Skegness and me.

 When I was small, cameras were only just becoming quite commonplace amongst working class families. The one we had was basically a black plastic cube, with a little silver lever on the front, just below the lens, and a square silver viewfinder on top, which you could spring up and look through when lining up your shot. Not that it helped my mother much, who missed the heads off everyone she ever photographed. The film looked like a roll of yellow paper, and had to be kept out of the light or be ruined. So my father had to wait ‘til evening time or find a dark place under the stairs, when loading it into the camera. It all seemed so secretively mystical and magical to me.

Twelve photographs per film was the maximum, which then had to be taken to the nearby town’s chemist to be developed. The final photographs came back as tiny “contact prints”. In other words, the same size as the film’s negatives. So, if you have any tiny photos amongst your family’s treasured keepsakes, now you know why. If you wanted good, better sized photos for a wedding, a christening, or maybe a baby’s first birthday, you would hire a professional. Most likely the guy at the chemist, making good pocket money on the side. Come the holiday season, trade could be especially lucrative.

Walk along any UK seaside resort’s promenade in the 1930s, 40s, or 50s (the war years being an exception), and it wouldn’t be long before a man with a bigger professional camera leapt out in front of you, snapped your photo, pushed a ticket stub into your hand with details of where and when to collect, and be off. And you didn’t mind one bit. In fact you were most appreciative of the souvenir.

This photo, capturing one such moment, I’m guessing comes from 1933 / 34. It shows my English grandparents, and a little girl who would go on to become my Auntie Beryl. I must have looked at it a hundred times, before only recently realising where it was taken. My favourite go-to place for a day-trip’s sketching. Skegness. The clue being the roof of the Tower Cinema behind. That is to say, the roof before it was bombed in the war. The building as it stands today, has cropped up in my art more than once during the 2010s. Who’d have thought?

All text copyright ian gordon craig 

X / Twitter blocked.

I seem to be one of thousands who have been blocked with no reason given. This is what happens when you rely on AI to monitor humans. The old bird wasn't looking too good anymore anyway.

So, as a social media fan, just somewhere to catch a non-BBC version of the news, and post my sketches, I’ve gone to Reddit.

Lockdown, Four Years on.

 

Summer 2019. I was on a roll. I had just exhibited and sold one of my artworks in the somewhat prestigious Harley Gallery. Sunshine was plentiful. British sunshine. The kind you want sunshine to be like. The kind that frames all your childhood memories. The kind that my “straw” trilby hat and shades could easily cope with, as I sat in the gallery courtyard sipping my latte, being careful not to disturb its frothy top. Life was good, and would continue to be so through the cool winter months ahead. Until the unexpected happened.

Early 2020. An allegedly life-threatening disease came in, allegedly, from the East. Allegedly. Something to do with bats and test tubes. Rumours and conspiracy theories were rife. And that was when, over the horizon came the first of a trilogy of lockdowns, broadcasting their soon to be legalised directions: “Stay indoors! Cover your face! No physical contact! No touching!” The lockdowns didn’t really bother me. As long as I have a sketchbook and laptop, I swear I could easily do solitary. What bothered me, and does so to this day, is what happened next.

On July 19th 2022, we all stepped outside. It was a bit like one of those sci-fi movies, when they take off their space helmets on an unfamiliar planet, to see if it’s okay to breathe the air. The Lockdown Tripods had gone. It was okay to breathe. But was everything else okay? I felt like the character in “28 Days Later”, or “Day of the Triffids”, who woke up one morning to discover the world was no longer how he had known it. 

I took a drive out to my usual sketchbook haunts, only to find that several places where I used to stop in the past for a drink or a meal, were gone. They hadn’t survived the pandemic. I took a drive in the opposite direction and immediately incurred penalty charges for entering what had previously been a much used familiar lane, but was now restricted for buses only. When did that happen? And what about all the new buildings along the skyline? Some people must have had a very busy lockdown. I must have not got the e-mail.

The last four years have gone by fast. After the lockdowns a high percentage of people did not return to their workplace, choosing instead to continue working from the seclusion of home, like they’d gotten used to it. A notable percentage, though capable, chose to not work at all and let others pay the taxes. We got four Prime Ministers in four years. More blades in city streets than the cutlery drawers of Buckingham Palace. A country that once took down the Luftwaffe, now no match for a rubber dinghy. Everything seems broken. Remember that song about walking along city streets where there’s “Always something left to remind me”? Well, there isn’t. Or if there is, it’s fading fast.

All text & art copyright ian gordon craig.

About Football.

 

I am not, and have never been, a football fan. When I was a grammar school boy, the last thing Physical Education ever involved was Education. So I never understood the attraction. But I do like to watch the women’s game. The Lionesses, and Arsenal. Why? Because they don’t cheat. Well, hardly ever.

