought a small house on the outskirts of Oxford. Preparing to move our family, with the elder children leaving home, my youngest, Frances, moved to an Oxford school. It turned out my eldest daughter Alison went to Oxford University. Initially we didn’t see much of Alison as she entered university life. However I suffered a stroke and Alison informally “boarded” Frances in her university room so Frances could continue at school.

This arrangement we used for about six months with my wife taking us both to our Oxford house Thursday to Monday and the rest Frances spent with Alison. Fortunately they were ( and are ) close and if the university authorities knew they turned a blind eye.

After the six month period I was able to return, part time at first, then increasing to full time. Both before and after my stroke our routine would be to drive back to the Midlands on Friday evening returning to Oxford on Sunday evening. During the time I was doing the journey the M40 opened which made a huge difference nearly halving the journey time. I learned to avoid busy traffic times or to avoid busy spots. I had some very good fortune one day queuing into Banbury which was a major bottleneck. As I waited the car in front turned off down a side street. I followed through a convoluted route around Banbury which I found worked well and which I used until the motorway opened.

Our weekends in Oxford were very interesting. Because of the large student population Oxford supports theatres,museums, concert halls etc. far more than is normal for its size. It also has wonderful bookshops; again far more than usual. We happily spent weekends browsing shops and I’ve never been to theatre so many times in my life. Frances was particularly impressed by the graphic novel shops ( comics to ordinary folk ) of which there were at least two.

Apart from all of this the villages around, particularly those on the river Thames, are full of interest. My Oxford house was near to Sandford which was a delightful river side village.

Like most places there were rough areas. I lived quite near the Blackbird Leys estate. Racing stolen cars was the local sport and we had the police helicopter around often. The area roads were modified to make racing difficult with raised kerbs and speed bumps.

Before I had a stroke I used to cycle around Oxford. It is a city geared to bicycle transport with cycle ways or cycle routes everywhere. After the stroke my balance was too poor for cycling. From my house there was a wonderful back street route into the centre while the circular road has a cycleway all along its Eastern side.

RHS Spring show

RHS Spring Garden Show

After Annette won complementary tickets from Worcester Bosch, who were sponsors, we went to this show at the Three Counties Showground near Malvern.

As might have been expected there were a vast number of displays. Many were effectively sales outlets for plants, garden tools, greenhouses and sheds. There were some show gardens. These were very crowded so we just viewed from outside rather than going round. Mainly they were not large so this was quite adequate. The most ambitious had Alan Titchmarsh being interviewed presumably for TV. I couldn’t help feeling that although the equipment was fairly compact it was still large enough that cameramen must need a lot of strength and stamina.

The oddest show garden by far featured brightly coloured large shapes. From a distance the objects looked like children’s play objects but close up they were simply totally abstract and meaningless. To make matters more confusing most were set in a pool of water. However the really bizarre feature was that the only plants were a few tubs which looked very much like an afterthought

There is a clear trend to grow complimentary plants adjacent to one another in clusters. I find this quite attractive, certainly interesting. I was reminded of flower tubs in Liverpool centre which on closer inspection turned to be filled with various coloured cabbages. One such stand proudly proclaimed on a notice by the plants “ us Devon grown”. Quite why Devon is considered special I don’t know.

Another clear trend is to sculpt animals from scrap metal. These are very ingenious and wouldn’t be out of place in an art gallery. I guess one could spend hours identifying the various sources of scrap metal. Rather than sheet metal some were built from items like bearing races, chains, valves and the like. Mostly this was from automotive sources. The most ingenious used spark plugs for horns; I wasn’t sure if the animal was mythical, I couldn’t identify it.

There was a section devoted to gardens created by schools. Clearly there was a space travel component to the theme but equally eco consciousness was much in evidence. Several featured abstract objects from used plastic bottles.

There were a lot of craft stalls although it was noticeable they were much more quiet than the rest of the show. Some good work but mostly rather expensive.

