Eyesight and simosas.

 Caught the bus into the city this morning. Free pass after 9.30. This is a very rare event nowadays. I don’t drink anymore, so if I fancy a daytime coffee alone I’d rather take the car and drive in the opposite direction to an outside venue. Not that it’s warm enough to even contemplate that at present. I’ve never known the skies so overcast and grey, and the days so cold for so long as it has been these past weeks.

Today’s trip was just for the annual eye test. All continues to be well in that respect. I don’t think I’ve had a prescription change in some years. So I thought a Waitrose snack on veggie simosas and sushi was in order.

 all text and artwork copyright ian gordon craig

 

Old Lady's clothes.

 The wardrobe and the dressing table drawers were full of old, old lady clothes. Brim full. The kitchen cupboards and drawers the same, of various and countless products and utensils. The carpet was soiled across its entire surface, the stair’s chair lift, clearly not used over recent years, in a similar state of neglect, whilst the pièce de résistance must have been the copper boiler tank, covered in what seemed to be a coat of cement. No doubt a well-intended amateur attempt at insulation. But that wasn’t the final indicator in what I surmise had happened here. Down beside one of the armchairs stood a half full water bottle. Totally undisturbed. Like a final witness to the room’s events and what must have happened here a month or two ago.

Leaving her clothes behind, no longer needed if the destination was to be a care home, the body of the previous occupant would have been taken to wherever old lady bodies are taken to at life’s end. And no-one to take her old, old lady clothes and belongings away from the property before potential buyers like myself pass nosily through.

 All text copyright ian gordon craig.

a chance poetic encounter.

 Today I made a trip into town to place copies of my book inside those venues I once frequented, and wherein some of the inspiration came from. The trip resulted in an encounter which left a lasting impression.

I don’t give money to the homeless, but I always buy them a sandwich & drink lunch if I see them outside the store I get my groceries from. The guy I came across today was situated nowhere near a food store. So, in high spirits, I asked him if he read poetry, and gave him a copy of my book.

It transpired that not only does he read poetry, he writes it as well, and commenced to recite two for me. They were incredible! So there were, exchanging poems on the pavement. Good times.

I encouraged him to self-publish. But I don’t know how the homeless could access that facility.

All text copyright ian gordon craig.

 

Hari Krishna.

 Strolling around town today, with no particular intention. A young Hari Krishna guy asked me for a donation. I have no cash on me, not that I would have donated anyway, but offered a verse of the song instead. So, there I was, middle of a busy central city side-walk, singing a verse of “Hari Krishna, Hari Hari”. (You know the tune). His face lit up.

 All text copyright ian gordon craig.

R. I. P. Shelley

 Just heard the sad news via Facebook. Quite a shock, even after all these years. One always assumes the people one was close to in the past, and had meaningful relationships with, are still out there somewhere, happy and healthy. Sometimes it's not so. She passed away September 2020. I don't know the cause, but the date corresponds to the covid epidemic. I hope there was no pain.

Shelley Burton was an important person to me during the 1980’s, even though we were never destined to be together for life. During the two and a half years in which we were happily “an item”, she was both muse and motivator. The reason I exhibited quite well in the Nottingham Opens during the 1980’s, and indeed almost made it on to the wall in a Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, was down to her.

 All text, pros, poetry & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Of Cats and Trees

 Of Cats and Trees.

 Before the days of social media, stories would occasionally turn up in the main news about a fire brigade having to rescue a cat from a tree. Surely just an urban legend, a “feel good” item bringing the broadcast to an end. As far as cats are concerned, trees are about as desirable as the nearest river bed. But put aside the thought someone might be stupid enough to call the emergency services for a cat, and consider how it got there.

Maybe the cat gets itself tempted into that tree. He hears those birds high above him, catches a glimpse of them fluttering amidst the leaves and, before he knows it, he’s up there. The birds of course don’t altogether flee from the tree. Why should they? It’s their tree. Instead they skip and settle to where the branches can’t support the cat’s weight. It’s a tease.

So now the cat can’t go any further up, but neither can he come back down. He’s confused, that’s all. Those shapes and sounds so appealing in their clarity from the ground, are now all mixed up inside his head with the rustling movement of leaves and the sunlight flickering between. To make matters worse, just as he’s trying to get a grip on his situation, someone below starts banging a spoon against the edge of a plate of processed horse meat, whilst a guy in uniform with a ladder creeps ever closer, addressing him as Pussy.

No way is that cat coming down now. Couldn’t if he tried. What started out as a frisky morning prowl around the neighbourhood has turned into a ball of confusion. In that moment, if you could speak Cat, you’d know his cries are not for “Help” but for everyone to just “Back off”. Sure, it’s risky up there in such a mesmeric situation, but it’s maybe more exciting than the realities of paws on terra firma. He has my sympathy.

Text copyright ian g craig

My Poetic Performance. (My first poetry reading).

My Poetic Performance.

 
“They look like a comfy pair of shoes”.
“Yes, and so clean”.
“And shiny”.
“I bet they’re new”.
“Do you know you can buy a pair just like those down the market for about ten pounds? It’s the brand you pay for you know”.

I am seated in a cave two or three floors below street level, in one of Nottingham’s most noted pubs for the performing arts, and I haven’t yet spoken one word. The cave itself, carved out of the sandstone, is a characteristic underground feature of many buildings in the city centre. Above me is the one-time Victorian Music Hall the Malt Cross, a venue I’ve variously sketched, dated, and drunk in, often watching local musicians perform. Somewhere in this pub’s files they have, at their request, copies of sketches I’ve made of the interior. But I’ve never performed here. I can’t remember the precise date I was last on a public stage anywhere, but I have done it, even going so far as to sing my own songs. Tonight, that’s about to change. A couple of weeks ago I saw a poster announcing the venue’s Spoken Word Open Mic Night and thought, “Why not?” So, I’m here to both test my mettle and the worth of the words I write.

I have always enjoyed writing, and taken it seriously. I have had some bits and pieces published in magazines. But I’ve never yet really put my words to the test. Painting is very different. I send the paintings out beyond my walls to be judged by others within their walls. In return I get a slip of paper which reads either “rejected” or “accepted”. No further explanation than that. Tonight, I am presenting my words to strangers for the first time, face to face. I put my name down at the door, number 14 on the list of tonight’s performers. If my words prove to be no good at least my shoes have been a big hit.

