Katherine Whitehorn/Blackberrying

 Katherine Whitehorn/Blackberrying

 

When I was about 14 my mother decided I needed my horizons broadened. She chose to take the Observer newspaper every Sunday so it was available for me to read. I took to it avidly devouring the contents. At that time in the later 50’s through to very early sixties decolonialisation was a very major topic. The Observer with its liberal approach ( although more middle of the road then than now ) thoroughly reported the traumas associated.  There was much else besides including the windy rhetoric of the Bandung conference. The tragedy of Nehru who led  independent India into economic stagnation was probably not reported as it deserved because Nehru was still seen as something of a hero.

My father ( and hence the family ) took the Sunday Express. At the time part of the Beaverbrook press the Express group with rare idiosyncratic exceptions was rabidly right wing. My mother was , I think, concerned I might pick up opinions from the Express and hence took the decision to buy the Observer regularly. With such a tight family budget this was a brave decision.

Katherine Whitehorn began a weekly column in the Observer in 1960 and this was a hit with us from the beginning. The column wasn’t political but more of a witty and wise commentary on life not just on current events. Later in the 60’s mother bought a book of collected columns entitled “Only on Sundays”. As I had left home and she felt no longer justified in buying the Observer this was a partial replacement. The book was remaindered and cheap so she felt justified in its purchase. Katherine Whitehorn didn’t aggressively espouse female liberation but just by living and writing as she did showed women’s equality.

As young men do I played the “who would  you like to be cast away on a desert island with” along with my fellows.. Rather than choosing say Marilyn Monroe with obvious sexual allure I would nominate Katherine Whitehorn. She was attractive and apparently vivacious but I felt she would be a wise and empathetic companion.

For many years I forgot all about her except that I enjoyed the books of Gavin Lyall who I knew was her husband. I next encountered her column in 1994 when I was recovering from a stroke. I was surprised to see she was still writing for the Observer. Commenting on the story Daddy Long Legs she remarks on the heroine who says “ I shall marry an undertaker and be a help to him in his work”

Later Katherine wrote for Saga magazine. While still moderately entertaining these columns lacked the sparkle of her earlier work. Sadly she contracted Alzheimer’s and was living in a care home in 2018.

Addendum

Since I wrote the above I’ve found our copy of “Only on Sundays”. Still wise and funny ( I’m chuckling about the slob stapling his braces to his trouser).. Inevitably some references which were well known at the time would be unknown today. It’s a tribute of age that I understand lots.

Blackberrying

When I’m picking blackberries in my garden I’m always reminded of blackberry picking with my mother .when I was a boy. Mother loved blackberrying with an almost girlish enthusiasm. In fact she would sometimes say how she had enjoyed it when she was a girl. Like us at the time she had lived out in the country.

Blackberrying was a fairly serious business demanding preparation. She would dress with an old mac over her clothes so that thorns were not a problem either to her or her clothes.. She would carry an old fashioned wooden walking stick used to hook branches otherwise just out of reach. Stout wellington boots completed the ensemble.

Having lived in the same house for a fairly long time she had a good idea where the best spots for picking were. This didn’t preclude extra reconnaissance as other places arose. One favourite spot was just at the end of our garden. The garden bordered on open fields and just over our garden fence was a thicket of brambles. I wonder now whether they had been planted in the twenties when the house was new. Certainly by the forties the thicket had grown to many feet in thickness and about man height. One big advantage was that the ripening could be watched easily although the most fruit grew on the opposite side from or rear fence so had to be picked from the field..

Picking blackberries is a fairly laborious business. I was co-opted into helping sometimes- a task I didn’t enjoy. I would soon whinge that I had had enough.. I’ve often thought that one reason why mother enjoyed it so much was that it appealed to her sense of thriftiness. Natures bounty, there for the gathering.

The culmination was the making of blackberry and apple or rhubarb and blackberry pies.. I can remember them now shaped like a Cornish pasty with tasty pastry surrounding a succulent fruity filling. It was very much my favourite dessert; fresh from the oven and piping hot- yummy. In those pre freezing days this was only possible for a few weeks a year but made for a very enjoyable period.