Strangely for a garden show there was even a rank of older motorcars. It was slightly alarming to see models I remember well from my youth now being showpieces. Rather older there was a Morris Cowley “Bullnose”- interesting because I lived near the Cowley works in Oxford. Cowley is a suburb of Oxford with a large covered shopping centre. Herbert Morris was an important figure.in Oxford history, although the Morris brandname disappeared at least 20 years ago.

Buddy Holly

I suppose not a name much remembered now, Buddy Holly was an American musician credited with innovating pop music of the rock’n’roll genre. He became well known through his initial hit “That’ll be the day” in 1957. He had a series of hits before he was killed in a plane crash in 1959.

I was a mid teenager then and although my major affection was for Lonnie Donegan I was something of a fan of Buddy Holly. At that time Elvis Presley was popularising the rock’n’roll style which very quickly became widespread. In fact Presley didn’t initiate the style although he made it wildly popular.

I was taken by the recent TV documentary “Rave On” which points out just how Buddy Holly influenced many later artists including the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, the Who and many, many others. Although Presley was extremely popular there were other contenders among whom Cliff Richard was certainly comparable in the UK. The common demand at school was “Cliff or Elvis, which do you prefer?” I wasn’t keen on either.

As a singer Holly was rather strange having an impediment which sounded a like a quick hiccup as he sang. The song I liked most was “Peggy Sue” ( Oh how my heart yearns for you) After his sudden death Don McLean wrote a  heartrending song about “The day the music died”

Daniel's Wedding

It was pleasant to go to this wedding last weekend. Sadly we go to funerals more frequently these days. Daniel is my cousin’s son; a cousin  who lives locally and with whom we have become more friendly in recent years. Partly this is as we have moved back to the Midlands after moving around the country and found that Margaret lived locally. Margaret joined our local Book Club for a while and she is friendly with Annette through their WI work.

Daniel, an impressively tall 6 feet 5 inches, married Anna at Appledore in Devon. We travelled down the day before and back the day after the wedding. We didn’t go to their disco on the wedding evening. Experience has told us that conversation is impossible for us both being slightly deaf.

At the reception I was very pleased to sit next to Anna’s aunt Celia. Celia has a very clear speaking voice and good diction which meant I had no problems at all in conversation. Unfortunately a long thin room with us on the end table did mean the speeches were unintelligible. This was a pity because David, Daniel’s elder brother, gave a long and amusing speech which was mostly lost on me.

In general I’m finding deafness an increasing problem. I’m OK one to one with low ambient noise but meetings are often difficult. This issue has been a major reason for giving up some activities. Coping strategies such as sitting in the middle of the group are no longer enough. Deafness also has an effect on speech. I find I make an effort to speak more loudly ( I hope I’m not becoming the local Ian Paisley ).

Appledore is a lovely place. It doesn’t have a harbour as such although many small boats are moored in the picturesque Taw estuary. We took the opportunity to briefly walk around before the ceremony.

Do you get all the news?

The Leavers press has been trumpeting economic news ever since the referendum. Every item of anti- European news has been seized upon. I wonder if they have also reported the first quarter growth figures. Eurozone growth was much faster than both the UK and the US. My authority for this information is the Financial Times. I wonder if the pro Brexit press has reported this also? Is it possible your source of news is so biased as to ignore what doesn’t suit?

I regret to say the BBC also seems to be forgetting objective news. Not so much in biased reporting but just ignoring items. A large pro European march in London on the day nearest to Article 50  declaration was simply passed over. The news editors always find space for meaningless vox pops ( I’m fed up with Brenda, her of “ not another election”, a little  amusing the first time, just silly afterwards ) I’m tempted to say the BBC is taking its cue from the May government who have simply ignored the 48% Remain vote. I think it is also reasonable to wonder how many who voted leave actually wanted the hard exit of the government. I even wonder whether the government will negotiate in good faith. Theresa May certainly is doing her best to pick fights on slight excuses.

A scenario where the UK crashes out without any kind of trade deal is the worst outcome for the UK and no amount of bluster will overcome that simple fact.