When I was a student in Liverpool, poets like Adrian Henri and Roger McGough were not yet widely known across the U.K. The Merseybeat groups of the sixties had all followed the Beatles south, to be replaced in the seventies by the Mersey Scene, predominantly one of poetry and improvised music. So, it was not uncommon to both sit alongside and experience such talent in the local pubs. I cannot pretend I was ever a member of that in-crowd, but it was an inspiring atmosphere for a young student to witness. Tonight reminds me a little of those days. The sandstone benches along these underground walls are rock hard, but the people are supportive, in good spirits, and raring to get started. Importantly, they are all listening attentively to each other’s works.

I’ve spent much of the day rehearsing out loud in my studio. I think, of the dozen or so acts which precede me, I must be on a par with a fair percentage of them. One notable exception being number 13, a youthful, passionate performance in rapid contemporary rhyme and without notes. Not an act I would have chosen to follow. Nevertheless, one pint into the evening, number 14 “Ian” is called to the front…

I am expected to read two poems. I'm happy to say both go down really well. The audience laugh with me at my brief introduction to “The Gift”, which relates how my years as a teacher was rewarded with a simple book token, before they then became totally involved with the poem’s pathos, catching them off guard.

 Similarly, the “four and twenty seagulls” and “balding braided doorman” of “Skeggie Day” elicit giggles of appreciation, before the poem’s sombre conclusion makes its mark. I like using this well-established literary device, mixing opposing emotions in the same piece. (“It’s getting better all the time. – It can’t get no worse”). I shall be using it again. Perhaps in this venue.

This night gave me the confidence to consider self-publishing a collection of my poems.

 All text, pros, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Artist Lady Manvers, my dad, and Coquette.

Those familiar with my Thoresby Park blog, or the piece I wrote for Nottingham University Art History Department, (see THIS LINK), will be aware of my respect and admiration for artist Lady Manvers. I accept that my opinions are in part due to sentiment, having spent my early life on Thoresby Estate, but I do like to think my years of teaching and lecturing in Art, give my opinion about her canvases some credence.

I refer in particular to those which depict the interiors and grounds of Thoresby Hall. Her outdoor studies are excellent in their own right, mostly water colour sketches documenting the seasons as they pass through the estate, its employees in peace time, and the military presence of the war years. But it is the interior canvases which she was able to leave undisturbed on her easel at various locations within the hall, returning to them at will over a period of days, which exhibit her true skills and understanding of the colourful palette she acquired in France. That said, I should set my story here within a little biographical context.

In 1947 my father, William Craig, had recovered from the head wound received in the Battle of Arnhem, and the tuberculosis he subsequently contracted in P.o.W. Camp Stalag 9c. Having then begun his married life in nearby Edwinstowe, his skill as a carpenter and joiner soon found him gainfully employed by Thoresby Estate.

 
The Woodyard was essentially the place which processed the timber from the forestry department, turning out everything from telegraph poles and fence posts, to items needed by the pre-PVC building trade. Thoresby workers were also responsible for the maintenance of the estate, and in this respect my father was frequently involved in repairs to Thoresby Hall and its contents. My father's team hung the  blue wallpaper in the Blue Drawing Room, and items of antique furniture would often find themselves transported to our kitchen whilst he tended to their upholstery. Such work of course had to meet Lady Manvers’ standards and, although a lady of sweet disposition, she could be rather fastidious in her demands. For example, all the firewood for her bedroom, sitting room, and dining room, had to be billet wood, 9” (23cm) long and 3” (8cm) diameter, and totally free from knots. Nothing short of these specifications would do. Happily, dad’s skills and general work ethic soon won the Ladyship’s approval. During their encounters she would always enquire about his family’s welfare, and in 1962 she would even ask him to pose for one of her water colours. (THIS LINK).

Sometime in the late 1950s dad came home from Thoresby Hall with a broken figurine in his pocket. Smashed might be a more appropriate description. (I count ten pieces). Quite possibly it was a favourite ornament with Lady Manvers and so, rather than relegate it straight to the bin, dad was asked if it could be fixed. Not surprisingly the outcome was rather unsatisfactory. One elbow was missing, and lines of Evostik adhesive were unavoidably visible. As a consequence, the “Coquette” figurine remained on our family sideboard, often commented on through the decades, though its origins all but forgotten. Until now.

In March 2016, Thoresby Courtyard Gallery exhibited a selection of Lady Manvers’ still-life paintings, the majority of which had quite possibly not been seen anywhere since Thoresby Hall closed to the public in 1979. (THIS LINK). So you can imagine my surprise and delight upon seeing the painting above. It is probably an unfinished piece, or perhaps abandoned; the leaves are somewhat heavy handed and the background left rather unresolved. But there in the corner sits “Coquette”. The very same one.

Last thoughts on Lady Manvers.

In 1963 the estate’s management of the time decided our family of seven should move out of Three Gables and back to a much smaller house on Perlethorpe Village Green. One afternoon before that move took place, the news of which had only just reached Lady Manvers, her chauffeur driven limousine pulled up outside. She expressed much concern at what had happened, and even offered us the flats in Thoresby Courtyard as accommodation. It was a sincere gesture, and typical of her character. But it was time to move on.

I was born into Thoresby Estate, and left there as a teenager. Everyone I’ve spoken to who once lived there says the same thing: When they left, they left a little piece of them behind. It’s true. Just like Coquette’s little elbow, as she now resides on my shelf.

 Top painting copyright Thoresby Estate. Text copyright Ian G Craig.

 

David Bowie and my Unisex lilac velvet jacket, R.I.P.

 

The date is 10th June, 1973. I am an art student. I have long since owned a worn-out ex-juke box copy of “Space Oddity”, and the hit single “Starman” saw me purchase the Ziggy Stardust album. We all like “Walk on the Wildside”, but neither myself nor anyone I know of in this city, or my hometown, is listening to the Velvet Underground, let alone aware of what an Iggy Pop might be. I know a little about German Expressionist cinema, but never even heard of Japanese Kabuki, Bertol Brecht, or William Burroughs’s cut-ups. Within 24 hours all this and more will change. Forever.

Our curiosity peeked by a couple of hit singles, and the stories in the media, my flat mates and I are deciding what to wear for tonight’s David Bowie gig at the Liverpool Empire. Tickets were quite easy to obtain. “I’m going to wear all brown”, I joked with a camp wave of the hand. “I don’t want to appear to be competing with David!” And brown it was, although my platform boots were already about two building bricks high by that stage, and my lapels were wider than my shoulders. We assumed that the night’s concert would be more of an entertaining spectacle for the teens, rather than second year art college students like us. How wrong we were.