Novel technology

 

 

In order to talk about a remarkable product piece of product development I need to set some background. After redundancy from Unichema I joined a tiny company on Teeside in 1981 called Emultec. Emultec was actually a small part of a larger group called Cargo Fleet Chemicals CFC ). Now CFC was mainly a chemical wholesaler spun off from ICI. At that time ( early 80’s ) ICI was a very large producer of chemicals with large plants on Teeside.  In addition to chemical wholesaling ( essentially distributing ICI chemicals in drum quantities rather than road tanker quantities ) ICI also handed over various products and technologies which they regarded as too small for their size. In turn these were passed to Emultec.

Emultec had very little technical expertise. Such as it had it was geared towards exploiting the technology of crude oil storage tank cleaning. This business represented about a half of Emultecs total. The remainder was focused on various chemical specialities such as anti freeze, oil dispersant, and special hydraulic fluids. Included within this was a business supplying a new company Techtron, in the West Midlands. While the products were handed over by ICI there was no technical support for their development. It was to supply such support that I was hired.

Emultec was brought down( merged back into CFC ) because although crude tank cleaning contracts were very large  none were won during my year with the company. Emultec was maintaining an expensive team ready to mobilise; this cost led to a big loss..

Techtron were an important customer and they lost no time in making requests of my expertise. In the course of this I became friendly with their MD Steve. Although I was working for Emultec Steve rather adopted me as their technical man. In that role I was able to make some developments they found useful. Although I left Emultec when the company folded back into CFC my friendship with Steve continued but on a lower key.

Steve would tell me of problems and opportunities Techtron encountered. One such was with Shell offshore production. To maintain oil rigs they were repainted with the existing paint removed by grit blasting. To remove the grit residues Shell was bringing fresh water from shore at considerable expense to rinse the bare surface. Sea water was too corrosive for the job containing dissolved salt.

I need to break off at this point to describe how Russian scientific literature was made available In the west( remember the Cold War was still very much in existence ) Robert Maxwell, the notorious publisher, had made an agreement that some major Russian academic journals would be published in the West by his Pergamon Press. To make them accessible to non Russian speakers the journals were published in a “cover to cover” English translation. This meant that literally everything in the journals was translated

As a former information scientist it was my habit to scan the literature and this included translated Russian journals. In one I found an academic paper talking about the use of sodium molybdate as corrosion inhibitor in high electrolyte solutions. This was a known corrosion inhibitor not used much being regarded as expensive and awkward to formulate. I could immediately see that this could be the answer to Steve’s problem and I could easily see how to produce a suitable formulation. In fact it was a work of only a few hours to make a laboratory sample. Normally prolonged testing at different salt concentrations etc. would be needed but pretty much all that was necessary was in the Russian article.

In order to make a trial batch I visited Techtron one evening and a drum scale ( 205 litre) test sample was made. Shell tested, found it good and Soltech 730 as it was named entered production. This was a completely novel product and aroused a lot of interest particularly with Climax Molybdenum our supplier of sodium molybdate. In the end this petered out because the application was too small a niche.

At this point I must digress into the ethics of the situation. I was working for Castrol. The generally accepted position was that detailed formulations or commercial know how should not be transferred to a potential competitor but the general know how belonged to the individual scientist. Castrol had not commissioned the formulation, I had used only a few hours of lab time and I had few qualms about Techtron using it.

Because it was a unique product it no doubt helped Steve’s subsequent decision to hire me to work full time for Techtron. This I did between stints with Castrol. He had great ambitions for the company which never materialised but it was to turn out happily for me in the long run when I worked part time for Techtron after retiring early after a stroke.

