November 2014 – Page 3 – derrickjknight

The Waterside Poppy Makers

Fortunately for us, the efficient and responsive Downton Service Station lies only a couple of hundred yards from our house. Earning the recommendation given by Giles and Jean, they had the shredded tyre replaced and the wheel changed before I returned from my morning walk to Hordle Cliff top and back.
The Isle of Wight appeared to be enjoying brighter light than we did as I was beset by needle sharp showers.
This afternoon Jackie drove Flo and me to Hythe, alongside Southampton Water to see the poppies adorning the black railings of Prospect Place. The Waterside Poppy Makers, in planning their tribute to the UK casualties of the First World War, aimed to knit or crochet 250 poppies for a memorial display. The poppies snowballed and almost 4,000 were made. They cover the railings themselves, shrubs, and trees. This is the story of the group:

Numerous dedications, on this the first day after Remembrance Sunday, were already tagged to individual poppies.
A commemorative plaque to Second World War Royal Navy Commandos is a permanent feature of the small waterside park. These men embarked from Hythe on 6th June 1944 to take part in the D-Day liberation of Europe. In the forefront of the stack of wreaths resting against the granite stone, lay one created by the poppy making group.

A pair of swans, perhaps hoping for food from Flo, paddled up to the bank. One sported its own poppy colours.

Hordle Chinese Take Away had the honour of supplying Jackie with our meal this evening. She brought some back for all three of us. I always get a result with the beef in black bean sauce. This is because Jackie likes it in principal, but this particular one contains very hot chillies which she finds too strong, so most of it ends up in my bowl, She drank Hoegaarden, Flo preferred J2O, and I enjoyed Parra Alta Malbec 2014.

One Blowout After Another

Today we drove to Mat and Tess’s in Upper Dicker for lunch, making a slight deviation to Emsworth to collect Flo who joined us and returned this evening to stay for a few days.
It being Remembrance Sunday we listened to The Cenotaph Ceremony on the car radio, and, as always, I thought of two minutes’ silences with Auntie Gwen.
Monty and Louis are the sons of Mat and Tess’s friends Vickie and Dave. They are also, clearly not by coincidence the names of Tess’s two guinea pigs for whom Matthew bought a large dwelling place last Christmas. The two little animals have spent the last few months in a large metal cage in a well trampled compound in the garden, and today was the day for them to move to their winter quarters in the wooden structure inside the house. It wasn’t too difficult to move them, because they come when called, especially if a tasty carrot or pepper is being waved about.
The three photos of the pets inside their wooden house were taken by Flo.
Tess, who is a magnificent cook, produced a wonderful meal. We began with a Jerusalem artichoke and bacon soup with crusty bread; roast chicken, lamb, potatoes, carrots, and leaks, with two kinds of cauliflower cheese, one containing chorizos, was the main course; after this came delicious lemon meringue pie and chocolate brownies. Various wines, beers, and fruit juices were also consumed in this veritable blowout.
After my introduction to Speed Scrabble, we spent an afternoon in entertaining conversation until Jackie, Flo and I set off back to Downton.
It was then that we experienced our second blowout, in the form of a shredded tyre on the M27 while we were still East of Southampton. Jackie phoned the RAC and within half an hour of the call a breakdown lorry from Ravenscroft Motor Company had arrived. Until then, I had amused myself watching the stationery moon, and the traffic speeding by.
The repair man loaded our Modus onto his truck in which we got to ride to Rownhams Service Station where he intended to change the wheels. Unfortunately, after quite a struggle, he was unable to remove the spare wheel from its moorings in the back of the car. This meant our car was reloaded onto the breakdown vehicle and we all road home in the driver’s cab. The Modus was finally dropped onto our back drive. It is just as well we have spent so much time clearing this space, otherwise the lorry would not have got into it.