As we approach the theatre, we are swept aside by a youthful crowd emerging from Lime Street railway station, their eyelids painted like rainbows, silver tinsel circles glued to their cheeks. Stopping for no-one they charge through the theatre doors with scant regard for ticket collectors, rush to the front of the stage, and go into their chant: “David! David!” I am twenty-two years old, and the only teen adoration I’ve witnessed prior to this is my younger sister crying over The Osmonds. I clearly have no idea what is about to happen.

Let’s be honest, detailed accounts of most concerts one has seen fade from the mind over time. They become a tick-box list of those bands one has seen and those still on the bucket list. But I can still replay that night’s performance in my mind: The swirling Japanese cape as the curtains opened on Jean Genie (complete with Love Me Do harmonica riff); the single spotlight on a solitary mirror ball which turned the theatre into a Space Oddity galaxy; Bowie shouting at the audience for screaming and not listening; the slick on-stage costume changes; the occasional instrumental-break mime; and hearing Lou Reed’s song “Waiting for the Man” for the very first time. Most of all the moment Bowie went “down” on Mick Ronson, seemingly biting at his guitarist’s strings, Ronson’s thigh mere inches away. I can tell you that three very straight art students emerged from the theatre that night wanting to be Mick Ronson.

After witnessing this Aladdin Sane stage show a lot of things I’d previously encountered became joined-up in my mind: “The Cabinet of Dr Caligari”, “Metropolis”, Scott Walker’s take on Jacques Brel, “Clockwork Orange”, Andy Warhol, “1984”, and more. The undoubted genius of The Beatles had tapped into largely British roots, marrying American pop with Music Hall, Irish limericks, the surreal humour of the Goon Show, the fantasy of Lewis Carrol. That well had been bled dry three years previous. Bowie was embarking on a whole new direction, merging European and Eastern art forms with the sound of Jeff Beck’s Yardbirds and the glitzy attitude of Andy Warhol’s factory. Put simply, it was the second coming of Elvis. Everything began anew, and he’d only just begun.

 Everybody uses that tired old cliché about “it changed my life”. But in some small measure, for me, that night did. Being a stranger myself in a strange land at that time became an easier mind-set to accept. It still is, when “everybody’s going out and having fun”, and I want to stay home and paint. In fact, so empowered did this fresh out of the countryside young man begin to feel, that a lilac velvet jacket and mullet hairdo seemed to be in order. Of course nobody told me the jacket, which buttoned to the left, was obviously intended for a girl. Never mind. I couldn’t get into it these days anyway. But I am still listening to David Bowie. I never stopped.

Above: Posing for a fellow student c. 1973.

 All text, pros, & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Nightclubbing in the 70s. Part 2.

Night Clubbing 2.

Tim would like nothing better in the whole world than for his life to go back to the way it was just one week ago. But instead, he’s stood beside us in a club he’s unfamiliar with, whilst some booze-for-brains lout is shouting in his face “Are you looking at me?”

Bringing him here was a dumb idea from the start. Three guys are never going to pull. We should have simply taken him to the pub, there to let him alternately drown his sorrows and pour his heart out over the fact his fiancé has said goodbye. Instead of which we brought him here, suited-up and stood like an out-of-place Top Shop dummy beside a noisy dance floor, his face vacant as someone whose thoughts are miles away in another city.

“Are you looking at me?!”

Tim wasn’t looking at anybody. But in late night Nottingham, “Looking at” is regarded as a serious offence. One punishable by Fists.

“Are you looking at me?!!”

Tim is now frozen on the spot. Now he really is looking. He can’t do anything else. In fact, he’s staring like a rabbit caught in the bulging red-faced glare of his drunken accuser. He wants to look away, he really does. But he can’t. He’s scared stiff fixated.

We take an arm each, almost lifting his rigid body away from the scene, offering abundant “Sorry mate” apologies as we go. We’ve both been in similar situations before and know the ropes. Tim hasn’t. I doubt he went to an all-boys school like us. I know for sure he can’t ever have lived in a place like Liverpool where I developed a sixth sense of how and when to avert one’s eyes, and how to walk home in the centre of the road because it offers an extra pavement width of sprinting distance if attacked.

Now the bouncers have turned up, wanting to know what the problem is. They never take sides. As far as they’re concerned, if there’s a fight to be had then everybody goes down. So now we’re apologising to them also, edging backwards towards the exit, Tim’s frozen body between us.

He wasn’t looking at anybody. He’s not even focusing. He didn’t even want to be here. Tim just wanted everything to be as it was one week ago. He wanted to be at home and able to watch a favourite movie, or order pizza, or listen to romantic records, all without thinking of her.


All text copyright Ian G Craig.

Pete.

 Pete.

There is today a common misconception that the grammar schools of the 1950s / 60s were places for those of a privileged disposition. They were not. These schools catered for working class kids bright enough to pass a basic exam comprising elementary arithmetic, a short essay, and a visual I.Q. test. If you could do long division, string a few “what we did on our holiday” sentences together, and spot the odd-one-out circle in a row of triangles, you passed. Known as the “11-Plus”, this exam gave an opportunity for the sons and daughters of coal miners or factory workers to one day enter the lower ranks of the white-collar professions. The word University was on no-one’s lips I knew of, but future “training college” was a possibility.

I have almost no memory at all of my first three years in the excruciatingly dull all-boys Grammar School system. Wearing one’s cap seemed to be of paramount concern rather than any degree of enlightenment. However, in my fourth year there, things took a turn for the better. That was the year Pete joined the school. Or, be more accurate, he didn’t so much join the school as happen to it.

Schoolboys seek compatible male company according to how far they are along nature’s puberty trail. Trainspotters furtively collected together like so many numbers in their well-thumbed notepads. Sycophant minions tagged along behind psychopath bullies. Outsized sporty types substituted bulk for ability, competing for tarnished trophies on which any space for the further engraving of names had long since expired. The short, curly headed boy who always played the female lead in the school’s annual Gilbert and Sullivan production, coupled up with the tall thin boy who went on to become an officer in the Merchant Navy. These being really the only options available for playground socializing, I chose to self-isolate. However, at age fourteen, this other group starts to manifest itself: The “cool kids”.

Across the 1960s schoolyard one began to recognize who else “got” the humour in David Frost’s emerging satire movement; who else “knew” why The Who were cool and the Dave Clark 5 were not; who else was adjusting their school uniform to just this side of school-rule legality whilst still managing to express their individual self. It was in this setting that I was first able to find friends during my grammar school years, and it was into this group that Pete arrived. It was the art room which brought us together. I was a wannabe cross between Paul McCartney and Illya the Man from UNCLE Kuryakin; Pete could have been Syd Barrett’s twin.

