Planters Garden Centre

We seem to go quite frequently, perhaps rather less so of late. I am rather interested in gardening or rather I should really say I was as I can only manage less nowadays. Planters is a convenient journey and is fairly large and diverse.

Over the years we must have bought quite a lot. In fairness most of our purchases were various goods rather than plants. I rarely buy ornamentals and while we have sometimes bought fruit trees I have tended to buy elsewhere particularly bare rooted trees.

They have a dedicated ornamental fish section, Ripples, where we seem to have bought fish mainly carp to restock our pond. Our large pond is rather neglected. We had a big burst of activity about 15 years ago when we installed a fibreglass liner. The original brick built pond was leaking. This original had been part of an elaborate water feature incorporating a water fall and small upper reservoir. This was decrepit when we arrived and we abandoned the original design in favour of a simple pond and fountain.

When Martin was ill, and at home one summer while undergoing chemotherapy, he developed a great interest in ornamental fish. Apart from tanks in the house he was fond of the outdoor pond. Ever since we have had a sentimental regard for the outdoor fish and have restocked after occasional episodes when all died. Our fish bought at Ripples. I fear we may need to restock again.

Planters has changed over the years getting larger and more elaborate. We have always admired their Christmas display and this was annual visit with grandchildren. They had a model world which never ceased to amaze. I was very impressed myself when the latest addition was a working chair lift. The pets corner was an all year round attraction. However we only go to view the animals as I’m very against having them at home. The pets are all small such as rabbits, hamsters and the like – no cats or dogs.

One recent venture is their Skytrail. This is a large elevated structure maybe 20 metres high. The idea is that you are clipped onto a safety harness and then climb and walk around the structure . This looks fairly daunting and we had reservations about the grandchildren using it. However Ellie and Nate seemed perfectly at home with no worries about heights. I think I was more worried watching them.

One feature we used to enjoy was the carvery lunch .Apart from being excellent value an amusing feature was the very outgoing chief chef who would wonder around making  jokes with the customers. This old restaurant has been replaced with a larger one. The design is interesting but regrettably the food prices have gone up and the quality down.

We were tempted to try the new restaurant lunch by a BOGOF offer, actually I think the second was a pound. We have visited before for coffee; there is a separate area as a coffee shop, plus something I heartily approve; a separate area for dogs and their owners. The coffee area has customer newspapers which is another advance I also like.

For food gone are the carvery days, even gone is self service,. Now it is pay, take a tracker and wait to be served by a waitress. I had cottage pie, nice enough but obviously mass produced and bought in. Clearly the in house chef has gone.

An alternative even larger centre, a Dobbies, is rather further away but may well gain more of my custom. I like a scone with my coffee and they have the best in the area. I would say beaten only by Sherlock’s at Whitby which is our standard source in that area. Another advantage of Dobbies is that their range is even larger than Planters although I was disappointed that their children’s toys section has been replaced by an outdoor goods section.

The economic price.

The leaking of the governments own forecasts for post EU economy shows -5% on the best scenario and -8% on the worst. The leavers are making pathetic attempts to play down these results which they wanted to stay secret.

Boris Johnson has a fantasy of £100m a week for the NHS ( whatever happened to £350m? ) but these forecasts just mirror every other forecast that there will be a price to pay. All those leavers are making everyone pay whether they were willing or not.

An honest referendum rerun is too much to hope for with Tories apparently at the mercy of the swivel eyed fanatics and Labour unwilling to say anything. Britain is steadily drifting towards a second class performance. Even pre Brexit our 1.8% growth in 2017 contrasts with the Eurozone +2.5%.

All very sad.

Bill and Nancy Clay

On my first day at secondary school a group of us new pupils wondered after lunch to the edge of the large playing field. An entirely artificial wrangle broke out between the merits of the various school houses. As we had ben arbitrarily allocated to houses and we knew nothing about them this was totally inconsequential. Except that it had a major consequence for me. I was one of only two boys in the group allocated to Barfords house. Perhaps naturally we sought to defend Barfords and extol its virtues. The other Barfords boy was Anthony Clay.