20 Is Plenty

At 30 mph today’s wind was six miles per hour faster than yesterday’s. Colin, the former marathon runner I had met yesterday, had taken the different route in order to avoid being blown off the cliff top. Fighting my way down Bob‘s steps to the deserted shingle on my Hordle Cliff walk this morning, I rather saw his point.
The owner of Bridge Cottage had told me how impossible the salt wind to which the corner of Downton Lane is exposed has made growing a hedge. It was also clear why so many trees grow bent away from the sea.
Even in the lane the roar of wind and waves that were pounding the shingle was thunderous.
The older chalets in Shorefield Country Park are being demolished to make way for more modern structures. The woman who explained the pile of flammable material fenced in by a high barrier regretted their passing because they were a ‘cheap and cheerful’ way of taking a summer holiday.
A mahonia on the approach to the footbridge over the stream leading to the rookery was a gleaming beacon.
Apart from the Bridge Cottage photograph, those taken after the sea spray coated my camera lens bear traces of the film this produced.
To put today’s blasts in perspective, 30 miles per hour is the traffic speed limit in UK’s built-up areas. Not so long ago a series of television adverts alerted us to the fact that a child on impact with a vehicle travelling at that rate would almost certainly be killed. At 20 mph there was more of a chance of survival. For this reason, many zones, particularly in the vicinity of schools, like the one in West End, signed with the slogan ’20 is plenty’, have reduced the limit to 20.
For our dinner this evening we repaired to The Red Lion at MIlford on Sea. With my rib eye steak I drank a large glass of valpolicella; Jackie drank peroni with her piri-piri chicken; and we both chose caramel apple pie and custard. This was all as enjoyable as last time.
Once again our Royal Oak neighbour has closed down. It does seem to be difficult to make this hostelry, which relies on holiday trade and has no real local clientele, pay.

Max Headroom

On an extremely blustery morning I walked to and from Giles’s home by the Shorefield footpath and Blackbush Road route.
Pine cones littered the terrain, and I added to my collection of fungi photos.
Fallen branches along the footpath created arches offering enough overhead clearance to put me in mind of roadsigns; a TV series; and a rapper. The warning signs are posted in order to let drivers of tall vehicles know whether they may pass under bridges and remain intact. According to Wikipedia, ‘Max Headroom is a British-produced American satirical science fiction television series by Chrysalis Visual Programming and Lakeside Productions for Larimar-Telepictures that aired in the United States on ABC from March 1987 to May 1988. The series was based on the Channel 4 British TV pilot produced by Chrysalis, ‘Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the future’.
Finally, in his music video of November 2013, ‘Rap God’, Eminem posed as Max, the character from the TV series.
When I finished that particular rambling, I progressed along the path and met Maura, a pleasant and humorous woman who has been clearing leaves from this thoroughfare for thirty-five years. We spoke for a while, and she encouraged her little dog to pose for my first photograph. As I walked on, she called out to me to take a long shot so that I could feature the leaves she had piled up against the fence.
Now, after this conversation, no-one over a certain age would expect me to refrain from mentioning ‘Beyond Our Ken’, a comedy radio programme that ran from 1958 to 1964. Although the Ken from the title was actually writer and actor Kenneth Horne, it was Kenneth Williams who always delivered the catch phrase ‘thirty-five years’ when asked how long he had been engaged in a particular activity.
Further on, I met Colin, another former marathon runner, with whom I spent about half an hour swapping running stories. Our conversation began when he tripped over a root, an error I had made earlier. He had run the first London Marathon, watching which had given me the bug. My first such event was the second London one, in which Chris Brasher stopped off for a pint at an East End pub.
Along Blackbush Road, rhododendrons were blooming again. Unfortunately the photograph I took to prove it was out of focus.
I spent an enjoyable hour or so with Giles before returning home for lunch. My friend had bought a box of satsumas at Lidl. He gave me some to take home.
Dinner this evening consisted of tasty fishcakes with Jackie’s piquant cauliflower cheese (recipe), mashed potato, carrots, and runner beans. Dessert was blackberry and apple crumble with custard or clotted cream, according to preference. Retentive readers will know who chose the custard. Jackie drank Stella and I finished the Cuvee St Jaine.