Steve and I hit it off when we first met one evening in Chester. I hadn’t even started at Emultec but Steve was anxious to get in quick. He started off by asking what I knew about industrial cleaning. Now I had, at that point, spent almost all my career working on consumer products but full of bravado I started to talk about industrial cleaning. Steve let me continue for a while until , with a twinkle in his eye, he said simply he could see I didn’t know much. This was so true but said so charmingly that we both burst out laughing. We then spent an interesting evening as I learned about the myriad problems Techtron faced.

We went on to have a happy relationship. I made a point of not attempting to flannel but equally I made sure I expressed my opinions. As far as Steve was concerned this salt water anti corrosion additive gave me great credibility. This worked well for me particularly in part time work at the end of my career. I had retired from Castrol early after illness but I didn’t want to give up work completely.  As I was valuable to Techtron  (and didn’t cost a lot ) I was given a great deal of freedom.

Deep time

 This post is rather different from usual. It is much longer and denser. It is also something written years ago , at least 10 years, maybe longer. I was very interested in the evolution of mankind. I have no formal training in biology but I started to read around evolution when I retired in 2007. To cement the knowledge gained I wrote the following as a summary of my reading. While I perhaps would change it very slightly today I've decided to leave it as originally written.

 

 

It is very hard to imagine the eons of time that it has taken for mankind to evolve. One idea- imagine you lived in Edinburgh and a wire stretched from your house to London. Now take some clippers and cut a tiny bit from the end. That bit represents all of recorded history, say the last 3000 years or so while the rest represents the time that mankind has been evolving.

 

No one knows how life started. The early earth was very different to the one we see today. Volcanoes were active, lightning strikes were common and the atmosphere quite different. It has been shown that the building blocks of life can be formed in these conditions. These building blocks were dissolved in ponds and gradually evolved into organised life; at first very elementary sea plants then amoeba then perhaps as snails or jellyfish.

 

It is thought that as part of reproduction very early on a means of coding a blueprint or recipe for the organism was evolved. Each cell ( the basic part of life ) contains the full genetic code. That code, vastly improved and expanded, is common to all living things. It is a huge molecule called deoxyribose nucleic acid or DNA for short. DNA is structured as the famous double helix elucidated by Watson and Crick in the 1960’s. What this means is that the molecule is shaped like a twisted ladder where each rung represents a chemical link between two bases of a total of four which always combine together. This means that if the molecule splits- ie the rungs separate then the  two separate parts each recreate an exact copy of the original upright of the ladder. The sequence of bases is the code which provides the recipe for the organism. In actually fact the code provides the recipe for making proteins which then go on to perform all the organism’s  functions.

 

Because the DNA can be changed by random events ( called mutations ) such as by radiation the next generation of the organism can change. Most such changes act to reduce the chances of the organism reproducing they don’t pass down the generations but die out. Those changes which improve the organism’s reproduction are incorporated in future generations which have the same DNA.

 

The changes in the DNA led to organisms which can produce energy, excrete waste, reproduce etc. It is notable that all life uses fundamentally the same biochemical processes. Although organisms vary very widely they all use the same building blocks.

 

A great step is thought to have occurred about 340 million years ago ( the earth is about 4.5 billion years old ) when fish like amphibians moved onto land. These amphibians were probably like newts. The important point is that they were or soon became 4 legged animals breathing air. We are a lapsed 4 legged animal. Our two lapsed legs are our arms.

It should not be thought that evolution is unerringly leading to mankind. Along the way have been weird and wonderful species. For example dinosaurs developed and ruled the earth for a long time in the sense of being the top predators. However dinosaurs died out through what is thought to be some catastrophic event which only a few organisms survived.

 

Gradually we became true mammals and evolved into something like precursors of monkeys.

This range of ancestors are thought to have lived up to two million years ago. Although human like they are not human and collectively are called hominids.

These hominids lived in Africa. Some hundreds of thousands of years ago developed hominids spread from Africa, some through Asia and to Australia, some into Europe. Before the movement out of Africa hominid species evolved through many stages. Some are given names usually when sufficient fossils have been found. For example one precursor is known as homo habilis or “handy man” because he was reckoned to be a primitive toolmaker.