Imagine if in snooker, the all-time great Ronnie O’Sullivan’s black ball is just about to reach its winning pocket, when his opponent sticks his que out to block it. Or if World Darts Champion Luke Littler’s last dart is thrown off course by his opponent nudging his wrist at the moment of release. Never going to happen. Never going to be allowed.

In men’s football, it’s different. If your opposing team looks likely to score a goal you are apparently expected to inflict life-changing injuries on that player to prevent him doing so. It’s called a “professional foul”. What makes it “professional”? Are there such things as “amateur fouls”? Perhaps the “professional” ones are the debilitating kicks to the shin, “amateur” ones a sharp tug on the opponent’s shirt. I have no idea. I admit, I don’t understand it, even though I can quote the off-side rule with pretty much the same accuracy as the Lord’s Prayer. I do, however, have an opinion about the way men’s football is presented on TV nowadays.

I was thankfully raised through childhood by women. A mother and a big sister. I am a huge advocate of women’s rights. But… Can we please remove these blonde haired, blue eyed, long legged girlie commentators from the commentator’s chair during the men’s game? Let the boys have their space. Let them jest and jostle their macho opinions free of all regard of ladies being present. Let them shift and shuffle in their chairs, talking over each other’s voices with conflicting opinions about management failures and referee’s mistakes. Let them scratch at their balls, adjust themselves in their seats, and reminisce about games gone by, when they themselves were perhaps out there on the pitch, competing for those hallowed cups and trophies. Let the boys have their space.


(PS: The car in the photo? It’s my neighbours).

About Disclaimers.

 

You probably never read that bit at the beginning of a book. That blank page before the chapters start. The bit that says “all people, events and places in the book are fictitious, and any similarity to the living or dead is coincidental”. It is of course put there to fend off legal complications. It’s not really true.

You can’t write about something that bears no resemblance to things you’ve experienced, places you’ve been, people you’ve known. Same with actors, developing the roles they play by thinking back on character traits, accents, physical habits, of persons they met. Same with painters. Even Picasso. Especially Picasso. He could paint the other side of an imaginative cubist still-life because he’d looked at it. He wasn’t making it up. Picasso could paint a bull in two or three strokes of the brush, and it be perfect. Because he’d watched them. Many times.

When your small children, anyone’s children, started drawing, it’s usually of mum, with a huge round head. The head is what they got to know first. Scribble-hair usually comes next. Arms and legs come last, as simple sticks, because they haven’t yet figured out what’s beyond the close, cuddled face.

When you see ancient drawings by Native Indians, Aborigines, Inuits, of beings in “space suits, you can be sure they’ve seen them first. There is no other possibility. They didn’t get it from Spielberg movies. Try it. Try to imagine something you’ve never ever seen, which looks like nothing else at all.

So that’s how I’ve spent my 30+ degrees heatwave. Sheltering, plenty of fluids (make mine apple juice), trying to push myself through an already difficult chapter, whilst assuring myself that “all people, events and places in the book are fictitious, and any similarity to the living or dead is coincidental”. Yeh, right.

All text and photographs copyright ian gordon craig.

Summer Solstice 2026.

 

Later: 24th / 25th, record temperatures now reaching all time highs.

Imagination meets memory.

 

Maypole dancing in my mind.

Thunder storms and shelter.

 

Thunder storms and sheep taking shelter.

All artwork copyright ian gordon craig.

Around the House.

 

Not particularly motivated or inspired to do anything else, I made sketches of random, everyday, mundane objects around the house.

 All artwork copyright ian gordon craig.

Thoresby is now empty.

 

 

I drove over to the place I’ve started referring to as the Homelands. Thoresby Park. Not been there in quite a while. Don’t think I went there at all during last year. Don’t think I went anywhere last year.

My Thoresby blog started 2006, as much of my social life started at the same time. It was my first choice of a place to go after retiring. It provided a lot of fun and adventures between 2007 and 2020. Sadly, today it bears no resemblance to what it was then:

Access to the lakeside, gone.
Ability to stroll through the village, or drive past Woodyard, gone.
Art Gallery, gone,
Souvenir shop, gone.

There is literally nothing to do there now but have a coffee in the courtyard, and maybe walk back and forth to the churchyard. Again.

Above: My Scottish grandparents lived a while at the rear of Thoresby Hall Courtyard. He was head gardener until, homesick, they returned to the highlands. Long ago she would have a “piece” (cake / sandwich), ready for me. Today, a quiet place to sit and sketch.

all artworks copyright ian gordon craig. 

At the crossroads.

 

Above: This crossroad does actually exist. It’s at the top of a hill, in a region I like to refer to as my homeland. If the weather’s good, it’s one of the places I might go to, sit a while on that bench, and think back on past days. Both figures in the drawing are me.

The site is very close to the place I first had a painting displayed on a wall. If there was ever a place I made a lifelong deal with art, then it was there as a boy. It was never a secondary school or college I ever went to.

Another year over, and a new one just begun.

