Books – Page 35 – derrickjknight

Judy

This morning I finished reading Flaubert’s ‘L’education sentimentale’. This long nineteenth century novel, more than twenty years in the making, is beautifully written, and has been a great help in brushing up a very rusty vocabulary. I have needed a dictionary at hand, and have had to be careful not to use some of the author’s antique or purely literary words or phrases in the supermarket. The writer of the more popular ‘Madame Bovary’, Flaubert must have been very disappointed in this work’s original reception. The world was not ready for a piece in which nothing much actually happens, until Proust came along, praised it and wrote his own great ‘Remembrance of things past’, as we translate it. Maybe the theme of the protagonist’s emotional life blighted by an unconsummated love for a married woman was not very fashionable either. I found his descriptions of scenes, events, thoughts, and emotions inspiring and educational.

I then began ‘La Porte Etroite’ by Andre Gide. When I bought this 1947 large format illustrated paperback edition in Wimbledon Village’s Oxfam shop earlier this year, the volunteer assistant looked fondly at it and said ‘I did that for A level’. ‘So did I’, exclaimed another customer.

This afternoon Jackie drove us to Romsey where we visited the Abbey. Actually begun before the Norman conquest, this building created for Benedictine nuns is largely in Norman style. One can only marvel at the structure with three tiers of arches and splendid stained glass like that lighting St. Ethelfraeda’s chapel. How those men more than a thousand years ago, with none of today’s equipment managed even the perpendiculars is beyond me. St. Ethelfraeda’s is just one of the side chapels. It contains, on the left-hand side, what is described as the ancient tomb of an abbess. Could it be hers? I notice this is not claimed.

Volunteers were preparing the abbey for a concert this evening. We had managed our timing well, for we arrived before the concert and after a significant funeral. Bob Smith, who told me he was the head guide of the establishment, recited a number of stories relating to this place of worship, and I am sure he had many more. He began with the tale of John Warren, styled ‘an intruder’ in the list of vicars on the wall. He had apparently got into the list by virtue of his brother’s rectorship in the seventeenth century. This brother gave him the position although he had not been ordained. Before Julitta Beatrice Walker came along and took on the research, this list was incomplete. She filled in the gaps, and became a source of all knowledge about the abbey. Bob said that what she didn’t know about it ‘could be written on the back of a postage stamp in block capitals’. Among other publications this Cambridge graduate has written ‘Romsey Abbey Through The Ages’. As we entered the abbey we had seen piles of funeral service booklets for Judy. This was Julitta. May she rest in peace.

Our evening meal was Jackie’s sausage casserole followed by trifle and accompanied in my case by Montpierre reserve Languedoc 2011, and in hers by Redbridge Creek chardonnay made on the other side of the world in the same year.

Nobby Bates

The hot water problem resolved itself. We had hot water in the morning, and the Dimplex radiators we had not managed to get to come on, did function in the small hours. We are apparently on Economy 7 which I have heard about but never investigated. Through this system electricity is drawn at night and stored for the day.

Throughout the morning, as we continued unpacking and sorting out our home, we watched, through our immense windows, a gardener blowing leaves, using a kind of reverse vacuum cleaner. As fast as the poor man cleared a patch, more foliage fluttered down from the trees.

This afternoon I walked through Minstead and along Lyndurst Road, then right along the A337 to Lyndhurst to collect postal redirection forms. Postal redirection is a service offered by the Post Office whereby any post sent to your old address is intercepted and diverted to your new one. On the way I received a call from Lynne Bailey of KLS, the landlords of Links Avenue. One of the matters she called about was the return of the keys to number 40. This was handy because I could post them there and then from the Lyndhurst Post Office.