Two species moved into Europe, Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. Neanderthals were distinctly different from modern man being shorter, more muscular and with more “ape like” features. For reasons which are not understood Neanderthals died out about 30000 years ago having existed for perhaps a 100000 years before that and all humans are descendants of Cro-Magnons.

 

Although Britain was colonised as long as a half million years ago the Earth was passing through a series of ice ages when glacier ice hundreds of yards deep covered much of the British Isles. What happened was that colonists retreated to refuges in southern Europe when the ice was present moving back into Britain in warmer times. The motivation would have been rich hunting prospects. There were periods when southern England had a climate rather wet and warm, as warm as Northern Spain today.

 

Permanent occupation of Britain is reckoned to have begun about 11 thousand years ago.

 

How do we know

 

The early strand of evidence which is still very important is from fossils. Fossils are casts in rock. The fossil record is however chancy and patchy depending on the chance of organisms being preserved in rock. The fossil record did however in the 19t^h century show that life was much older than had been imagined and that along the way some weird and wonderful creatures ( such as dinosaurs ) had existed.

 

Archaeology of a more conventional kind has provided useful but limited input. The careful excavation of the Boxgrove site has given information on early colonists in the UK above 500000 years ago.

 

A new approach which is beginning to yield fascinating results is the examination of the genetic code, the DNA, of mankind. DNA is a sort of recipe for making an organism. The recipes are in principle mixed by sexual reproduction which takes roughly half the DNA from the father, half from the mother and produces a unique individual.

 

However some DNA is passed from father to son and through the generations. This is the sex selection part, the Y chromosome. Another part of the DNA known as mitochondrial DNA passes through the maternal line. This DNA is not part of the organism recipe as such but is concerned with energy production at the cellular level.

 

Genes are those parts of the DNA recipe which code for proteins which give particular attributes. We speak of, for example, a gene for blue eyes. It is convenient to think of the whole DNA recipe in the form of parts linked to particular attributes.

 

Humans do not all have identical recipes. While much is unknown about DNA we see that many small variations exist. Some code for things shared by many like blonde hair while some code is defective and can give rise to disease. It is thought that human DNA contains a lot of code now redundant reflecting our past development.

Where heredity code is similar or differing only in a known way over time it is possible to link existing populations to their past.

 

The investigation of our past through examination of DNA is still in its infancy. It is very exciting because it is thought that our DNA is essentially not just a record of the current recipe but has influences from all the recipes used in our long evolution.

 

There was a great deal of talk of ancestral Eve meaning the woman emerging from Africa who is the distant progenitor of all humans. While it is unlikely that there is a single Eve it is possible to link to a group of early humans.

 

It is becoming easier to decode the DNA for an organism. You may recall the hoopla which surrounded the announcement that typical human DNA had been decoded, the human genome as it was called. Many organisms have now had their genome decoded.

 

It some cases particular diseases are a result of defects in the DNA. The most obvious are those passed through the generations as the result of a genetic defect which is not fatal- an example is haemophilia. However many small changes in the DNA which don’t affect viability can enable individuals to be identified- a sort of super fingerprint. Where identification is concerned it is only a small area of the DNA which is decoded. The power of DNA identification is that a very small number of cells can produce enough DNA which when amplified leads to matching. These cells can be anything on the body- skin, secretion, hair.

 

Evolution

 

Although often spoken about as the Theory of Evolution the evidence for it is overwhelming and we now realise that humans have evolved over many millions of years. Evolution happens because small changes in our genetics make us better able to survive and reproduce. These changes are individually small but over a long time have produced current homo sapiens Evolution simply means that small changes in DNA which lead to a greater fitness for life are chosen whereas those less fit die out. Charles Darwin who developed the initial evidence talked about “survival of the fittest”. Fitness means fit to survive and reproduce in a particular environment. Chosen therefore means the fitter DNA reproduces and less suited doesn’t. The key to evolution is variation, selection and time.