Previously, I’d always had things my way in the art lessons. My work was no doubt as dull as the set tasks I was given. Nevertheless, “Top of the Class” awards usually came my way, so art gave me an identity amongst my peers. Pete challenged all that. Whereas I had always been encouraged and rewarded for a high level of technical competence, qualities considered desirable for future employable, Pete had a much stronger creative streak. Not only that, he was already selling his work. He would produce these ten-minute water colour sunsets, washing the paint across the page, before adding a few strategically placed silhouettes. Simple stuff, but awe-inspiring to those with no art skills. On one occasion a neighbour came knocking to see if he had any more for sale. Pete ran upstairs, rapidly dashed off a sunset, placed it still dripping wet into the neighbour’s grateful hands, and duly received his £10 note in exchange. When you’re fourteen years old that kind of enterprise is impressive.  Even more impressive, he had the gall to hang back after class and present our ex-military, strict schoolmasters with his portfolio, touting for custom. It wasn’t long before I was copying his example, selling scraper-board depictions of vintage cars to chemistry teachers who had hitherto only noticed me, if they noticed me at all, when reprimanding me for my complete failure to understand what function their complex equations were ever going to serve in my life.

So it was that Pete and I came together amidst a sea of pupils who were more likely themselves destined to follow their fathers into the district’s coal mines. It seemed not everyone’s curiosity was piqued by the copies of J. D. Salinger that got passed around, or that single snare drum’s thunderous introduction to “Like A Rolling Stone”. Soon to be regarded as a “bad influence”, Pete was certainly of positive benefit to me; the first creative spirit I’d encountered apart from my great great grandfather’s paintings on the bedroom wall.

Grammar school uniform regulations were tough in the late 1960s. As the older boys approached shaving age the headmaster would line them up after assembly and, using a ruler, check that no-one’s sideburns extended below a point on level with the corner of their eyes. Also, that no hair at the nape of the neck made contact with the collar. Hence the popularity of the “square-cut” amongst mods, in which the hair was cut square just above the collar, remaining quite thick without tapering. Failure to comply resulted in the offending boy being sent home to get a haircut and / or shave. If on occasion Pete fancied taking the day off, he would deliberately flaunt the rules. That’s when he would turn up wearing a purple shirt, “gold” tan flared trousers, white corduroy shoes, and bright red plastic mac. And this before any of us had even heard of a Monterey Pop Festival. Knowing full well he’d be sent home, Pete would arrange in advance to be meeting up with a girl in town. Legend.

The girl’s grammar school was situated at a safe distance on the other side of the sport’s field, and never the twain shall meet. We weren’t even within shouting distance. Nevertheless, news of “the one called Pete” quickly spread, and my social life soon broadened its horizons beyond a black and white T.V. screen. Instead, I would now follow Pete down the after-school steps of the town’s coffee bar where his new-found girlfriend, complete with her own entourage, would already be in-waiting around the seat specially reserved.

I was a stone-cold virgin in my late teens. Pete was often teased about his choice of girlfriend, but it wasn’t too difficult to see just which of her glamorous attributes he’d been attracted to. One weekend he and his girl came out to visit me at my parent’s house. We all sat around on the bed, listening to Donovan albums, before going for a walk and writing a terrible song called “Sitting in the Country with My Friends”. (I can play it still). Then he promptly took his girl into our upstairs toilet and screwed her. That was Pete. No-one else had an audience in the town’s coffee bar, and certainly no-one else was having full sex in our upstairs toilet.

In our final years at school the powers that be were never going to make Pete and I Prefects. True, we lacked the muscle power. But more to the point, we were no longer judged to be responsible. So, by way of compensation, our blazer lapels in need of some kind of symbolic enamel badge embellishment, the headmaster put us in charge of the library and the tuck shop. We were happy with that. Firstly, it gave us an excuse to be inside, drooling over the mysterious delights of a well concealed Sgt Pepper’s album cover, rather than face the bleak winds sweeping across the school grounds where, regardless of the season, everyone else was compelled to stay at break time as if in some kind of dubious character-building exercise. Secondly, the profits from library book fines, (overdue or not), and tuck shop ice cream portions cut wafer thin, were most acceptable. Teachers never asked for a proper accounting when we handed over their share of the takings.

My last year with Pete was our first year together at Art College. It was his idea we enroll on the Foundation Course. Otherwise, it is quite possible I may not have even thought of art as a career option. My teacher wanted me to go paint roses on tea trays at the nearby Metal Box factory. The only other semi-creative friends I’d made at school were bound for architecture or, more likely, “draughtsmen” in some local industry. Whatever that meant. I certainly had no specific ambitions of my own. Then as now, it was typical of me to simply pursue what I enjoyed.

It was Art College which defined Pete as the Fine Artist and me the Graphic Illustrator. That was a bit tough to take, but I accept the lecturers’ opinion held an undeniable truth. Whilst my work would always stubbornly adhere to a readily decipherable figurative approach, Pete’s ideas could develop and take flight to an entirely different place. He was always one step ahead of me. Also, I had started to find other distractions: A desire to play music as well as just listen; a girlfriend who tasted of tobacco; and the small night clubs opening in small rooms above the town’s pubs. Pete never chose to socialize in that way. For all his rebellious spirit, he preferred to stay within clear parameters. He was either doing art or doing his girlfriend. During that Foundation Course year his art blossomed. We would work together throughout the day, take a brief juke box café break in the late afternoon to replenish our creative juices, then go back into college to work until early evening, before a last pint at the local pub and a last bus home. Next day, more of the same. At the end of that year, we went our separate ways. Separate courses in separate cities. I dutifully took the graphic illustration route, he, for a while at least, pursued Fine Art. We would meet again, purely by chance, one last time:

I was home from Liverpool for the summer holidays, out shopping, a rock album under my arm, when our paths crossed. He now owned a small terraced house. I think he may have “done the right thing” by his pregnant girlfriend and got married. I think he had dropped out of college and was hoping to sell his art and craft-work to local shops, much as he had to his teachers some short years previous. It was all a bit unclear. I do remember the album we listened to that day: John Lennon singing “I don’t believe in Beatles”. We both laughed at the boldness of the lyric, shocking at the time, and smiled at the irony of it: The band whose life span had been in perfect synch with our teen years was no more. The song said “the dream is over”. I think for Pete it perhaps was.
But I hope there was more.