Partly as a result of having been forced into common cause we developed a great friendship. We had some things in common, both only children, both struggling to find our feet in a new environment. Whereas I was the only boy from my village Anthony was one of several from his. However they were not boys with whom he was particularly friendly. We shared interests in cars, trains and mechanical things generally.

As our friendship blossomed we exchanged visits and before too long I was invited to stay. The Clay household was a revelation to me. They were much younger than my parents but they also had a young outlook on life. They were considerably better off and Bill Clay was becoming established in a managerial role. Nancy Clay also worked as a secretary ( at a time when many married women didn’t ) at the local cold store. Butchers and the like didn’t have their own refrigeration facilities then so they kept stock in the centralised store. Chores were shared in the Clay household and I remember Bill vacuuming during my visit.

Bill was thin but wiry with a toothbrush moustache. Nancy was a slightly faded blonde, still pleasant looking in her mid to late thirties. They were openly affectionate with one another. Nancy was Pigeon, or Pidge for short in Bill’s vocabulary. Looking back with my adult eyes I realise how they valued time together. On one occasion we were put to bed early with a portable radio on the landing which I realise now was a cuddle opportunity for them in their room.

They were very spontaneous. One fine summers day they decided to go for a picnic to Lake Vynwy in Wales. Bill had a pre war Morris 8.It managed the hills  although apparently he had cases where he had to reverse up taking advantage of the lower reverse gear.  Bill had several brothers, all motoring enthusiasts. One had a Morgan 4/4 open sports car. I remember he gave me a lift home. I don’t suppose we went above 60 mph but we seemed to be flying along.  In an era when DIY was almost unknown Bill was very handy , good at fixing the car and whatever was needed. I later found his father was a craftsman with a big home workshop.

The Clays had a telephone; the first I had ever seen in a private house. Bill was manager of the bleachworks of a big local tape mill. Generally he wore his responsibilities lightly but one weekend he was worried about a problem batch until reassured by a phone call.

All of this makes out that I was more interested in the parents than my friend. This wasn’t the reason at all. It was more the case that Anthony’s home was a window on a different world. The Clay’s were very interested in Anthony’s hobbies and friends. Because we were avid train spotters they took us to both Rugby and Crewe, two important rail hubs.

One feature of my visits I greatly relished was playing with Anthony’s Hornby Dublo train set. This was something I greatly desired but without electricity at home was quite impossible. Anthony had both a model “Duck4 “ shunter and “Duchess of Atholl” Pacific class main line engine.

With hindsight I guess they saw me as a good  friend to their cherished son. I was a serious slightly bookish boy. My mother was very concerned that I show good manners and insisted I thanked the Clays for their hospitality. Anthony liked visiting us because he enjoyed being in the middle of the country rather than the suburbia where he lived. Apparently Nancy saw me as rather old fashioned which she liked.

Looking back I picked up a lot of ideas about family life from the Clays. If you want to see it in class terms I guess it was an introduction to the middle class. Even some small things like keeping a log of fuel purchased for cars I copied from Bill. As he pointed out anything else led to guesswork on consumption. Odometers ( mileage counters ) are usually pretty accurate although I did with one car go as far as to check ( pretty nerdish I know ). It was accurate within experimental error.

Economic update

The pound has recovered pretty much all its losses to rise above 1.40 to the dollar. This is at least in part due to the weak dollar. Another part is the global upturn and yet another factor is increasing confidence in a decent EU trade deal.

It is however sad for the country to see the Eurozone powering ahead while Britain’s growth is subdued.

Indian restaurant

Just after Christmas we had a family get together albeit without Martin and his family. Martin and co were off to visit friends in Slovakia.. These are Banbury friends who are on temporary secondment with Land_Rover.  The get together is conveniently held at Frances’s house in Birmingham. This year Alison, as well as the kids, had new squeeze Debajit in tow. In fairness Debajit has been reasonably constant partner for Alison for a couple of years. She has been unable to finally decide on him until recently but they seem to have reached a modus vivendi now.

Frankly I think she has been very indecisive and I guess he must be keen to have kept pursuing her. Debajit is in his late forties, has a high powered job in insurance in the City, is divorced with two teenage boys and has parents in Kolkata which he supports. As a consequence although I imagine he earns a lot his post support income isn’t that great.

