Today
A silly thread on Facebook yesterday included my indignant assertion that Lizzie is a trekkie owing to my influence and that the tendency might be genetic.
In My Day
Mamma used to enjoy the original series and had rather a fancy for Captain James T Kirk. Over the years we watched Star Trek in any form we can - the Original Series (even in its digitally remastered form), The Next Generation, Deep Space 9 , Voyager and Enterprise. I think we have succeeded in seeing all of the feature-length films, including the new prequels Star Trek and Into Darkness, some of them several times.
In 1984 or thereabouts the concept that you could download the entire set of Star Trek films, order pizza and settle down for a trek-athon from the comfort of your rarely left sofa was non-existent. To have a Trek-athon you had to go to the pictures.
Which is what we did. The local cinema in Eastbourne advertised that it was showing all three Star Trek films consecutively, Clearly not an event to be missed. We packed up the girls and trundled off to the cinema. There was already a long queue.
The screening started at about 7.30. We bought our tickets and found seats in the crowded theatre. Along with everybody else, we had coffee flasks, sandwiches and blankets. At this time Lizzie would have been eleven and Becky six or seven. We all hunkered down and watched, riveted. I think that Becky fell asleep and woke up several times and ended the evening fast asleep, being carried to the car. But Lizzie stayed glued to the screen. Cinematic effects were nowhere near as convincing then as they are today but they were magical enough for us.
The whole event ended at about two AM and we. along with many other families, staggered out under the stars, clutching sleeping children and went home dazed by the wonder of it all.
Somehow, Star-Trek has an enduring fascination that sets it apart from other sci-fi. I understand that Star Trek III is coming out soon - I shall heading for the 3d cinema as soon as it's released, probably in the company of Lizzie.
Today
What with postcodes, satnav, and our very obvious position opposite the old brewery, you'd think we'd be easy to find. Not so. Yet again today, a van driver called us on his mobile to get us to talk him in.
These days it seems that people not only can't read maps, they've also entirely lost their sense of direction.
In My Day
I've always loved reading maps and somehow always assumed that other people could read them. This is not only not true, but people also don't like to admit it. They will gamely offer to navigate, holding the map upside down on the wrong page, while the driver struggles to deal with roundabouts and traffic with absolutely no idea of where they are.
I think it must have been about 1989. Paul's mum was visiting us. One day we thought it might be fun to do the Bath "Ghost Walk" - one of those city tours which tell you a lot about the city while trying to spook you with various creepy tales. We were both working and it seemed like a good idea for Mum to have a day in Bath before we had our evening jaunt.
Mum and I arrived in Bath. I took her up to the Flare offices, which were pretty central, got her a cup of tea and discussed the day. We agreed to meet for lunch. I gave her a street map of Bath, marked our location, mentioned some good places to visit and turned her loose.
I got on with my day's work, hoping that Mum was having a good time. There's plenty to see in Bath, sights are well-signposted and there are also lots of nice shops to browse. About half-an-hour before we were due to be reunited, a call was put through to me from the police. Apparently Mum had wandered round, completely unable to read her map or work out which way was up. Either she accidentally stumbled on the police station or a policeman and asked for help.
There was nothing for it; I cancelled my afternoon's appointments, collected the panicking Tricia and spent the afternoon calming her down preparatory for the evening walk, which she much enjoyed. What did become obvious, without much probing, was that she had no idea how to read a map; I could have given her a map of Timbuktu without her knowing the difference, but she was ashamed to admit it.
I am rather sorry now for my presumption, as well as forgetting that Mum was seventy-six, so unlikely to be able to learn new tricks.
What I have just done is ask the council to add a road sign saying "Manor Place", which is officially the bit of the High Street where we live, in an attempt to help panicking van delivery staff in the future.
Today
At choir we are performing the Kodaly Missa Brevis. "how are your top C's, Julia?" asked the music director. Well, for the first rehearsal of term, a bit wobbly, to be honest. Nothing that a bit of practice won't sort out.