All text copyright ian g craig

Nightclubbing in the 70's. Part 1.

 

Night Clubbing 1.

He’s late. Again. He’s always late. It’s just his little game of one-upmanship. Middle class parents and all that. Assume the higher ground. True enough he has the wheels for this evening’s entertainment, but we both know when it comes to pulling the girls, I’m the one expected to go in first.

I use the time to go over my choice of wardrobe for the evening, Roxy Music playing in the background. I’m so vain I actually make fashion style sketches of my outfits for every time I visit a club. Each sketch is dated and bears the name of the club underneath. This way I’m never seen in any establishment wearing the same combination twice. I check what I’m wearing now against the chart: Light double breasted Paul Smith jacket; two-tone platform shoes; dark brown Oxford bags; broad tie (it is a Sunday after all), yes, the striped one I think. Everything checks out. I’m looking good. If we don’t pull at least we’ll look like Robert Redford and Paul Newman in “The Sting”.

We show our membership cards at the door. We have ALL the membership cards necessary across two counties and some as far afield as Leeds and Liverpool. We check our hair in the Gents. We sip our Dry Martinis and check out the crowd. They’ve noticed us but don’t yet know us. The dance floor is small and tight. The music is bliss. Stax soul and late Motown, with a side dish of Brian Ferry for seasoning. I love to dance. I’m actually good at it. Not many guys in here can say that.

Two girls are stood on the other side of the small dance floor, all summer dresses and blonde. Surely out of our class? He doesn’t think so. He wants to give it a go. I’m dubious. If they turn us down, and I think they will, every other girl in the place will do the same for fear of appearing second choice. Or third. Or fourth. Fourth choice is not an unusual scenario. We’ve gone down the scale a lot lower than that. Many times. No pride in the heat of the night. I also have other reservations about these two. Because even if we do pull them, the evening is only likely to be one of conversation, expensive drinks and Goodnight Vienna. Too classy.

He’s still keen. Okay, I go in. Polite, attentive, charming. Leave no awkward silences. Style is more important than content. And separate them as soon as possible. As it turns out, no worries. This pair are way ahead of us. They’ve already decided who’s going with who before I even reach them. Refreshing. We’ve clearly met our well-matched match.

After a few Marvin Gaye’s, her polka-dot mini dress flirting in all the right places, she asks the usual: “What do you do?” That old line. I never use it. But I’ve known the words “art student” to loosen miners’ daughters’ knicker elastic at a hundred paces. And some of their wives. “You don’t look like an art student”. She’s right. These truly are my schizoid years. Mild mannered art student by day, dance hall dandy by night. She tells me she’s a secretary. Later in the relationship she will tell me her boss chases her around the office. Such fantasies are a turn-on for some boyfriends. It’s all Benny Hill to me.

The four of us have a great evening. We really do. I will even write a dumb song about it when I get home. Come closing time we walk them out to the car park, splitting into couples, hopeful of that goodnight kiss. There’s even a full moon. She kisses great, not always the case on such first meetings as this, and suggests I sit in her car for a while. Hey, no problem. Polka-dot mini-dress inside a mini-cooper is my favourite décor.

My hand settles above her knee. A little too soon? Maybe so. But I don’t necessarily always go through all the bases in numerical order. The tips of my fingers slip just inside the very rim of her knickers. She kisses back harder, settling into her seat, ready to enjoy herself, knees slightly parting. I take my time. Some things are better not rushed. She doesn’t touch me in return. Classy.

 All text, pros, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Girlfriend or Grapes?

Girlfriends or Grapes?

I awoke in a hospital bed, a young nurse stood on a chair beside my pillow, reaching up to open the curtains which had been shut tight for the previous three days. I have no memory of those three days, and my recovery from meningitis was not anticipated. Still an innocent sixth form grammar school boy, the antibiotics pumped into my system had gathered all the potential pimples from my entire body into one huge pimple at the end of my nose. The nurse took care of it as I blushed with teenage embarrassment.

I am told that at the onset of this illness I had been carried screaming from the house, my language so offensive that an exorcist might have been more appropriate than the ambulance which arrived late. I am also told that, whilst I was in hospital, two school friends of mine arrived carrying grapes. Unable to find me, they apparently sat down on the hospital steps and ate the grapes, before returning to school to tell everyone I had died. This would explain the look of alarm on the headmaster's face some weeks later when I went back to continue my studies.

After my being discharged, a third school friend came to visit me at home. Unlike myself, he had decided against staying on into the sixth form and had started work in the coal mines, an option most grammar school boys in that town took anyway, regardless of the opportunity of further education. We had first met at the back of the maths class. We were both heavily into James Bond novels and secret agents, which explains why, regardless of their being a teacher present, I tried to sneak up behind him and grab him in a headlock. Unfortunately for me, he was already fairly well acquainted with the basics of Kung-Fu, and his defensive karate chop practically took my head off, splitting my lower lip in two. Covered in blood I made a swift exit to the toilets. He followed on behind, worried, but no doubt secretly proud of the blow he'd delivered. The maths teacher simply continued with his lesson as if nothing was happening. From that moment on we were close, hence his visit to see me.

As a young working man, he had now started to earn a wage, and pursue the social life which went with it. In other words, Girls. Therefore his ideas on how to accelerate my full recovery involved something much more potent than grapes. He had fixed me up with a blind date. I should mention here that this would also be my first real date, such being the consequence of attending an all boy's school.

Come the day of the date she and I strolled around the grounds of Newstead Abbey, escorted at a discreet distance by a small entourage of her friends, checking me out as I imagined a Sicilian Family might. Of course, they were not Sicilian, but the mining communities were tight like that.

She was five foot six of a sixteen year old working girl, a striking juxtaposition of jet black hair and bright blue eyes. A factory seamstress by day, a mod by night even as her Midlands working class rocker roots showed through. I was a slight of build sixth former, eager to grow my hair longer than school rules would permit, bored with A-level Chaucer by day, alone at night, sketching, strumming. She was just what the hospital doctor of some weeks previous should have ordered. She jump-started my hitherto dormant teenage years, her nicotine fingers impatient to explore the content of my jeans, taking a firm grip and guiding me through all the gears. I was quite shocked, and I needed to be. She was indeed much better than grapes.

All text, pros, & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

 

Out of the house.

 Out of the house.

I don't really want to go. Cold dark evenings in November are not best suited to trekking up the hill to Nottingham Castle’s art gallery. But what does one do instead on cold dark November evenings? I need to get out of the house more. So I do.