Canal Holidays

When Errol brought the children down for the weekend on 1st, he gave us a large bunch of lilies. Each day since, we have watched for the opening of the petals. We were rewarded today. They now have quite a heady scent. The treasured stoneware vase containing them, was made for Jessica and me by Becky when she was studying art at Newark College in the 1990s.
Another memento of a wonderful weekend has been placed on her Facebook page by Louisa, who took this amazing iPhone photograph. The perfectly framed image shows Jessica and Imogen finishing off the sparklers they took home with them.

Hebes are blooming again in our garden.

I spent most of the day scanning fifteen very poor prints from 1980 and ’81. These were of varying shapes and sizes, often out of focus, and many had been produced with the use of ageing chemicals. None was larger than 9 x 11 cm. You could probably say it was a labour of love.

Our nephew Mark, fondly remembering canal holidays shared by my sister Jacqueline’s family and Jackie, Matthew, Becky and Ian Stockley, had, at Chris’s funeral on 31st October, asked for copies of Jackie’s thirty plus year old collection. The two families had very happy times on narrow boats. May of 1980 was the bobble hat month. Matthew, Becky, and their cousins James, Mark, Little Jack and Alex, all bought hand-knitted hats from the woman who had made them, then Becky, Mat, Little Jack, and Mark re-enacted the iconic Beatles 1969 ‘Abbey Road’ album cover along the canal bank.

That same year Becky wasn’t too confident when the boat got up to the maximum 4 mph. By May 1981, she must have been more so, but fell in the water and was fished out by Mark.

My sister Jacqueline was happier being photographed on entering the boat with her husband Jack, than when emerging from the public convenience.

Before producing the canal holiday print, I carried out a tester on an equally small but better preserved tender photograph of Becky and Flo who, albeit on tiptoe, had only been walking for about a month. This is quite heavily cropped. It was taken at the end of 1997 by Jackie, who, of course, had produced all the canal trip pictures.

This evening we dined at The Crown in Everton. I enjoyed my customary steak and kidney pudding, ball of winter vegetables encased in a skin of cabbage, chips and gravy; as did Jackie her scampi, chips and salad. We both chose steamed syrup sponge pudding and custard, and certainly didn’t regret it. Jackie’s drink was Peroni and mine was Doom Bar.

A Melodious Voice

It is a while since I featured a ‘through the ages’ photograph. Here is number 52 which was taken by Jessica at the Soho Festival of Summer 1977, during the spaghetti eating contest. I reported on Michael’s attempt the previous year on 29th June 2013. At that event I also entered the cigar smoking competition. In ’77 my son was not inclined to repeat his effort, and as I struggled through a plateful of pretty dry pasta, I soon discovered why.
I posted this image as a little light relief from the morning’s boring admin tasks, one of which concerned a cheque from Southern Electric. This was a refund relating to our closing account at Castle Malwood Lodge. That contract was in our joint names, but we do not have a joint bank account. The cheque was made out in both our names, and, even if we both signed the back of it, the bank would not accept it. It had to be returned to the utility company with instructions as to who should be the recipient of the replacement. I did this.
I took my usual walk to Hordle Cliff top where, on my approach, rabbits scuttled into the bramble, and, as always, I was presented by a different view of The Isle of Wight and The Needles. As I had said to a woman photographing the scene a couple of days ago, the island looks different every time I walk this way.
On Downton Lane, where Bridge Cottage basked in the mid-day sun, a happy cyclist weaving all over the road sang at the top of his voice. He paused as he passed me and continued afterwards. Perhaps he was more embarrassed than was the very talented comedian I had encountered at Oxford Circus tube station quite a number of years ago. As I walked through one of the passageways between platforms, a most melodious singing echoed behind me. I slowed enough for the operatic voice, which did not pause, to drift by. Apparently oblivious of my presence, there before me walked Paul Whitehouse whose amazing voice has enlivened many of the skits on the Harry Enfield show. One of my favourite sketches from that series features Paul singing Figaro in ‘Harry Enfield – Who’s That Girl on Vimeo’. It’s worth a look.
A notice stapled to a tree in Shorefield Country Park asks residents to keep their dogs on a lead. By and large, pet owners comply with this request.
This afternoon we drove to New Milton for shopping and banking. The window of the Poundstretcher store announced significant reductions for large women:
As it was a sunny day we travelled on to Barton on Sea to sit and watch the ocean for a while. Yet another view of the Isle of Wight was to be enjoyed, and walkers threw long shadows..
On Milford Road a car driver used a hand signal to indicate turning left. Many people today would not recognise this, but when I learned to drive this method of alerting following drivers to your intention was normal practice. Now we all have electronic indicators. Some vehicles in those days still bore yellow flags that flipped up either to the right or to the left to indicate which way you wished to turn.
It is important to use hand signals if you have an electrical fault. It must have been more than twenty years ago when I last wound down my driver side window and indicated slowing down. A policeman stopped me for a chat. He was most amused. His opening remark was: ‘It must have been a long time ago when you passed your test’.
Dinner this evening consisted of belly of pork, chipolata sausages, roasted peppers and mushrooms, mashed potato, cauliflower and green beans, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Cuvee St Jaine red table wine.