Debajit gets on well with Nate who obviously to an extent is looking to him for help and guidance. Debajit has a strong technical background which will help with Nate; his degree was in maths and he has spent much of his career programming. He has been in the UK ever since he graduated and is a British citizen. With two children from his previous marriage he is experienced with children and appears good with them.

As they grow up so character traits are emerging. Ellie at 13 is on the cusp of becoming a young lady. Nate has matured a lot in the past couple of years but is still a small boy in many respects. His knowledge of science particularly natural history is astounding. Alice is showing a passion for drawing although she seems to have a wide range of activities which include attending a Rock school. In his second year at primary school Ben is becoming much more ready to talk to us and is following his sister around a bit less. Alice also needs to spend a bit less time playing with Ben.

I find Ben a little difficult to follow sometimes. This is partly his speech and my deafness but also that his interest seem to revolve around Pokemon and the rather similar Lego characters. As Matt is very much into fantasy and Lego he understands, Ben seems puzzled when I don’t understand his references.

Alison is living with a lot of job uncertainty. The degree to which Adama will need UK regulatory support post Brexit  is likely to be small. She is trying to move to more of a stewardship role which also seems to be also the way that her company is moving. The idea seems to be that, rather than just moving agrochemicals, they will take a more holistic approach. Foer example they may well recognise, and recommend, lower dosages where this is helpful for wildlife and habitat. This seems to be going with the flow in agriculture where farmers are not just food producers but custodians of the countryside.

Although Frances has quite a large house so can accommodate everyone ( with some kids sleeping on the floor ) as a full time working woman she can’t possibly cater for ten all the time. So it was decided we would go to an Indian restaurant in Kings Norton one evening. The venue was an easy choice as I had won £20 complimentary tickets at the Kings Norton school fair. Matt and Frances are fans of Indian cuisine and the rest of us were quite agreeable. Annette was in the early stage of her post Christmas flu and stayed behind.

As it happens the restaurant was actually staffed by Bangladeshi folks from West Bengal. Debajit is from East Bengal so was able to impress them by conversing in Bengali. The kids hit the poppadoms  naan bread and mango chutney hard., I had a chicken korma which is one of the mildest choices.

I sat next to Alice who was drawing a Pokemon character as we waited for our meal. She was using new special pens she had as a present. They give different hues of the same colour according to how they are used. She was tired after the meal and curled against me. I was a proud Granddad.

Walking to school

We lived down a lane connecting two villages. I went to the primary school in the nearest village which was about a half mile distant. From the age of 7 or so I walked to school on my own. I have only a hazy memory of taking packed lunches so we almost certainly had school lunches from about 1949.

The route to school was around a small chicane bordered by trees and then ruler straight to the village where the road turned through ninety degrees into the village proper with my school about two or three hundred yards into the village. By the chicane were cottages at right angles to the road. A couple of hundred yards before the road was again open with my house standing in a small group of two semi’s and a bungalow.

I was quite happy walking to school. I wore boots similar to my fathers and I was quite proud of my walking ability. It was emphasised that I should walk facing the oncoming traffic and not accept lifts from strangers. There was little traffic in those days, perhaps a single vehicle during my walk. Through those curious tricks of memory I only remember walking in fine weather but it must have been miserable sometimes.

About  two thirds of the way into the  village there was a potential short cut, across a field and through the churchyard to arrive at school which was next door to the church. This route was only practicable in dry weather otherwise it was too muddy. The field had the ridge and furrow remnants which had been smoothed out so it steadily rose and fell The ridges were perhaps 20 yards or so apart. I thought this very curious at the time and it was only as an adult I have realised this was a residue from the old strip method of farming.   The school was a Church of England establishment nominally although this made little difference in practice. We occasionally had holidays when we had to attend an early service with the rest of the day free. We did seem to have a lot of bible stories and hymn singing at school so perhaps there was more church influence than I realised.

I can’t say it was a good school. I found out later at secondary school what a lot had been missed. There were some fifty pupils in three classes; a small infants and two primary.

Like many children I had imaginary friends and I rather liked to talk to myself ( supposedly to the friends ) while walking. This little boy walking along muttering to himself caused a few curious glances when cyclists overtook and I didn’t realise they were there.