The occasion is the opening night of an exhibition; the gallery a place I myself had shown in a decade ago. But the real attraction for me is that this particular artist's work was some I'd seen in the past, when I was just about to embark on a career in teaching. Back then I was still far too distracted by the superficiality of the night club scene, and not yet painting with any serious regularity or direction. Seeing his work had helped motivate me towards changing all that.

So, I get the bus into town. The market square, decked up for Christmas, is between shifts of daytime skateboarders and night-time revellers. In a pub at the base of the hill I decide on a brandy, its taste somewhat tainted by an extortionate price, and the smell of frying fish permeating the room. But at least I’m out of the house.

Upon reaching the gallery it seems I am one of the first to arrive, then I realise everyone else is in the bar. It gives me a chance to watch the exhibition’s accompanying video without distraction. I like to watch an artist at work. I’m into processes. After the video I decide on a glass of red, compliments of the gallery. Apparently the reason for everyone being in the bar, apart from the obvious, is that they are waiting to hear the speeches before looking at the paintings. The event is very well attended, but I do see an empty table at which one person is sat. I approach.

“Mind if I take a seat?” She doesn't look up. Just raises her book a little more above eye level. I'm not trying to chat her up, although I confess a little female company to share opinions about the paintings with might be nice. Her book becomes a wall. I sip my wine and check out the rest of the room. These are not my people.

The speeches are probably much shorter than they seem, read verbatim from rather dull notes. The artist himself says little. He doesn’t have to. The work on the walls is superb. Just as I remember it. It is almost exclusively “old” work from the late 70's early 80's, depicting a bygone age of a more industrial Midlands. But its merits are undiminished in my eyes.

After it is over I take the opportunity to congratulate him on his paintings. I tell him how I'd admired them years ago in a very small local gallery; of how clearly I remember that night, no doubt on my way to the clubs, snacking for the first time in my life on the gallery's caviar; of how I’d been inspired to pick up a paintbrush once more. That particular small gallery is now a thing of the past, much like the industrial subject matter of his paintings. But it was nice being able to share that memory with the painter himself. He enjoyed it to.

Text copyright Ian G Craig.

Bob. (Robert Thwaites).

I knew him as Bob. I leave it to the curious to search the web if they wish to identify the person the UK press would come to label “Britain’s most notorious living art forger” who “conned Antiques Roadshow host”.

Bob was one of my flatmates during the years we attended Liverpool Art College. I made few friends in Liverpool, and kept in touch with none, but Bob was the one I spent most time with, and with whom I had the most in common.

A year younger than myself, Bob sported the post-hippie beard prevalent amongst students in the early 1970s. Tall, of stocky build without an ounce of fat, he peered short sightedly out at the world over the top of his round spectacles. On those rare occasions when he wasn't drawing, his hands would constantly tap his cord jean thighs in time to the tunes he muttered quietly through his bearded chin. More often than not a selection from Jethro Tull's “Stand Up”, which was always his album of choice on those evenings when it was his turn to use our shared portable record player. But almost all of the time, Bob sketched. And sketched. And sketched. The pen in one hand, the bottle of ink in the other, and the sketchpad on his knees, all seemed like permanent fixtures with which he created black and white worlds of caricature and humour. It was this shared passion for drawing which brought us together, plus our early morning forays across Liverpool searching newsagents for the latest Marvel / DC comics containing the work of Jack Kirby, in a time before specialist comic shops were hard to find anywhere outside of London.

The college lecturers treated Bob with disdain, dismissing his large, slightly splattered sheets of animated figures, whilst advising us all that carefully executed diagrams for “how to tie knots” manuals, and similar mundane illustrations, were a more meaningful career path to follow. But his reputation as a “cartoonist” spread across the campus, gaining favour with fellow students because of its Pythonesque humour. Like Gerald Scarfe on Benzedrine.

One night a knock came at the door. It was a student from the nearby University. We could tell that from his purple corduroy jeans and grey trench coat. “Does the guy who draws cartoons live here?” The student wanted a poster drawn for an upcoming concert at the university hall, the payment for which could stretch to five pounds. Bob, delighted at this bit of recognition, agreed to the job and asked for the name of the band. The student fumbled in his coat pockets for the piece of paper on which he'd written it down. Refreshing his memory, he read aloud: “Supertramp”. Nobody had heard of them, but we all laughed. Supertramp, what a cool name for a band. The following day the poster was delivered, featuring a suitably super tramp bedecked in ragged gabardine, wine bottle in hand, and a multitude of Monty Python style rats emerging from every fold and pocket.

The great irony is that, considering the criminal reputation Bob's skills would one day gain, at college he couldn't paint to save his life. Neither could his drawing skills adhere to what one might deem a more academic approach to proportion and form. I saw him try, but his patience would always run out. And yet, whilst others would give up art all together for other career paths, he was the one, albeit the lowest graded, who got to put “graphic designer” on his passport.

I don't condone what he did years later. Something about forging a piece of art when you're an artist yourself seems worse than basic theft on the morality scale. And I have even less regard for the so-called expert who purchased his forgery, expecting to sell it on for a huge profit. One has to smile. And I'll bet many a subsequent fellow prison inmate smiled at Bob's portraits of them.

I smile now at my memory of him. One of the few smiles I can muster when looking back on my days in Liverpool. And I smile in particular at the knowledge of what Bob would really have liked to become, as he sat of an evening reading his Thor comics, and dipping the knitting needle he'd pre-heated on the electric fire into his mug of beer, Nordic style. To paraphrase his favourite Monty Python sketch, Bob never wanted to be a graphic designer. He always wanted to be... a Viking.
.

Top: My 1973 sketch of Bob. Below: Bob's sketch of me (sadly unsigned). Bottom: Bob as I always remember him.

Edit: Robert "Bob" Thwaites died far too young in March 2019.

All text, pros, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

 

Putting On the Style.

Putting on the Style

We were gathered for the occasion of my boss’s birthday and his retirement. His daughter’s guitar was placed in my lap, whilst his Brown Owl wife, keen to se everything formally organised, handed out the lyric sheets. “Is it in tune? We will do this song first, and then the snacks. Are you alright sat there? Are you ready to do it now?”

I was indeed ready, and went into my song, “Putting on the Style”. Or perhaps rather my brother’s song, he being the designated childhood owner of that particular 78 rpm shellac disc, stored in the white cupboard alluded to in a previous post. I had performed it once before for my boss. In 1984 he’d asked me to do an after-dinner show in Barnstone Village, so I put that particular song in my set because he himself had sung it in a show during the skiffle years of the 1950s.