Ponies grazed alongside the minor roads, or lolloped or loitered on the tarmac, all traffic respectfully ceding passage. Wire fences and cattle grids protect the animals from straying onto the A337, where the fast-flowing streams of traffic render the road dangerous for them. Lacking a footpath, it is not too safe for humans either. On my way back I must have turned off this major road a bit too soon, for I wound up in Emery Down, and had to call Jackie to come and rescue me. Well, I suppose it was bound to happen. As it was well after dusk when this occured, I learned that, on the minor roads, it must be far safer in the dark for the protected New Forest fauna than for stray septuagenarians.

On the children’s recent visit I explained to Jessica the purpose of cattle grids. I had thought I was speaking to both the girls who were in the back of the car, but it transpired that I was talking to the top of Imogen’s head, because, seconds after getting into the car she had slumped forward in slumber, prevented only by her seatbelt from taking a nosedive. Jessica, however, knew all about cattle grids and hedgehogs falling down them and having to be rescued. Rather amazed, I asked her how she knew this. She said she had read it in a book. I still didn’t twig until I mentioned this to Louisa, who explained that she read to the girls ‘Operation Hedgehog’ by Margaret Lane, just as I and her mother had read the book, which I had bought, to her when she was little. It had been one of Louisa’s favourites and was now loved by her own daughters. This was the tale of Nobby Bates, who lived in a cottage in The New Forest and devised an escape route for hedgehogs who had fallen down the cattle grids.

This evening we drove to Ringwood in search of an Indian restaurant we had discovered eighteen months ago. Settling on India Cottage we had some debate about whether it had been that establishment. It was good enough, but only when returning to the car and passing the earlier eating place were we sure that we had been in the wrong one. We both drank Kingfisher.

Prolixity Or Concision?

Early this morning I finished reading Robert Graves’ ‘Count Belisarius’, which, I have to say, I found rather heavy going. I know enough about Roman history to admire Graves’ research and his knowledge of Belisarius’ successful conquests of the Goths, the Vandals, and the Persians; and his relief and defence of Rome during the reign of probably the longest serving Emperor Justinian and his ex-prostitute wife Theodora. I don’t know enough to question any of his remarkably detailed coverage of individual campaigns and battles. Since this is an historical novel there may be a measure of invention and embroidery.

The author is evidently fascinated by warfare and its techniques, which I am not. How this, possibly the greatest, Roman general mastered the terrain, mustered and deployed his troops, and outwitted his enemies doesn’t really intrigue me. Apart from the perfidious Procopius, historians have focussed more on the military than the private man. Procopius was one of the tools of the jealous emperor in the Count’s ultimate betrayal and downfall. Graves has done what he could to fill in our sense of the man, his wife, Justinian, and Theodora. He refrains from Gibbon’s salacious descriptions of the notorious empress. I am, nevertheless, pleased to have read ‘Count Belisarius’, whose name lives on in the prolific US television output of Belisarius Productions.

Somewhere, sometime, in the past year or so, I have read an observation that journalists do not make good writers of literature because they do not use the long sentence. The view was that they are so accustomed to writing immediate, almost staccato, prose that they cannot produce other than short sentences. Like this. Be that as it may, whoever awarded E. Annie Proulx the Pulitzer Prize for ‘The Shipping News’ must not have agreed. Robert Graves, on the other hand, perhaps because he wrote in the first half of the twentieth century, is a long-sentence specialist; that is he manages to string a great many words together, making full use of punctuation – and relying quite heavily on dashes – before allowing himself the luxury of the full stop that brings that particular sequence of words to an end. I trust the journalist Lynne Truss, who wrote ‘Eats, Shoots And Leaves’, an attempt to address the importance of punctuation, would approve of Graves’ scholarly work. Probably.

Jessica was once told by one of her teachers that she and her schoolmates were the last literate generation. I do not believe this bt i mst say txtgs ment tht 4 sur mny pepl 2dy do rite mssgs brfly im not v g at it as u cn c n pncttns gon out th wndw

I am, of course, of the Ronnie Corbett school of narrative. Ronnie, an absolutely splendid comedian, who was very short, would sit on an overlarge chair and tell a long-winded story which went all round the houses, rambling all over the place before he got to the point. Shameless. He was.