Clearly the Tory strategy for the election is to pitch as confrontational approach to Europe  as possible( gets the ex UKIP vote )

Pesky gulls

The mewing cries of gulls to me is the sound of the seaside. I know gulls are found inland but they always seem out of place. One of the first things I notice after arriving in Whitby are the gulls. Because we are high up they are often flying at the same level. They are mainly herring gull which are the most common type- unlike the common gull which isn’t at all common. Around the Midlands area the black headed gull is found most often.

The gulls are a mixed blessing. There is bird poo all over the place; particularly annoying on the windows of the flat. They also leave deposits all over the car. After our last trip I thought them so unsightly I set about cleaning the car, not just deposits from the glass but from the bodywork as well. I found fifteen separate deposits on the body and several more on the glass.

I’m not sure what the gull diet is but I had to scrape one awkward deposit away with some difficulty. Otherwise I found Cif bathroom cleaner and Cif window cleaner effective( other products are available ). I have a nostalgic preference for Cif brand as I worked on it when it was just the French liquid abrasive cleaner many years ago. At that time the UK equivalent was Jif with a plethora of different names around Europe such as Viss or Vif. Unilever rationalised to one name a long time ago. Really old readers may remember Handy Andy which was the late sixties all purpose liquid cleaner. It was the unique properties of Handy Andy which led to the extremely successful liquid abrasive cleaners and thence on to the variety marketed today.

One part of the gulls diet in Whitby is fish and chips. The gulls are extremely aggressive and it is increasingly frequent that the gull tries to grab while they are eaten in the street. The town council puts up notices pleading with visitors to take care and not feed the gulls. I’m afraid we are seeing evolution in action. The more aggressive gull gets more food, reproduces better and takes over the population. In a hundred years it could well be like the “birds” movie by Alfred Hitchcock..

We went to Scarborough last week and my impression is that the local gulls are less aggressive. I would think the Whitby ones definitely are ASBO material. I wasn’t impressed by Scarborough although I think we visited the more down market part..

We travelled by double decker bus and because of long stops I had chance to go to the top deck. I’m used to car level viewing ( with my eyes on the road ) so the top deck view was enlightening. Easily the best part of the trip was the journey. Although it is mainly along the main coast road the route goes through Robin Hood’s Bay and Fylingthorpe;. in fact within a 100 yards of Martin’s house. I had thought that the steep ( 25% + ) hills would be terrifying but the driver took them very steadily. When I first visited the area I was surprised to see double deck buses tackling the route which I would have thought impossible for them..

Our main issue at present is company procedure. The block vendor had the idea of setting up a management company comprising the owners of all the flats to manage the whole building and its communal areas. This is an excellent idea in principle but it does involve some administrative chores.

Comparative advantage

I’m introducing a bit of economic theory because it is widely recognised by the cognoscenti as true but is seemingly ignored by so many in public life. This is perhaps because it isn’t intuitively obvious.

Economist Daniel Ricardo in 1817 showed that by concentrating on production where there is comparative advantage and trading then economies and hence people are better off.

A very simple illustration of the idea.

Taking two equal sized countries A and B. They make shoes and corn. A is more efficient at both  producing 80 bushels of corn per man hour compared to B’s 30 but A can only produce 25 shoes per man hour compared with B’s 20. Country B has a comparative  advantage. In shoes

If both countries produced both shoes and corn the output would be A 600 man hours to produce 48000 bushels of corn  and 400 man hours to produce 10000 shoes. On its own B from 600 man hours gets 18000 bushels of corn and from 400 man hours 8000 shoes.

The combined output 60000 bushels of corn and 18000 shoes.

 However if A concentrated on producing corn and B on shoes Then A devotes 1000 man hours to produce 80000 bushels of corn and B 1000 man hours producing 20000 shoes

Combined output is now 80000 bushels of corn and 20000 shoes

Neither country is working extra hours but by concentrating on their comparative advantage the two countries produce more and become better off.

This shows that, writ large, trade is a win-win situation.

Politicians have sometimes tried to argue against this but usually to support a protectionist agenda. Protectionism can be superficially appealing.