The sing-a-long went well, after which everyone dutifully turned over their lyric sheets whilst some guy out of sight from me launched into “When I’m 64” and a little girl banged her tambourine with impressive skill. (I myself had fancied staying on for a fun verse or two of “Winter Wonderland”, but not to be). The piano player fared less well, on account of Brown Owl had transcribed the words wrong, attempting to re-write certain verses to fit the occasion. Then it was much furtive gathering of lyric sheets, exchanging each in turn for a paper plate, before relocating to the kitchen for snacks.

It was fun. And I can still hit the high notes, Putting on the Style.


All text & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Another August evening.

Another August Evening.

It has been a perfect blue and blustery day, and looks set to continue being such into the evening. But no matter how perfect the weather outside, such days can also lend themselves all too readily to spells of cat nap dreaming within, and that, combined with Joyce’s “Dubliners”, has been the focus of much of my day.

I write my journal entry now, before retreating to the garden bench for a sunset of tea and jammy dodgers, the jammy dodgers having been bought from the corner shop just minutes ago, especially for this purpose. My short walk there took me past that rather dubious “Aryan” looking gent, seated as he sometimes is upon the low wall opposite, his white hair visible in the dark shade of the tree. He hates talking to anyone, so I couldn’t resist confronting him with a cheery “Hello”, and some banal comment about the “lovely day”, forcing a response from his grudging expression. I’m “old school” when it comes to cheery hellos and chat with strangers, not discouraged when some show visible signs of surprise if offered a courteous “Good morning” on the street, or a “take one for yourself mate” tip at the bar.

Patricia the Show Girl (I have no idea of her real name) is “old school”. She recognised me last night in The Bell Inn from the time before; the time she saw the light of my camera screen in the darkness above the heads of her audience, as she performed her solo enactment of Bill Sykes’ grisly death scene from “Oliver”.

So, it was nice having a little banter with Patricia the Show Girl. Maybe one day I’ll get close enough to find out her story, without wanting to pry or cause distress. There is something about her disposition which might suggest a once institutionalised person whose behaviour might never again fully align with the expectations of the outside world. Good for her.

Dave the Fish Guy is definitely “old school“. He doesn’t do what he does simply to sell fish from pub to pub. It’s more a performance for him, donning the white hat and coat overalls, strolling amongst us. It’s the fine details, like his bow tie, and kitchen foil silver-lined basket, with carefully self-printed label, which give him away. All combine to suggest one thing: “Show time”. Another clue as to why Dave the Fish Guy does what he does was his asking price when I asked him to pose for a photo. Any other market trader would have accepted a purchase in return, but not Dave the Fish Guy. His stated price was to be photographed alongside the lady friend I was with. We obliged, and at his request I posted that photograph to him today.

Nottingham is presently proving an exceptionally sociable place to be. Once again, I had to walk home, having got the bus time wrong but feeling safe along the way. I think I’m relating to the city in a way I’ve never done before, even though I once spent countless hours behind its nightclub doors. I like it that some of my sketches of the city’s venues come up on Google’s search page. There does seem to be an undercurrent of creative things happening here. Even David Hockney is on his way, or at least a retrospective of his work at the Contemporary Gallery.

My neighbour tells me summer officially ended yesterday. That’s not true. Summer cannot possibly end until the children are all back inside school. And even then, we can all make wishes for an Indian summer of sunny mid-September outings. Outside is still blue and blustery. I shall go and devour my jammy dodgers.

All text copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Something about Elvis.

 Something about Elvis.

The big white cupboard with the 1950s style plastic handles, to the left of the tiled fireplace, is where we kept our records, along with the large wooden needlework box, an assortment of simple board games, the all but forgotten pages of a great grandfather’s sketchbook, and a sea captain’s black writing chest. Almost all of these records were of the large, shellac, 78rpm variety, lying dormant in those dark recesses for 53 weeks of the year, until my father’s Hogmanay celebrations came around, for which the entire nearby village of Perlethorpe would seem to cram into our front room. Not surprisingly then, the titles would favour endless Scottish reels by Jimmy Shand and his Band, alongside bland British versions of “popular music” epitomised by the likes of Malcolm Vaughn‘s “You Are My Special Angel”, with just a smattering of Tommy Steele and Jim Dale. I think the only American record present was Harry Belafonte’s “Mary's Boy Child”. Not for our family the vulgar excesses of Johnnie Ray.

As a small child I was more fascinated by the little silver fish which would scarper across the tiled hearth of the fireplace next to that cupboard, but by the age of nine the contents of what was inside became more intriguing. Two discs in particular caught my attention, being smaller than the rest. These were the new-fangled 45rpms which heralded the change from “popular” to “pop”.

I cannot imagine for the life of me how Elvis Presley made his way into our home. Of course, I thought I knew what “rock and roll” was. I thought it was anyone who wore flashy clothes and topped the bill on TV’s “Sunday Night at the London Palladium”. Surely Alma Cogan was rock and roll, and Liberace, and certainly Tommy Steele, judging by the full colour picture of him on my Big Sister’s wall, wearing a blue shirt with red guitar. I had no idea that Elvis pre-dated both Tommy and Jim Dale by at least three years. So, imagine how I felt when I first played those pieces of black vinyl with the triangular centres? It would have been akin to opening my “Lion Comic for Boys”, and having a topless picture of the lady from “Watch with Mother” drop to the carpet. Even more, it was like discovering something which had hitherto been kept secret, and which no-one else appeared to know about, like it had been planted in that cupboard for me, by hands unknown, the final piece in the jig saw picture of dawning teenage puberty.

I soon discovered that the ideal place for playing my new found treasures was the little used Dining Room at the rear of our property. It was here that the hollow space beneath the floor boards, aided by the penny I taped to the record player’s arm for extra bass, would enhance the sound of the track, sending it resonating out into the surrounding forest. I had no concept of what songs were current, or new. To me they were all records. Danny Kaye sat easily alongside Lonnie Donegan on my play list. All that mattered was the magic of the sound. And there was no sound more magical than Elvis.