Having finished the book I took a last walk towards Wimbledon via Mostyn Road as far as the John Innes Park and recreation ground, through which I travelled, emerging by way of Blakesley Walk onto Kingston Road, turning right there and along to Morden Road; meeting Jackie at Safestore where we purchased our cardboard boxes for the move.

The Listener puzzle mentioned yesterday has been accepted.

We lunched on leftovers from last night’s jalfrezi and began our packing. As a break from taping together and filling large cardboard boxes, making sure in the process that I would be able to lift them, I had my last shop in Morden’s Lidl. This had me reflecting that my first trip there had been when we were moving in here and found ourselves without mugs for coffee. Now we will have a dishwasher the extra four mugs I bought then will come in useful. As you know, you need more of everything in order to fill the machine. I don’t like bananas by the way, but you never know what you’ll find in this emporium.

Just think, I could have bought my Wellies in Lidl. Have no fear, there is a Lidl at Totton, a suburb of Southampton not far from Minstead.

This evening, in our continuing attempts to empty the freezer we ate a melange of cottage pie (for one) and beef stew (for one), with Lidl veg. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, whereas my preference was for Roc des Chevaliers Bordeaux Superieur 2010.

A Grief Unobserved

Strolling in Morden Hall Park this morning, I encountered a group of volunteers strenuously striving to eradicate ivy from the bases of trees. They were armed solely with spades and cutters. They did not have the forks which I had found indispensible in digging out the pernicious tendrils (see 27th August post) that had required so much time at The Firs. The man was tugging away with hands encased in protective gloves.

Wandering over to the wetlands I noticed a makeshift plank bridge which provided a short cut to the Natural Play Area which I have been terming an adventure playground. The father of a family enjoying the swings agreed with me when I had told him I hadn’t been prepared to risk it and had taken the long way round. ‘Especially in this weather’, he remarked. The playground has been developed by the National Trust in consultation with Liberty Primary School.

Three mallards resting by the Wandle bank, and a young woman who put me in mind of Lot’s wife, were watching other ducks foraging in the swift-flowing stream.

I had had occasion to visit the reception area of the Civic Centre on my way through Morden, to hand Jackie some documents for signature. There I had read a poster proclaiming that ‘Muhammad is the only prophet mentioned in the Bible’. In Deuteronomy, we are told. I had been given a copy of the Qur’an on my visit to the mosque on 18th May, but have not got round to reading it.

I have a number of books I have not got round to reading. One of these was ‘A Grief Unobserved’ by my friend Maggie Kindred. I determined to rectify that on my return to Links Avenue. Being unable to put it down, I read it at a sitting. Described as ‘insightful and sensitive’, this slender publication is designed ‘for parents, carers, and professionals who work with them’. As a parent and as a professional I have a thorough grasp of Maggie’s subject and can assure you that this small paperback is as good as anything I have read, and more readable than most. She speaks from the heart with a clear professional head. We know exactly what life’s journey has been for Em, from her early bereavement, through her further losses in childhood and adolescence, and, perhaps most importantly and optimistically, her painful road to recovery. Quite appropriately this is seen from the perspective of someone who believes in the significance of nurturing in human development, but no-one should underestimate Em’s inherent strengths.

My own son Michael was, at fourteen months old, two months younger than Em when they each lost their mothers. Vivien’s death was recorded in my post of 17th July. Readers will recall that I took him up to my parents house where we remained for two and a half years. We never returned to our home at Ashcombe Road. I had been unaware that, as Maggie tells us, children always seek the absent parent where they last saw them. I was, however, instinctively aware that when my toddler son wandered at night about the much larger Bernard Gardens address, he was searching for his mother. Probably because he was a boy, he had very little speech at that age, and, as Maggie explains, would not have had the cognitive ability to understand what was going on.