On a personal level, I’m glad 2025 is finally over. On a national level, I fear much worse is to come. But, as John Lennon once wrote, “There’s a place I can go, and it’s my mind”. I went there over the Christmas season. Got quite a lot of writing done.

 This morning I wake to a light sprinkling of snow. Soon schools will all close, trains will stop running (wrong type of snow for them), hosepipes will be banned, supermarket shelves will be empty, there will be no toilet rolls in the shops, and doctors will ask for another 25%.

All text & pictures copyright ian gordon craig. 

Winter Solstice.

 

As I've said before in my blog "Today is the Winter Solstice. Tomorrow the daylight will last that little bit longer and the dark nights that little bit shorter."

It's been a hard year, as the uncharacteristic, neglected shape of my garden bears testament. A year of health concerns, with several appointments, with several specialists, but no clear answers.

One is reminded of a Chuck Berry lyric. "Things I used to do, I don't do no more". 

All text and photos copyright ian gordon craig.

Cake Day.

 

I think I've been falling off the cholesterol wagon a little of late. But on certain days, there can never be no treats.

Still life sketchbook.

 

Above: "The joy of movement" I think the commercial says. Really, life in the UK now is about patching oneself up before going back into the fray, because getting medical attention is virtually impossible.

 

Above: Breakfast every morning is porridge (of course) with blueberries & Canadian syrup. My Scottish grandfather would not approve. For him it had to be salt. (Of course).

All text and artwork copyright ian gordon craig. 

 

Writing my second book.

 

I prefer to write in long-hand at first. The resultant sheets are then edited 2 or 3 times, or discarded altogether, before typing out into a Word document. That's when the more exacting editing begins, and probably sees me printing off some pages so I can walk about the lounge reading them out loud, seeing how the grammar flows.

 all text and photos copyright ian gordon craig.

September sketchbook.

 

Top: An old canal gate, Perlethorpe. This would once have controlled the flow to a Mill, which has long since gone.

Bottom: An imagined sketch of a field after harvest time.

 all text and artwork copyright ian gordon craig

Make it make sense.

 

"Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K, for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested".

No it's not the #UK news. It's the opening lines to Franz Kafka's "The Trial". His nightmare premonition of a totalitarian state.

 

I try to make sense of things. I should stop. Dramatic changes in the #UK are not due to incompetence. That’s the mistake people make. They are desired and intended. But their endgame is a mystery to me, and will no doubt remain so.

I used to think I knew what the role of a King or Mayor or policeman was. But I don’t. I used to think I knew how the benefit system, housing, or NHS worked. But I don’t. I used to think I knew what shoplifting meant. But I don’t.

In the distant past I was encouraged to sing Onward Christian Soldiers and recite the Lord’s Prayer. "I was just a child. Honest, guv, I didn’t understand what I was doing.” All that’s inappropriate conduct now. Like old social media comments, waiting, ready to condemn.

 all text and artwork copyright ian gordon craig

A place to sit.

 

Top: A nice latte by the River Trent

Bottom: A seat at Tithe Green burial grounds, getting rather neglected.

Carbohydrate treats.

 

I am still watching the cholesterol, but a treat now and then doesn't hurt. In this case, a Sainsburys pie. There is no significance in the rainbow. I just liked the mug.

 all text and artwork copyright ian gordon craig

Sketchbook in Thoresby Park.

 

 

 Sketching trees in Thoresby Park.

all text and artwork copyright ian gordon craig

 

Writing

 

I think I may have completed the second part of my intended novel, after much pausing and thinking over recent weeks. I like working in long hand at the start. Editing follows, firstly as I type, then many subsequent times as I read it.

I still have no idea about the title, and there are some place names I need to sort out. Every time I make a name up I discover on Google it's a real place. Also, in spite of blue skies today, I am so cold that motivation is hard.

 All text and photos copyright ian gordon craig.

Scuffed knee and taxes.

 Spent today, and yesterday, editing. The 5th and 6th chapters have been difficult, putting events in the correct order, making sure characters assumed ages are in line with events. I think I’ve solved it all now, and should be able to complete the 6th tomorrow. That will mean the second part of the book is done, the first being completed some time ago.

Yesterday also saw me falling over on the pavement outside, both knees grazed and bruised. TCP & ice pack applied. My jeans seemed not to have suffered at all. Is age finally catching up on me? Me and my stiff fingers, in a room which always seems cold? It’s been a long time coming. But my reflexes are still good, according to an emergency stop I made as a young deer jumped out in front of my car in Budby.

Elsewhere in the news, the Taxman says I owe him £550 pounds. It seems he had underestimated the Interest I was getting on my savings account.

 

 all text and artwork copyright ian gordon craig

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

 

Multiples.

 

 

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.

Sketchbook imaginings.

 

More sketches to keep my Twitter / X active. It's too cold to be outside looking for resources and ideas. So let the imagination run free. The sketch of an oak tree in a clearing, is from a theme I worked on several years ago.

 All artwork & text copyright ian gordon craig