My Story: Chapter 3: I learn to write
Synchronicity (German: Synchronizität) is a concept, first introduced by analytical psychologist Carl Jung, [1920] which holds that events are "meaningful coincidences" if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related.
November 1964. I am eleven years old, have no concept of education, let alone a grammar school one. On the IQ, scale my score was not good. On the emotional intelligence score: sexually abused by the babysitter, beaten up, attacked with a knife, a man asked him to hold his penis, bitten by a dog, to name few, he was even lower. No, surprise when I failed my eleven plus and arrived at North Featherstone Secondary Modern. The headmaster said, on day one, ‘think of a trade, plumber, joiner, bricklayer…learn as much as you can, there is more to life than rugby’. Electrician was my trade, dad had taken over granddads (electrician at the pit) job on the side and I already knew the difference between a live wire and a neutral, no-way was I going that route. I still love playing with electricity, ‘that’s an interesting statement’, I just said to myself.
Every Thursday evening, after school, I went to the scout’s hut in Green Lanes, opposite the working men’s club, his grandads local and the chip shop. I wasn’t really scout material, but they had a disco. After rugby, my passion (it still is) was dancing…
Northern soul is a type of mid-tempo and uptempo heavy-beat soul music (of mainly African American origin) that was popularized in Northern England from the mid 1960s onwards). I loved it and would dance week in, week out. My love of Northern Soul extended, into my mid-teens and the Mecca Locarno ballroom Wakefield. On stage, one week; Junior Walker on his knees, lying flat, saxophone screaming as he sings, I’m a soul man, with his All Stars. Every Thursday was soul night, bus, or lift, there and last bus home. Being big for my age, no-one questioned me when ordering a pint, not really for the alcohol, just a refueling and rest stop, before hitting the floor again. The dance floor was full of pure magic, cool dudes, gliding over the ballroom floor, sassy lasses, jiving with them, up, down, over the shoulder. I always danced alone, I would focus on their feet, legs and hips yet, at the same time, try and copy their moves. Slowly the rhythm began to flow and away I went. I also went to another soul disco, Tamla Motown heaven, Sunday afternoons, in Castleford, old cinema, opposite entrance to station, loved it. I spent every summer in Bridlington [Brid] from seven to seventeen, we had a caravan on Southcliffe. Just south of the harbor entrance is the Spa Theater, a magnificent Victorian ballroom with balconies, bars and .... A Northern Soul day every Sunday from lunchtime onwards. Over 18's only but no one questioned me. I discovered leather soled shoes could glide over the parquet floor, I was truly in heaven. One Saturday, in the Spa Bridlington, I was leaping about to, 'All right now, baby baby, it's all right now'. Paul Rodgers, Simon Kirk, Andy Frazer, and Paul Kossoff, were playing live six feet in front of me. The little-known band, 'Free' had just released what would become one of the worlds most played songs, Wriggles Spearmint chewing gum theme song even. I just had to dance, still do. Its how I met my wife …
Unfortunately, I stuck out like a sore thumb, in a scout’s hut, opposite a chip shop, in Green Lanes Featherstone, leaping about to, ‘I’m a soul man’. The three lads opposite thought so; the first one, pushed him, the second one, kicked him, as the third one, he discovered moments later, was the ‘Cock’ of South Featherstone School, went to punch me. I intercepted the punch and drove (rugby term, meaning pushed backwards, forcibly) him against the wall. The other two retreated. The music stopped, the dancing stopped and the scout master, nice man, intervened. The three lads were removed, and the dancing continued.
I would normally pop across the road for a bag of chips, loads of scraps and tomato ketchup, before walking home, but I felt anxious. It wasn’t unusual to be bullied by complete strangers; came with having a famous dad, this time I knew, there more was to follow. The scout master drove me the quarter mile to home, 17 Alexander Road. As we rounded the bend, just before home, there sat the three lads. My heart was thumping, knees shaking as his headlights caused them to jump standing. They stared at us and walked away.
Three weeks later -you will remember from Chapter 1 - the same lads greet me after a rugby game, beat me up, take my dad to the headmaster, come second in the exams and I am with my second chance to make the grammar school.
The entrance exam, re-take, was ain the lower school library on the first floor. Scary; I remember one question from the maths paper, ‘how many centimetres in a meter?’. No idea, I looked at my 6-inch ruler, ha ha, 15cm is half a foot, so 15 cm should be half a meter. Oh dear. The bit that got me in was the English paper. I was given an essay to write, entitled,
My weekend.