Sometimes leaving the village by the road I would encounter the road sweeper.  Invariably he would stop, lean on his broom and ask how many times I had been caned that day. I was never caned: I don’t think there was a cane at school so I would give a silly answer. This never seemed to worry him and I would get the same question the next time I saw him.

The lane was surfaced by small stones ( chippings ) in tarmac. Sometimes on a hot summers day the tarmac would soften and nearly melt. I learned not to step on it then.

The main change while I was walking the route was that a kerb was added at some time in early fifties. This wasn’t a modern type as found in towns but rather a border of irregular brick shaped rocks laid end to end at the edge. A regular spring feature was that the verge would be mown. Almost all the verges were bordered by deep ditches on the field side.

One day I got completely confused about the time and left to walk home at lunch time. As I left the village I met my father cycling to work on the afternoon shift at the colliery. He was puzzled, put me right, and took me back on his crossbar. Thanks to this I don’t think anyone else knew of my mistake.

Playing in the road

This sounds madness doesn’t it. I’m going back to just after WW11 when traffic was very sparse indeed. I lived by a country lane and the nearest reasonably large hard surface was the lane. At the time there was a slightly younger boy next door and we would happily play in the road. I would think there was maybe a vehicle every quarter of an hour if that.

From one direction we could see about a half mile and we could easily hear vehicles coming from the other. Vehicles were slower: I would guess about half were farm tractors travelling at less than 10 mph while lorries and the like were probably doing no more than 25mph.

The assortment of vehicles was large. There were very few private cars; I knew most of the drivers at least by sight. I didn’t know them all which was the cause of some embarrassment. I walked to the village school which was about a half mile. I was carefully schooled in how to behave. Walk to face the oncoming traffic and never accept lifts from strangers. One morning a car stopped and a lift was offered. I didn’t recognise the driver and I refused. The driver was obviously rather puzzled and I imagine a little hurt. I subsequently found out this was someone I should have known who lived in a nearby village. I happily accepted his lifts from then on.

My tuition in how to behave extended to persistent offers when I was to pretend my dad was in the next field and I was going to meet him. I suppose it would be unthinkable nowadays to let a 7or 8 year old child walk on his own.

I said we encountered a miscellany of vehicles. Very occasionally this included a steam lorry; looking back I can only think of one specific occasion. Even then I recognised that a pony and trap was a thing of the past. I recall one occasion when I had a lift in one and I realised it was a part of living history. Motor cycles with sidecars were around and my family were later proud owners of one. The first was pre war Norton with non standard sidecar and the bike still on solo gears. The second bought later was a 1948 over head valve single cylinder Norton with a coach built Watsonian side car. This had the then new feature of hydraulic front forks. There was no rear suspension so the ride was firm and bumpy.

There were also 3 wheel cars. Generally these were small sporty vehicles with two wheels at the front. The Reliant pattern of single wheel at the front was at first unusual although that pattern persisted well into the eighties. The sporty three wheelers were often powered by motorcycle air cooled engines and Morgan were the most common although I vividly recall seeing a BSA taking a corner too fast and just recovering after an excursion off the road.

Farm tractors were commonplace and I travelled many miles sitting on the mudguard of one. The old style Fordson tractors with their wide flat mudguards were easily the best while looking back some were downright dangerous. With no thought for health and safety we would hang around tractors working nearby and almost always got to ride on them. Now tractors are intended for one person only so it was often a case of clinging on standing beside the driver . As tractors had no suspension it was always a very bumpy ride.

I got to know the makes of tractor very well, Fordson, Allis-Chalmers, Nuffield , Field Marshall. The latter made a very distinctive “chuffing” noise . My favourite was the Fordson Major with its characteristic deep blue colour and standing taller than most. This was around the time when Ferguson were introduced, always in mid grey colour. Ferguson were small, with narrow mudguards so even more precarious than most, not that I ever minded.

My roots

I grew up in the middle of the country on a lane between two villages only about 10 miles from where we live now. My father was closely connected with both villages. In one he lived with his grandparents in the village pub and attended the village school. He left at 12 and when his grandparents retired went with them to live in the other village.