In My Day
When I sang with The Byrdian Society and the St Matthew's Choir, back in 1965 or so, I was routinely assigned the top line. I didn't have any training, but it seemed that I could open my mouth and out would come the high notes.
For most of the choir repertoire a top b flat is about the maximum, but there is one famous piece that goes further.
Our music director, Colin, was rather prone to putting on under-advertised and over-ambitious concerts, mostly, although not always, involving polyphony. On one occasion, combining the forces of both groups (giving us about fifteen singers), he put on a concert which included the famous Allegri Miserere. I think we had an audience of about fifteen.
There are two choirs for this ideally; singing alternating verses. In every other verse there is the famous top C. There I was, expected to deliver it solo. And deliver it I did. In fact, the main problem was controlling my descent to the lower notes as I had no proper breath control training, so that the final top G was often quite wobbly from lack of breath!
A friend of mine, with whom I sang in those days, commented recently that he still thinks of me whenever he hears the work, which is sweet.
What I have discovered as I get older it that what comes naturally at eighteen, requires a lot more training and technique at sixty-six. But it's getting better, with a choir member describing my efforts this week at "ethereal". And no wobbling, either.
Today
My nephew had a little rant this week about people who say "haitch" when they should say "aitch". He said that it was to do with delusions of grandeur, but I'm not so sure, I think it's more ignorance and confusion about the fact that the letter aitch is aspirated in actual use while the word to describe it isn't.
In My Day
When Paul was in the ambulance service in Sussex, back in the late '70s, his daily work was delivered via the radio by an officer working in central control. Training standards were not high in those days and I sometimes suspected that otherwise incompetent officers were shunted into control because they weren't safe on the roads.
He's had control officers who couldn't pronounce place names "I've a call to an address in War-Cester villas" "Don't you mean Worcester?" (Pronouncing it correctly) "It says 'ere "War-Cester".
Then there was the time they were sent to an accident "At the roundabout in Lewes". "There are three roundabouts in Lewes, Control, do you know which one?" "I dunno - you'd better try them all". Which might explain why ambulances sometimes took longer than they should to arrive at their destination.
The ambulances all had an alphabetical call sign, relating to the location; thus, Lewes was "L" or "Lima". Paul much enjoyed this communication to a vehicle operating out of Hove:
"'otel one, 'otel one, please h'attend a h'accident at h'acres the bakers in 'Assocks for an 'ead h'injury".
Who knows what that particular control officer's aspirations were?
Today
It's always fascinating when children learn to talk. They approach the problem in such a variety of ways and at very different ages, too. Carmen has a few words now and she definitely uses them to communicate directly, rather than merely repetitively. Ask her where her rocking horse is and she'll point and say "there!" in triumphant tones. She'll point to her duck unprompted and say "duck!" as though she's never noticed it before. and tell you "no" if she doesn't want to be moved or eat more food.
In My Day
When Lizzie was a baby, I'm not sure that I had any expectations as to how and when she would learn to speak. Few of my friends had children the same age and Lizzie was the oldest of her cousins.
I don't know how she learnt the significance of the phrase "what's that?" but when she was about sixteen months she would point at an object and say "wassat?" We would give her the answer, e.g "dog". She would carefully copy it then move on to the next thing that caught her eye - "Wassat?" "butterfly." That was a bit of a poser, so she would ask again "wassat?" to make sure she'd heard us correctly. This would continue until she'd mastered the word and could carry on to the next and so on.
I don't think I've ever seen a child make such a determined effort to amass a vocabulary. It was as though her brain had suddenly realised that, if you can talk, the world is your oyster. Somewhere I have a letter from Daddy after a visit to Dorking, in which he describes his delight in observing how Lizzie hoovered up words. In a very short time she had a vocabulary of several hundred words and it was then a short step to putting them together to form sentences. I also remember how hard she worked to try to say the word "Ambulance" when Paul joined the service in 1977.
And, of course, she was right; with all those words at her command she could ask for things, engage in conversations, enjoy bedtime stories at a new level and be understood. She is still a vivid talker with a large vocabulary and can make her point verbally with emphasis.