The intro to “Dixieland Rock” is long, building up the tension, anticipating the moment when Elvis will start to sing. I would try and guess that moment, trying to come in at the same time as him: “Well down in New Orleans at the Golden Goose, I grabbed a green-eyed dolly that was on the loose”. What the heck? I had no idea what he was singing about, but long before I even saw a picture of him, I knew how he moved. However, the real slice of heaven came on the B-side to “It’s Now Or Never”, where Elvis’s superior post-Army vocal chords slide in unison with the honeyed left hand of Floyd Cramer pumping the ivories, as the doo-woppin’ Jordanaires urge them both on from the sidelines: “You say that you love me, and swear it to be true, well a’ think that’s fine if a you ain’t lyin’, just make me know what t’do”. That moment was like Gabriel had arrived with his horn. No digitally enhanced CD will ever match the sound of the first few seconds of “Make Me Know It” as it reverberated atop those hollow floor boards, courtesy of a portable mono record player, not forgetting the all-important penny taped to the arm. And nothing ever will.

It would be a year or so before we got to see what Elvis looked like, aside from a few out of date pictures in Big Sister’s comic, the editor of which surely favoured the safer home-grown sounds of Cliff Richard. We were on holiday in Ingoldmells, when “G.I. Blues” was playing at the nearby cinema. From that moment on Elvis Presley was a constant “presence” in our house.

As short years passed we all had our individual heroes. Big Sister would embark on an imaginary love affair with mop-top heart throb George Harrison. I would be caught trying to listen to a hidden copy of Sgt Peppers at grammar school. My Middle Sister would subsequently scream her lungs out over David Cassidy, to be superseded in turn by Kid Sister becoming the first (and only) punk in town. But we ALL came back to playing an Elvis record from time to time. It kind of united us when apart, and at family gatherings when wild renditions of “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” were the order of the day.

On August 16th, 1977, I was at “home” in my parents’ house, watching the TV. Mother came through on her way to the downstairs toilet. Whilst she was in there the news came: “We are getting unconfirmed reports from Memphis, Tennessee, that Elvis Presley has died”. I started thinking how I could best break that news to mother. Such are the silly details which define our lives. Kid Sister was also at home, and we spent the following hours of the night and well into the morning, listening to non-stop Elvis on Radio Luxemburg. It was hard to believe that someone who had in part orchestrated our lives for so long was now gone, and yet at the same time it seemed somehow “right”. Warning photographs of a “fat Elvis” had never appeared in the British press, who hadn’t really been near a recording studio for the last three years of his life. Also, 42 years seemed so old for a pop star back then!

Elvis was “The King”. He’s still regarded as such. The people gave him that title way back in the 1950s, without being prompted or paid to do so. John Lennon once said “Don’t worship dead heroes simply because they’re dead”. And I don’t. I “worship” Elvis partly because he was one of the greatest performers that ever lived, but mostly because of something which was ignited in me by the contents of that big white cupboard to the left of the tiled fireplace, a long time ago.

All text copyright ian g craig.

August Evening.

August Evening

I’m in the garden. Sunset to the left, not that I can see its orb depart behind the rooftops. Two pigeons coo in the trees to the right, sexually and lovingly fulfilled. Above me, airliners like small silver bullets leave white vapour trails across a sky bluer now than any witnessed in recent days. Occasionally there is a rumble across the heavens as they strain to gain altitude. Decades ago, I painted a portrait of an air hostess. This year she sent it back for lack of wall space. Or was that last year? I have no sense of time.

It’s been a good day. Emulsion paint has given way to spirit based undercoat, bare timber has turned white, and the kitchen has two new blinds. But last night was not a good night. I have a second recurring dream, worse really than the one about the open back door which I can never lock. Maybe if I write it down I’ll break its spell:

The dream finds me having to go back to work as a teacher. It seems someone made an error and I couldn’t leave after all. In the dream I have no control over the classes. No-one listens to me, and I’m forced to scream louder and louder and louder, but never gain their attention. I wake up alarmed and distressed. The dream bears no resemblance at all to the reality of my working life, where I always enjoyed positive relationships with my students. So maybe I don’t feel in control of my life right now, and the dream is a manifestation of that? Maybe. But enough about dreams.

A young couple with a baby have moved into the house opposite. It’s a nice sound. Every evening the man of the house seems to come home with something new for their garden: Wind chimes; a Buddha; ornamental animals. And he rides a multi-mirrored mod scooter. You have to like people who ride multi-mirrored mod scooters.

As for my own garden, I intend changing that around come September. The tree I bought with a previous girlfriend years ago, seems to be naturalized, extending now far beyond the 4 metres maximum height I was assured. It’s going to need trimming, but one has to “wait until the sap stops rising”. Unlike the way she left me without waiting for my sap to stop rising. I suppose rules are made to be broken.

The sun is almost gone. What now? Another mug of tea in my Workhouse souvenir mug? Or wine? One last hot tea I think. Time enough for wine later.

All text, pros, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Jeremy.

 Jeremy.

The ever so slightly crossed brows and straight back posture of the girl on the check-out counter betrayed her growing impatience as she shifted from side to side in her seat, scrutinizing the black rubber squeaky pig toy in her left hand, looking for a bar-code. Then, as an increasingly impatient queue of shoppers looked on, she raised her head for what she had to do next, and what she had to do next, not for the first time that morning, was to summon her assistant. Her assistant was:

“Jeremy”.

Her tone an almost indelicate balance between frustration and professional etiquette. The queue turned their heads as one, to see Jeremy emerge from behind the shelves in the middle of the shop store. He shuffled quickly towards them. Walking with any combination of both speed and elegance was not an easy task for Jeremy and, if under stress, not an option at all.

“There’s no tag on this one Jeremy”. She held up the offending item.

“No tag…” Jeremy spoke only a little faster than he could walk.

“That’s right, Jeremy, no tag. And I need a tag don’t I? So I can scan the bar code for the price”.

“Bar code for the price…” Jeremy repeated everything, not that he was seeking confirmation of what he heard, but so he could remember it.

“So, can you go and get me another one please? There are two sizes. This one’s the small. I think they’re next to the stationary.”

“Stationary”.

“There are pink ones and black ones”, offered a child in the queue, below counter level, visible only from the neck up. “This one’s black”, he added, wanting to be helpful, but at the same time cruelly wondering if Jeremy’s breathe might resemble that which the black tag-less squeaky pig exhaled when the checkout girl plumped it down in front of his face. Much like Jeremy exhaled his words.

After a short while Jeremy shuffled back into view, looking pleased with the result of his mission. But it was immediately apparent to the queue that he had picked up the wrong sized pig; a large sized black one. If he had chosen a small pink one everything would be okay. The price tag would have been the same. But he hadn’t. Jeremy clearly matched the price of items to their colour. Not their size. Standing in the queue that day, I really liked that. I don’t think the checkout girl shared my opinion.

All text copyright ian g craig.