Precisely why he was brought up by his grandparents is something of a mystery. We surmise his mother had severe post natal depression, handed him to her husband’s parents temporarily; a temporary move which became permanent. His grandmother was very maternal and family anecdotes say she wheedled and cajoled to keep him with her. She had great sadness when her youngest two children ( of 13 ) died.

His grandfather was a somewhat unusual figure. After growing up on a small farm in N Staffordshire he used his share of the proceeds of its sale to go across the Atlantic possibly to America. As he was married with a young child presumably he intended to settle, bringing his family later, but in fact he returned to a career as a farm bailiff. Apparently he walked with a limp which family legend says was after falling off a horse..

My father carried on living with his grandparents after they retired to the neighbouring village. They were surrounded by relatives having three daughters also in the village. I didn’t realise when I was young that these girls, who were technically his aunts, were more like big sisters. He had grown up with them as young people around him through their later childhood and teenage years. He would be close, particularly with Ethel, the nearest in age, for the rest of his life.

After his grandfather died he carried on living with his grandmother. She is rather charmingly reported to have said that the dearest sound to her ears were his boots on returning from work. When his grandmother died he went to live with his aunt at the village pub. He would spend five years living there with one cousin who became like a brother to him- he actually had three natural brothers and a sister living in a nearby town. It seems that his cousin was completely different being large and extrovert but they got on well. It was a sadness when his cousin was killed in a motorcycle accident. My father as well as acquiring a motorcycle himself was briefly interested in music under his cousin’s influence.

My mother was distantly related to my father and met my father on a visit to his natural family. My mother was raised in Leicestershire, the youngest child of 4 girls and two boys. She had been an apprentice milliner but the hat trade died and she had to work in shoe shops.

After marriage my parents lived in a remote semi; a temporary measure which lasted for 25 years. The semi was part of a pair erected by Sammy Upperdine who lived in the adjacent bungalow. The semis looked modern on the outside but in fact were a near slum. They had no mains facilities except mains water connected just before WW11.-so no electricity, earth closet toilets, paraffin lamps. To add to the problems the houses were built to the absolute minimum standards of the late 1920’s. To solve a damp problem one wall had to be pedbbledashed..The houses were extensively modernised in the late 50’s- I thought electricity was wonderful not least because we could now have a TV.

It was from this house that I went to school in the nearby village, still a half mile way. From about 7 I walked on my own every day. I just caught the last year before universal secondary education. Most village children were then at the village school until 14. I remember they seemed like giants when I started.

About 200 yards from our house was a couple of old cottages set perpendicular to the road. I remember visiting old Mr Stone in one when my father admired his garden, commenting on his onions. After Mr Stone died his cottage was taken over by the neighbouring Bradfords.

Bradford’s cottage was by a small bend in our lane and bordered by trees. After I was past that point the road ran straight to the village where a sharp bend took me to school. I grew used to walking that road every schoolday; about a half mile distance.

I carefully followed the rules laid down- face the oncoming traffic and don’t accept lifts from strangers. Because my father had lived there all his life most people knew me but I didn’t know them. Consequently I remember refusing a lift from someone whom I should have known. In general I felt rather claustrophobic in the village where I was relatively well known by lots of people that I didn’t know myself.

Because of the distance from the village I had rather less time outside school with village children. Most contact was with David who was also my second cousin and the same age as me.. However my main friend in early years was Johnny, the boy next door. He was rather younger than me and I suppose I rather bossed him about. Unfortunately when I was about 8 his family moved away to a small farm at the far end of the village. Although we stayed in distant contact this inevitably withered.

The adjacent semi was occupied by Johnny’s parents, His father, Bill, was Sammy Upperdine’s son. Inevitably his wife was known to us as Mrs Bill. She was a jolly, kindly women who encouraged our childhood games.

Bill was a farmworker which in my eyes equated to tractor driver. When he came home for lunch driving the new Fordson Major I was transfixed in admiration..

Facts not in the Brexit press

UK growth is now the lowest among industrial nations.