I feel sure that Carmen who is observant and has good powers of concentration will soon make that leap into proper conversation. I can't wait!
Today
This morning my nephew was grumbling at the prospect of giving a training course to a group of reluctant students. "A good trainer," I sanctimoniously told him "Should be able to make almost anything interesting to almost anybody".
In My Day
When I worked for the Inland Revenue, back in 1983, I was asked by my boss if I would carry out some training requested by the local sixth form college. The idea was that, in order to prepare them for the real world, the students should attend a series of "liberal studies" classes or lectures.
I would be giving a forty-minute session on the subject of tax to a class of seventeen year-olds - a topic which they would be sure to find fascinating. I didn't really know where to start. I drafted a few notes and trotted off to the college well in time. I met the form teacher who asked me if I wanted her to be present. "You see", she said "when the man from the Abbey National came to give a talk about savings and mortgages he was so dull that there was a lot of misbehaviour and he lost control."
This cheered me up a great deal. "Well", I replied"My job isn't discipline, so please stay in the class."
The students filed into the classroom in an uncommitted way and took their places. As the teacher introduced me I wondered how I was going to fill the forty minutes. After deciding that running screaming with panic out of the classroom wasn't an option, I started with a brief introduction on the English tax system.
Clearly this wasn't going to keep them riveted - I glanced around the room at the bored faces and decided on a new tack. "That's just an introduction", I said "I'm now going to take you through your adult lives with some information about the tax consequences. I need two volunteers." I pointed at a girl and boy "your names? Right, Darren and Sharon, let's see what you might encounter."
I then proceeded to sketch out their lives - they had jobs, married each other, had babies, mortgages, company cars, were divorced and lived abroad. Darren and Sharon loved being the centres of attention and the rest of the class were so busy running behind me to see what I'd dream up next that they didn't have time to misbehave. The forty minutes flashed by and I breathed with relief.
I continued with these sessions for the next couple of years and the form teacher marvelled at my uncanny instinct for spotting the potential trouble-makers and making them my focus. (I'm still not sure what it was - a little swagger, a challenging look at me, a little admiring entourage who followed them in?)
But I proved my point - you can make almost any subject interesting to the most reluctant group and I'd rather come away with a sense of a job well done than simply coast through it as some of my nephew's colleagues suggested to him. And it seems that Chris took my advice and did such a good job that more training has been requested.
Today
As Carmen becomes more active, we become more aware of the dangers around her. Last week, while I was caring for her I noticed that she is working out that it's possible to climb up on things to give her more access to the forbidden. Her home has enormous Victorian sash windows which have spent most of their time open during the warm weather, and she is already attempting to rig up a way to look out, or maybe climb out, of them.
In My Day
We moved to Rowan Avenue in Eastbourne in 1975. Lizzie was about three and had a little bedroom at the front overlooking a quiet path and, at that time, fields. The windows were modern and just had a small top casement that we kept open during the warm summer months.
One evening, after we'd settled Lizzie and were at last relaxing together, we heard the most terrific rattling and banging from her room.
We stared at each other for a moment, aghast. What could be happening? We rushed upstairs to find Lizzie with one leg out of the window, clearly attempting her escape. Somehow, she'd clambered onto the windowsill and up the window and opened the catch fully. I don't know whether she would have succeeded and there was a porch roof beneath to break her fall, but it doesn't really bear thinking about.
We heaved Lizzie down, admonished her and shut the window. The next day saw us at the hardware shop buying a lock that would allow us to leave the window open a fixed amount and prevent baby-mountaineering in the future.
Lizzie seemed relaxed about it and the next time she attempted to leave home it was through the front door, carrying provisions and accompanied by her best friend, at the age of about six, but that's another story.
My great-nephew has a more laissez-faire attitude to his baby's explorings, saying "she'll only do it once!" But she isn't walking yet and they say that a baby has to do things ten times before learning it. I'm not sure that I'd want to risk the first nine attempts.