Journey To The Sun

Today’s weather followed a somewhat similar pattern to that of yesterday. After a morning’s pottering Jackie drove us in mid-afternoon to the North of the forest where we wandered around our old haunts between Ringwood and Fordingbridge.
Already, pools began to to gather on the heathlands and the forest floors, and streams, like this one near North Gorley, overflowed their fords.
This particular area, although well populated by ponies, has quite a number of donkeys roaming. A family of four, quite oblivious of the traffic, occupied the road at Hythe, and at Hungerford a pair indulged in a passionate necking session before one was prevailed upon to suckle her foal. These animals do, of course, have right of way in The New Forest, where car drivers must just be patient.
As the sun gradually sank to the horizon, the initially pastel shades of the cloudscapes had, by the time we stopped at the Godshill carpark and Jackie released me with my camera, deepened into a dark indigo pierced by strident reds and yellows and the white heat of the flaming planet .
With the glow of the sun at its lowest point, the already red-brown New Forest ponies took on a brighter shade of russet, thus blending with the autumn leaves and pink clouds of its surroundings.
Soon after our return, we dined on pork spare ribs marinaded in barbecue sauce, superb savoury rice, and green beans, followed by blackberry and apple crumble and clotted cream. I drank more of the rioja, and Jackie enjoyed her customary Hoegaarden.

I Watched The Needles Disappear

Since, except when there is no visibility, I always look across at the Isle of Wight when I walk along the cliff top to Milford or Barton on Sea, it is quite fortuitous that the next two of my interchangeable large format photographic prints that I substituted this morning should be of a trip to Shanklin taken by Jackie, Michael, and me in September 1968. This holiday is described in my post entitled ‘Mumbai’. The unframed picture of Michael, happily buried in the sand, also illustrates that article.

The water spout drained onto the beach.

It was late in the afternoon before today’s rain stopped. Except that, attracted by the ever-changing light over The Solent, and deterred by the muddy footpaths, I returned by the clifftop and the coast road, I took my usual route to Milford on Sea and back. Crows perched on the edge of the cliff before taking off and soaring up above. It was a much cooler day and the wind brought a chill from the sea, so walkers were well wrapped up.

The rainfall I had seen earlier falling on the headland to the West, eventually made its way across to the Isle of Wight, and I watched the Needles disappear before making my way home.

A cow momentarily left off its grazing in order to have a good scratch.

For this evening’s dinner Jackie produced her most edible chilli con carne (recipe) with savoury rice that was a meal in itself, followed by blackberry and apple crumble and clotted cream. She drank Hoegaarden whilst my choice was Castillo san Lorenzo rioja reserva 2009.