School scarf

When I was a boy the 11+ exam was a really big deal. It decided if you were in the 20% or so going to the grammar school. My parents, particularly my mother, were anxious that I pass. To help me along she borrowed from her sister’s experience ( my two cousins both passed ) and got mock exam books for me to practice.

This practice was important for the “intelligence” test  which had questions like which comes next in the sequence 1,3,5…. This was completely unlike anything I did at school so practice and familiarity was a big help. With this help I passed getting the result just a few days before the coronation on June 2^nd 1953.

The grammar school wasn’t particularly posh but they did have a school uniform and a kit list. This produced some anxiety as we were rather poor and the uniform had to be expensively purchased at one shop in town. My mother set about minimising the expense.

Name tags would be home made with indelible pencil and sewn on tape. Things like football boots were hand-me-downs from my cousins and sports kit could be bought second hand. The blazer badge was rather particular. The school had the public school separation into “houses”. These were totally artificial and only served for internal sports competitions. However it was necessary to have the blazer badge bounded by the house colour; in my case purple for Barfords. As there were only about 10 badges in a particular colour in any single year these were horribly expensive.  One item that mother seized on was the scarf. This was a rather magnificent black, red and gold banded garment. She immediately decided she could knit one at home.. She set herself to knit in time for the start of term.

When colder weather arrived I duly wore the scarf. But tragically the red didn’t quite match the “proper” school scarf. It was a slightly different shade. Anxious not to be different to my school colleagues I decided immediately the scarf didn’t suit and I refused to wear it.

When I look back at the love and care ; a mother’s love and care that went into that scarf I’m ashamed. It was a lovely scarf and I should have worn it with pride instead of casting it aside.

I can honestly say that my poor working class origins never mattered at school ( except right at the end with a snobbish headmaster and a misunderstanding ) I did generally have more tatty school clothes than others but this never greatly worried anyone. Mother must have been hurt by my rejection of the scarf although she never let it show. Now all these years later it’s too late to express the love and gratitude I feel. Thank you , mother.

Sue Grafton has died

Sue Grafton was the author of the alphabet crime novels, “A is for Alibi” “ B is for Burglar”….etc. These featured Kinsey Millhone a Californian private detective.

I heard while I was staying with my younger daughter. This was a belated family Christmas with all the family except my son’s contingent in N Yorkshire. The news came as a total shock. I’ve been reading the Sue Grafton stories since the late sixties. I was mildly surprised to find Sue is an almost exact contemporary.

I think that I probably borrowed “A is for Alibi” from Port Sunlight library. This was a rather strange private library dating from the days of Port Sunlight as a private model village housing workers from the Lever Bros soap and detergent factory. I was working at Unilever Research and allowed access. I rather enjoyed visiting the library after lunch where its tranquil ambience made a pleasant contrast to the rest of my day.

The library was quite small with a modest loan collection and a small reading room. The loan collection would have enabled me to continue with the Alphabet books until it closed in 1979. By that time I was a firm fan as I have been ever since. The books created a whole world with Henry the spry octogenarian neighbour always a strong presence. Henry, a retired baker, approaches Kinsey’s ideal man and she comments that if it were not for the age difference she would marry him.

There is always a strong sense of place in the books. While set in fictional Santa Teresa this town exactly matches Santa Barbara even down to the streets ( albeit with different names )

While in no way great literature there is a sense that real characters are portrayed. All the books are set in the seventies and eighties as fictional time moves at a quarter of real time. While the plots portray crimes these are handled in fairly low key way and there is very little sex and violence. I began to see the characters as old friends and it was interesting to see them develop through the series.

Fans have written a companion book “G is for Grafton” which sets out what emerges about Kinsey in the early books. Kinsey is orphaned in a car crash at 5 years old and is then raised by her Aunt Gin as a self reliant young lady. Kinsey thinks for a long time she has no other relatives but discovers some late in the series. I was particularly interested in Kinsey’s flatlet which features a lot in the books. This has been created by Henry after the original converted garage is destroyed by fire, and is designed along the lines of a ship board suite with everything ultra compact..

The last book “Y is for Yesterday” has been published recently and the final “ Z is for…” will now never appear. This alphabet will forever end at Y.  Sue Grafton is dead. Kinsey Millhone is dead. I shall miss her.