Two weeks earlier I had sat in an English lesson, for once listening to every word. Miss Higgs, tall, attractive, skirt just above her knee, said; "today we will look at an, Adjective Clause, last week I explained what an adjective does in describing a noun. This week on step further, I will explain; An adjective clause, also called a relative clause, will have the following three traits: One, It will start with a relative pronoun or a relative adverb. This links it to the noun it is modifying. Two, it will have a subject and a verb, these are what make it a clause, and three, it will tell us something about the noun and this is why it is a kind of adjective." I thought about this for a while, then put my hand up, something I rarely did, and said, ‘Miss, is this what your trying to say: Colin ran onto the pitch, the evening mist gathering, as the temperature fell quickly. The grass felt soft, glistening in the floodlights, which gleamed, from their perch, high on the roof of the stand. He was to be greeted by a thunderous roar from the crowd? I always was a fast learner, I just needed good teachers.
Two years earlier, I had been on a school day-trip to London. Buckingham Palace, Houses of parliament and the Tower of London. The coach was parked in East Smithfield, he must have walked through St Katharine Docks to board the bus home. Below is what I wrote (well sort of) in the entrance exam. The scary bit comes at the end.
“My Weekend started Friday, home from school, seconds before, 4pm. Dad is waiting; car packed, sleeping bags, food, bright yellow waterproof jacket and trousers, fill the back seats, as I climb into the passenger seat. We arrive on the quayside, Bridlington harbour, two hours later. We eat fish, chips and mushy pears, wrapped in old newspaper, with a wooden fork and our fingers. We step onboard a grubby, but solid feeling, motorboat, Cass Lass, moored at the end of a pontoon in the centre of the harbour. I climb down a short flight of steps into the saloon with wooden floor and lots of brass, a chart table, wheel and instruments. Forward of the saloon, over a thin, nine inch high step, in the floor, through a heavy door, is our cabin. Bunk beds, with a canvas cloth, hanging over the sides. I pick up the end. A man shouts, ‘lee cloths, you tie yourself into bed with them’. I drop my sleeping bag and duffle bag on the top bunk. Opposite is a door, ‘that’s the heads’, the man shouts again. ‘its where you shit, shower and puke’. I’m dressed in yellow oil-skins, life jacket and hooked onto a steel ring, sat in the cockpit as three men sort the lines. The sound of twin, 300 horse power, Perkins, diesel engines made a throaty sound around the harbor, echoing off the outer walls, as the tide was still low. We bounce across the waves as we power into the North Sea, I remember the lighthouse at Spern Head, mouth of the river Humber with its characteristic, Fl W 15s.Oc RW, light sequence, away on our starboard side. Across the Wash, lights of Great Yarmouth, casting a haze of light pollution above the town. Below decks, into my sleeping bag and fall into a deep sleep for four hours. It’s 0500 as we enter the river Thames. The captain points out the sunken ammunition ship at the entrance to the river Medway. He says, ‘still full of live ammunition, it would destroy every window in Southend if it went off,’ Southend Pier is to starboard. We continue up the Thames, the tide now in our favor. We pass cargo ships, liners, docks, more docks and then Tower Bridge, gleaming like a jewel in the crown, comes slowly into view as we leave Greenwich behind. Out boat is tied to a buoy, its, 0800 and two hours before the rising tide allows us sufficient water to go through the lock into St Katharine Docks, where we will moor. We catch a train to Wembley to watch rugby and spend Saturday evening, walking across tower bridge, stopping to gaze at the Tower of London in all its glory, before a meal in the docks. Early night and sail back to Bridlington on Sunday.”
The essay was completed and the exam over. Three weeks later we broke up for Xmas and nothing heared.
It was not a happy time for me...
Notes:
St Katharine Docks took their name from the former hospital of St Katharine's by the Tower, built in the 12th century, which stood on the site. An intensely built-up 23-acre (9.5 hectares) site was earmarked for redevelopment by an Act of Parliament in 1825, with construction commencing in May 1827. Some 1250 houses were demolished, together with the medieval hospital of St. Katharine. Around 11,300 inhabitants, mostly port workers crammed into unsanitary slums, lost their homes; only the property owners received compensation. The scheme was designed by engineer Thomas Telford and was his only major project in London. To create as much quayside as possible, the docks were designed in the form of two linked basins (East and West), both accessed via an entrance lock from the Thames. Steam engines designed by James Watt and Matthew Boulton kept the water level in the basins about four feet above that of the tidal river. … [Wikipedia] Today, a flat in the dock can cost £10m.
Carl Gustav Jung. [Wikipedia] Synchronicity (German: Synchronizität) is a concept, first introduced by analytical psychologist Carl Jung, in the 1920;s which holds that events are "meaningful coincidences" if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related. During his career, Jung furnished several different definitions of the term, defining synchronicity as an "acausal connecting (togetherness) principle;" "meaningful coincidence;" "acausal parallelism;" and as a "meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved." Jung's belief was that, just as events may be connected by causality, they may also be connected by meaning. Events connected by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of causality, which does not generally contradict universal causation but in specific cases can lead to prematurely giving up causal explanation. Though introducing the concept as early as the 1920s, Just a coincidence but in 1952, Jung published a paper titled 'Synchronicity – An Acausal Connecting Principle', same year Featherstone Rovers, played at Wembley and I was created.
Comments
Post a Comment