Evolution is often spoken about as man descended from the apes. This is wrong. What actually has happened is that both man and apes are descended from a common ancestor with many branches along the way. Some branches survive today in form of many primates ( orang-otang, gorilla, various monkeys ) while homo sapiens is the only current mankind species. Since Darwin propounded his theory many intermediate species have been found in the fossil record.

 

Intelligent design

 

Some people, particularly in America, say that humans are so complex, and biblical time is so short, that an intelligent designer must have made mankind. There is no evidence at all for this and a great deal against. No reputable scientist believes in Intelligent Design

 

Brain

 

The evolution of the brain is still the subject of much debate. While the fossil record shows hominids have steadily increased in brain size no-one really knows why humans have a brain far better than is needed for survival. The modern suggestion is that it is needed to cope with the social structure which is part of being human. A big part of that social structure is language which needs a lot of brain power. It is thought that hominids up to and including Neanderthals didn’t have language.

Once developed the brain enable flexibility in human responses for example to changing climate. Evolution is slow and must work within limitations on raw material. Thinking can produce fast results. This means if the climate turns colder deciding to make and wear warm clothes is a much faster and more effective route than evolving hair and body fat.

 

Population

 

The early hominid population that evolved into modern man was rather small probably numbering only tens of thousands. These early humans lived as hunter- gatherers- in other words they lived by hunting game, eating shellfish and gathering fruits and berries. The number of people who could be supported this way was quite small and the people were nomadic, moving around to follow their food sources.

A huge change occurred first in the Middle East about 12 thousand years ago spreading and reaching Britain perhaps 6 thousand years ago. This was the development of agriculture by selection of seeding grasses ( wheat, barley, oats ). It is thought root vegetables came later. Some of the formerly wild animals were domesticated ( such as sheep, boar as pigs, auroch as cattle, hens )

A reliable, reproducible food source allowed specialisation and much greater population density. Instead of the hunter/gatherer groups of a hundred or so at most cities became possible. No longer did everyone have to concentrate on food and all kinds of specialisation became possible enabling for example metal working skills to be developed first in bronze then in iron.

 

Inheritance

 

It has been shown conclusively that acquired characteristics cannot be inherited. This means that , for example, because one can read that cannot be passed on to a child. It is essentially that which is in  the parents DNA which is inherited. Even then because the mother and fathers DNA is mixed randomly some characteristics may not be passed on. So a short balding father doesn’t necessarily have a short balding son ( although it is likely ). The laws of genetic inheritance were worked out in the middle of the 19^th century by Mendel, a monk.

 

Nature or nurture

 

A debate has raged for some time over how much of a human’s attributes are inherited and how much are acquired in later life. Certainly the genetic inheritance generally doesn’t cast your fate. In some very limited cases it might where you inherit a disease such as haemophilia. But in the vast majority of cases genetic inheritance gives the potential. For example the child of a great violinist may inherit the inherent dexterity but without study, determination and intellect the child won’t progress but simply have an unrealised potential.

Science simply doesn’t have a definitive answer in the nature versus nurture debate; different studies yield different results. Probably the best guess at the moment is that its about half and half.

Liverpool in the Seventies

 

I was a research student at Liverpool College of Technology ( now John Moores University ) in the early 70’s. We had been living on the Wirral peninsula between the Mersey and the Dee since late 1965. Annette had earlier been a student at the College of Art in 1966-7. At that time Liverpool was a rather run down city with petty crime and vandalism rife. Students at the College of Art were advised to avoid some areas. Although such advice was never given to me it was understood that blocks of rundown flats adjacent to the college were to be avoided.

By that period the notorious Scotland Road with the college at its city end was much changed. A lot of the narrow streets with terraced houses had been demolished leaving only the street footprint in a still undeveloped wasteland. Scotland Road itself had been widened and led to the second Mersey tunnel then newly opened. It was almost free of foot traffic as the houses around had been demolished. The flats were all that remained.. These were not tower blocks but rather 4 storey blocks built around courtyards. Once seeking a shortcut I went by the flats and out into a demolition area. Clearly a stranger I was accosted by a group of young children; I would think all below school age. Almost as a reflex they threw clods of earth and stones at me; a stranger in their territory. I didn’t feel threatened but it was unpleasant.