So how was I to tell him? I had not yet discovered the direction explained in my 18th July post, so knew nothing about therapy. What I did know about was stories. His mother and I had always read to our son and shown him books and pictures. I knew of nothing then appropriately written, so I made one up. Each night as I tucked him in I told him a story about a little boy whose mother had died and what it meant. Anyone who has read or told stories to small children will know the value of repetition, also highlighted by Maggie. Woe betide you, though, if you make any changes, leave anything out, or mistake any details, for you will be corrected by the smallest listener. It must have been a year before the little chap, just before nodding off, asked: ‘why did my Mummy die?’ Then, just as now as I write, my emotions welled up. They were so mixed. I felt a deep satisfaction that my way of telling him had worked, but complete impotence as to how to answer the question. To this day I can’t remember what I said, but his question reverberates in my mind.

So, Maggie, for the simple, clear, and heart-rending; yet positive, way you have presented this necessary work, I thank you. This should be essential reading for anyone remotely connected with its theme. It can be obtained from www.pneumasprings.co.uk or www.kindredgamesandbooks.co.uk

Having travelled by car to Thornhill in Hampshire, Jackie and I ate at Eastern Nights, with Bangla and Cobra respectively imbibed.

The Folio Society

On this hot, humid, and overcast morning I set off by my usual route for lunch with Norman in Harlesden. I was very sticky by the time I reached Colliers Wood.

A heron landed in a tree in Morden Hall Park before taking off, no doubt aiming for the river Wandle. On the trail joggers were taking their exercise. One, a young mother, was, one-handed, pushing her toddler in a three-wheeled buggy; although I stood aside when approached by a couple, it was clear one would have to drop back. I speculated which it would be. I was right. It was the woman. She certainly looked the fitter of the two. I hoped this was the reason. A fisherman was unravelling his line. Deen City Farm (posted 16th. May) was filling up, probably because at last it wasn’t raining.

On the Underground there were constant announcements warning of the congestion expected during the forthcoming Olympic games. A busker (see 14th. June) was playing an accordion at Green Park.

Norman fed me with gammon, all the trimmings, and a fruit flan. We shared a bottle of Cona Sur 2008, a superb full-bodied Chilean pinot noir, purchased in Morrison’s, which I had given him for his birthday. He gave me a couple of CDs which I will unveil on Saturday, my birthday.

His pedestrian street, as many others in The London Borough of Brent’s NW10, now has allocated residential parking occupying exactly half of the not over-wide pavements. In 1966, when I learned to drive I had been taught that it was an offence to mount the kerb in a motor vehicle. The kerbs in these roads have not been dropped, so, at least in Brent, this is apparently now legal. An elderly Somali gentleman was feeding a vast flock of pigeons in Preston Gardens (that’s a tiny street, not a park). Fortunately Flo has grown out of breeding several generations of them on her Mitcham balcony. On the way up to Neasden underground station two cyclists sped past me on the footway, one displaying the crack in his bum.

On the tube I finished reading J. Meade Falkner’s novel Moonfleet. This late nineteenth century work is a marvellous tale well told. It is at least equally good as those of the better known Robert Louis Stevenson. When she knew I was about to read it, my friend Heather commended it. She did not exaggerate. The theme of smuggling features as a decoration to the front cover binding of my Folio Society edition, and the header photograph above displays the spine of the book in its customary slipcase. The description of Elzevir Block and John Trenchard’s, albeit brief, ordeal in the hold of a Dutch prisoner ship bound for transportation and a life of slavery, reminded me of the horrors of Alex Hayley’s ‘Roots’ and Robert Hughes’ ‘The Fatal Shore’. This latter volume is a history of the origins of modern Australia and desperate plight of those transported in the convict ships.