A Gem From Photography’s Early Years

Torrential rain this morning made us grateful for the splendid day we had enjoyed yesterday, but it did prompt an early departure for Louisa, Errol, Jessica and Imogen, who needed to return to Mapperley in Nottinghamshire.
When the deluge had desisted I took my Hordle Cliff top walk. The blustery wind roaring off The Solent, tore at the tresses and the raiment of a group of young women being propelled up the steps from the shingle. The fragile black scarf of one of them had been snagged on a bramble. I helped her free it.
It is a common phenomenon that some distant members of families only meet at weddings and funerals. I had last met my cousin Maureen at the funeral of her father, my Uncle Derrick. Marcus Derrick Knight had been my Auntie Gwen‘s executor. When Maureen had been clearing out her parents’ bungalow she had discovered various memorabilia of Gwen. Having thought I was the person who should have them, she brought them to Chris’s funeral on 31st October, and handed them over. There were various framed certificates, photographs, an eulogy, and a medal. The bronze coloured medallion records her length of employment at the Association for the Propagation of the Faith. This service is described in the APF newsletter framed by Gwen herself with the addition of an in memoriam card that must have been inserted by her brother. My godmother, born in 1904, would have looked, when I was born in 1942, as she does in the memorial card. I remember her more as in the later photograph illustrating the magazine article. What that piece does not describe is Gwen’s transport to and from Wimbledon Station from her homes, first at 18 South Park Road, then 9 Latimer Road. This was a sturdy upright bicycle on which she travelled everywhere, even into old age.
The cross mentioned by Canon Mark Swaby must be the gold papal medal that Derrick had given me after Gwen’s death. It was almost certainly stolen in the burglary at Newark mentioned in my post ‘The Rosewood Wine Table’.
The Gwen I could not possibly have remembered was photographed around 1908. The delicately tinted print bears the stamp of Britannia’s Ltd, 8 Emery Lane, Boston, and was framed by F.J.Salisbury of 64 Upper Tooting Road, London, SW17. This gem from the early years of photography would grace our walls even if we were unable to identify the subject.
For dinner this evening Jackie produced delicious lamb jalfrezi (recipe) and exquisite egg fried rice, followed by fruity blackberry and apple crumble and custard. She drank Cimarosa Pedro Jimenez reserva 2013, and I drank Kingfisher.

Strictly Come Dancing

This morning Jackie made a shopping trip for more supplies for the day, then drove Louisa to Milford for her to buy a birthday present. Later, I walked down to the Spar shop with my daughter. We then awaited the arrival of Errol, Jessica, and Imogen coming by car from Mapperley.
The girls had to be persuaded to eat, because they were desperate to get out into the garden. When they were eventually released, they set about hiding the pumpkins, two of which they had brought with them, and the other three having been prepared by Jackie.
Again, they had to be prised from the garden for a trip to the beach. They were, of course, very happy to get there, and enjoyed scaring themselves by confronting the buffeting waves which had the propensity to cover their feet and soak their leggings.
On the cliff top, a painter was intent on capturing the seascape.
Although the day was warm, the wind was strong, and the water cold, so Jessica and Imogen eventually felt chilled enough to return to the house in order to prepare for the bonfire. With a little help from the adults they dressed Guy Fawkes.
Between three and four o’clock Danni and Andy, Jacqueline and Elizabeth, and Mat, Becky, and Flo all joined in the party. Flo set the bonfire, Imogen and I carried out the effigy and sat him on the pyre, and we all waited for nightfall. When that came, candles inside the pumpkins were lit, and the fire was set alight. At the last minute I hammed up trying to retrieve my infamous pink jogging bottoms. I was, of course, too late.
The splendid display of fireworks was managed by Matthew, and Flo and Errol assisted in keeping the fire going.
Jackie had catered brilliantly. Everyone was able to choose from chilli con carne, lamb jalfrezi, chicken and vegetable soup, hot dogs, scones, blackberry and apple crumble, and Becky’s flapjacks. Wine, beers, water, and fruit juices were on tap.
The children waived viewing the last three fireworks, because they wanted to watch ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, especially as it was a Halloween special.