A few times I went with my colleagues to the pub over the road. It was just about as basic as a pub could be with its split vinyl seating. This was around the perimeter of the public ( and only ) bar. There were no tables or chairs. I guess it was the local for the flats. When we went in the early evening after finishing for the day there was no atmosphere of aggression just one of poverty and sadness. We only went because it was a convenient quiet alternative to the students union bar. Typically the corner shop where we bought tea and coffee ( called “Jim’s” but no name over the door ) ) was like a mini-fortress. Windows boarded up so entering the dim interior you were met with a grill. You had to ask for your needs which were fetched from the rear.

Ironically this was only a few hundred yards from the cultural centre of the city with St Georges Hall, Williamson Art Gallery and City Library. All of these were Victorian gems. I had plenty of contact with the library and I was always amazed by its splendid interior. Towards the river was the commercial area, much reduced but still even with its own Stock Exchange plus many insurance, shipping etc company offices. A little further beyond the cultural centre was the main shopping area. The centre of Liverpool was quite normal and one had no fears walking there even after dark.

I did once venture with student friends to a dock side pub. While there was no overt aggression we were made to feel distinctly uncomfortable and left after one drink. As everywhere the pubs were widely variable. In keeping with the cities Victorian character there were pubs which retained something of that feel with lots of etched glass. The stand out pub with this character was the Philharmonic. This was situated just opposite the Philharmonic Hall, the main concert venue and base for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. This pub cultivated Victorian/ Edwardian décor and was immensely popular on concert nights.

Generally there were few tall buildings. The ones which stood out were the contrasting Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals. The Anglican Cathedral was as notable for its sheer size as its height and was in a traditional Gothic style. The Roman Catholic Cathedral was completely different being an ultramodern truncated cone with its top surrounded by mini spires. Rather ironically the eye was rather caught by an immense square tower which was part of the Mersey Tunnel ventilation. This was set just behind the famous “Three graces” on the waterfront. ( the Liver building, Cunard Building and Mersey Docks and Harbour Board building )  In the city centre there is a tall column with a rotating restaurant at the top. This column is partly a chimney for the heating of the large shopping complex underneath. As a special 30th birthday treat we had a meal in the restaurant which enjoyed magnificent views over Merseyside. Sadly the restaurant closed in the 80’s because of its vulnerability to terrorism and is now HQ for a radio station..

Although historic Anglican/Catholic rivalry remained it was much reduced. Traditional football support remained with Liverpool protestant and Everton catholic. This religious association has died out. The intense rivalry was illustrated by the Everton supporter saying she hoped both teams won, “Everton and Everton reserves”. Whether from religious bias I  doubt but most folk around me were vehement Liverpool supporters. Certainly at that time Liverpool were doing very well and Bill Shankly  ( Liverpool manager ) anecdotes were ever present. There was his famous quote when asked if football was a matter of life or death to which he replied it was more serious than that.

The 12^th of July did see Orange day parades by militant protestants but these were small and in my experience drew small audiences. The pop music heritage, prominent today, was tiny. Even the Cavern Club ( the Beatles Liverpool venue ) had closed although NEMS ( Brian Epstein’s shop ) was still open.

Easily the best part of the city was the  approach to pier head. The river was always active although by this time big passenger ships were no longer in evidence. Most of the ships were commercial freighters plus tankers going to the oil terminal just upriver . The Isle of Man ferry was the most common passenger vessel. The Birkenhead ferry was operated by two ships crossing in the middle of the river. To sit on the upper deck of the ferry as it prepared to leave Hamilton Square terminal was to see the city at its best which only improved as pier head approached and the “three graces” provided a wonderful frontispiece.