Had I had more confidence in my teenage abilities, and had my parents been able to send me to art school, I may well have taken up book illustration. As it was, I needed, on leaving school, to go straight to work. I also thought I’d never make a Charles Keeping, a John Bratby, or even a Beryl Cook, all of whom have illustrated Folio books. My first annual salary was about £340, the bulk of which I handed over to my mother. I kept enough back, however, to be able, upon seeing an advertisement for The Folio Society, to sublimate my desire to illustrate by joining this book club. Fifty two years later I have a large collection of beautifully illustrated, imaginatively bound hardback books, printed on good paper which doesn’t turn brown, with suitable typeface and font. All these elements are carefully selected to be in keeping with the original writing. Younger, budding, illustrators are encouraged by an annual competition. Michael Manomivibul illustrated ‘Moonfleet’. Maybe he is one of those. I have the Society to thank for many works of which I may otherwise have no knowledge, and for pleasurable editions of numerous others.

I finished reading the abovementioned ‘The Fatal Shore’ on Christmas day 2007, on the plane to Perth, where I spent a couple of days with Holly’s delightful and most hospitable parents and brothers before being driven to a winery in the Margaret River area of South West Australia for the wedding she shared with Sam. I had a far more comfortable journey than had the early transported convicts.

This is a copy of the solution to an Independent cryptic crossword I designed to commemorate the event. Read the highlighted perimeter letters clockwise from top left.

By coincidence, just after his own birthday this March, Norman shared with me an excellent bottle of wine his niece in Queensland had sent him. This had originated in Margaret River.

Sacred Copulation

7.6.12.

Today being Mordred day, that is, when my crossword appears in The Independent; and that newspaper being unavailable in Sigoules, Jackie has undertaken to buy one for me. You may wonder why I would want to buy a puzzle I had set myself. Well, it makes me feel proud to see it in print, and it’s quite impressive to be able to complete it in three minutes on the tube.

Before I got up I finished ‘Whose Body?’ by Dorothy L. Sayers. She brings a most literary element to her detective stories. Quite apart from their being excellent examples of the genre she develops her characters with insight and humour. Indeed, there is a touch of P.G.Wodehouse about her narrative and, in the book, she makes occasional reference to Holmes and Watson. Lord Peter Wimsey has his equivalents of both Jeeves and Doctor Watson.

As I left the house for my daily perambulation an elderly woman with a shopping bag was leaning with one hand against the wall, panting for breath. Had I come down the steps which lead onto the pavement I would have blocked her path. I therefore remained on the top step in order to keep her way clear and to pause in case my help would be required. She smiled and told me to come down. I stood grinning like an Englishman who hadn’t grasped what she’d said, which, of course, I hadn’t. She laughed and said she granted me permission to descend. That time I got it, and my grin developed into an equal expression of amusement.

A warm and sunny day with plenty of cloud, cooled by the occasional smattering of large raindrops, greeted my departure. En route to Monbos, some two miles out of Sigoules, maize was sprouting and barley flourishing. The vineyards around Monbos were in good shape. The ditches and chalky banks on the roadside were decked with clusters of poppies, sweet peas, bramble blossom, and a profusion of other wild flowers. The first time I went this way was with Elizabeth. She suffered badly with sunstroke, and it was only afterwards we learned that the temperature had been 40 degrees.

I passed a field in which a string of horses came galloping down the hillside to investigate my presence, just as the donkey had done the day before. About halfway you come to Sigoules Heights. This is intended to be a vast housing development. Three years ago a system of roads, impressive street furniture, and parking areas, was laid out. It seems you buy a plot and have your own house built. To date there are only three houses in situ. Perhaps another casualty of the worldwide recession.

My goal today was to visit the 11th./12th. century simple stone-built church with a barrel roof.

This humble house of God is decorated with stylised mediaeval carvings representing various examples of animal life. Standing out amongst these are naked men without fig-leaves, and two couples hugely, graphically, copulating. Not even in the missionary position. The phalluses have at some time clearly been replaced. Perhaps denizens of a more recent age found them offensive; perhaps someone stricken with penis envy simply nicked them. Either way it is wonderful that these works of naive art have survived 1,000 years of continuous worship.

Set in the back wall is a peculiar square window containing a kind of porthole. We believe that was for the relevant hermit to observe the Mass rather than the carvings.

Having watched a film last night based upon one John Le Carre novel, it was fitting that I should begin to read ‘The Honourable Schoolboy’ today.

This evening’s fare at Le Code Bar was Salade Nicoise encircled by shrimps, followed by gammon steaks, ratatouille, and kus kus. After sending me a huge platter of the main course Frederick, the chef, told me to ask for more if it wasn’t enough. Not enough! I have no idea what the sweet would have been because I had no room for it. My choice of wine was rose. The wine comes from Les Caves de Sigoules, the manager of which once introduced himself to Michael as my personal wine supplier. This was at one of the Friday evening festive meals which take place in the village square throughout July and August.

Later, I watched ‘La Dame Aux Camelias’, starring Greta Scacchi, Colin Firth, and Ben Kingsley. This was beautifully filmed and pleasant enough but, perhaps inevitably, lacked the complexity of Dumas fils’ original novel. Having watched Colin Firth as a middle-aged man the night before it was fascinating to see him perform as a very young man. His serious, somewhat shy, expressions and winning smile haven’t changed. Greta Scacchi was as decorative as ever; and Ben Kingsley full of charisma.

Bookmarks

This morning I finished reading ‘The Remorseful Day’ by Colin Dexter. This is the final novel in his series about the cerebral Chief Inspector Morse. A pleasant and intelligent detective story which ends appropriately, if far less dramatically than the acclaimed television series. I found it impossible to read without visualising, and indeed, hearing, John Thaw in the eponymous role; Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis; and James Grout as Chief Superintendent Strange. A superb piece of casting if ever there was one. Indeed, I am told that the author himself began to write with John Thaw in mind.

For a number of years now I have been playing a little game with future readers of my collection of books. I leave a bookmark inside. This can be a train ticket; a boarding pass; the visiting cards of restaurants, hairdressers, or any other profession; even a shopping list. That will give them something to think about, I imagine. A couple of times I have been hoisted by my own petard. This is only one of the beauties of second-hand books. One paperback I had had for some thirty years before actually reading it contained not one, but two bus tickets. One was the old stiff card type of ticket issued on country buses, from a route in Surrey; the other the kind which came off a roll dispensed by the conductor on London transport. He (always a he in those days) would wind a handle to produce the printed ticket. The blanks were like minature toilet rolls. These were given out on the trolleybuses mentioned in my post of 17th. May. If you were lucky a generous conductor might give you a whole roll to take home to play with. The ticket in my book was for the 52 bus which ran very close to Sutherland Place in W2 where I was living and the time and finally reading the book. Frances once knew a librarian who found the weirdest objects in returned books, perhaps none so mind-boggling as the rasher of bacon.

My copy of E. Annie Proux’s ‘The Shipping News’ contains a postcard written in German sent to a woman in London soon after the novel was published. As I know no German any confidentially is preserved until the book is picked up by a German reader. ‘The Remorseful Day’, however, contains something potentially more intriguing. This second-hand hardback purchased in the charity bookshop in the grounds of Morden Hall Park (all hardbacks £1, paperbacks 50p) has no need of a bookmark because it has a ribbon attached to the binding. What it does have, however, inscribed in ballpoint pen, is an outer London telephone number on the penultimate page. So far, I have resisted calling the number. Will the next reader be able to refrain?

Soon after mid-day rain set in for keeps and I gave up composting the final prepared beds. We all decided to troop off to the antiques centre at Wickham, only to find it closed. Every visitor to the village had had the same idea, namely to take shelter in one of the two tea rooms which were open. We were unable to get into Lilly’s but managed to squeeze into The Bay Tree Walk tea rooms where various beverages were enjoyed until we returned to The Firs and Jackie and I continued planting in the rain. Trooping around Wickham I had used a folding umbrella. It takes me so long to work out how to open and close these things that there is hardly any point. I did of course leave it in the tea rooms and then again in Chris’s car. By this method I never normally manage to keep an umbrella for more than one trip, unless, of course, I am as well chaperoned as I was today.

In the evening, when everyone else had departed, Elizabeth, Jackie, and I ate out at Eastern Nights in Thornhill. Just up the road, this Bangladeshi restaurant was very good. We have tried many in the area and this was one of the best.

Payback

Last night I finished reading Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. This is a book which Judith Munns ‘loves’ and which Rachel Eales studied for GCSE. In 1960, when I gained my English Literature A Level, five years before the trial of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, nothing so explicit would have graced the curriculum. In her new introduction to this year’s Folio Society edition the author pays tribute to Orwell’s ‘1984’, to Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, and to Bradbury’s ‘Farenheit 451’. All are futuristic novels based on social control and spywork.

The difference with Atwood’s book is that it focusses on the lives of women. I found it thought provoking, flowing and brilliantly written. As a man I can’t say I loved it. This is because I found the treatment of the handmaids as sexual objects purely for procreation rather than any legitimate enjoyment most uncomfortable. Maybe one has to be a woman to ‘love’ such a book. Was your spelling of ‘Tail’ deliberate, Judith, or not? Either way, I can fully understand it.

When the book came out the USSR was in the last throes of the communist grip. There will always be people in such a regime who will break the rules. Human nature and the desire for freedom of expression, however severely repressed, will come through. There is a fireman in Bradbury’s book who preserves the literature he is meant to burn, and the Handmaid’s Commander collects forbidden reading material; belongs to a sex club (exclusively for the bosses and important trade connections); and plays Scrabble. At great risk to them both the Commander involves the Handmaid in all this.

Margaret Atwood could not have known that by the early 21st. century it would be possible to form Scrabble friendships through the medium of the internet with people all over the world. Yet it is through the game of Scrabble that the Commander chooses to initiate the emotionally intimate relationship he craves with the handmaid he is meant mechanically to ‘fuck’ in his wife’s presence with neither pleasure nor verbal communication.

The humbling thing about Worldwide Scrabble on Facebook is that it is played in English. People I am currently playing whose first language is not English are from The Phillipines, Singapore, Japan, Greece, and Nigeria. And they are all capable of beating me.

On this warm and sunny morning of a day which soon became so hot and humid as to be oppressive I set off earlier than usual to walk to Colliers Wood with the intention of exploring the park on the High Street discovered yesterday.

In Sainsbury’s I joined a queue at the checkout behind a woman with what looked to be a whole week’s shop. As I only had a bottle of wine I was taking to my friend Norman for lunch I began to feel I’d probably joined the wrong queue. So quick and efficient, however, was the person on the till that I complimented her on her efficiency. She was a youngish woman with a slight African accent and tribal marks incised in her cheeks. She had a very modest yet humorous response. Only then did I realise that she was sporting a badge proclaiming her as ‘top scanner of the week’. She joked that she didn’t know how it had got there.

The visit to Wandle Park will have to wait. This is because I got diverted in conversation with the ganger of a team working on the Wandle Trail. I have reported earlier the marked difference between the amounts of litter on this trail and in Morden Hall Park. This morning there was a whole gang working at clearing the litter, tidying the undergrowth and, where necessary, weeding and clearing the river. Their leader, Mr. Everoy Naine, born in Jamaica in 1968, who came to this country when he was seven, was passionate and eloquent about what he and his crew were doing. He is employed by the London Probation Trust to manage a crew of volunteer offenders attached to the project called Payback. Everoy was keen on the actual task they were carrying out, proud of his workers, and wholly committed to giving his charges an opportunity. One young man was involved and interested in our conversation and I told him I had done my first (approved school) after care work in 1966. This impressed them both and it was then that Everoy said he had been born two years after this. His young charge gave me his name and would have been happy for me to have used it, but we agreed that his privacy should be respected.

On the tube to and from Neasden I began reading Colin Dexter’s ‘The Remorseful Day’.