Candlelight living

One of the few trials of living on the road is the generator.  I have spent a fortune on generators in my time.  You would think that, given our dependence on the internal combustion engine, it would not be beyond the wit of man to build a reliable one.  I look after my generators too.  My latest version, bought this year; an electrical start Hyundai with a supposed excellent reputation has only the very best petrol, augmented with fuel improver.  I have it serviced, in fact, it has only just returned from being serviced, but will it stay running?  No.  So, far from being able to spend my evenings while down at the Portsmouth Victorian Christmas, with the luxury of electric light and the joy of evening tv, I am reduced to candles and a tranny radio as I have to conserve the leisure battery.

There is something I like about not having electricity.  A certain sense of solitude, amplified by the silence with only the occasional crackle of the fire.  Candlelight is mellow and soothing, reflecting around the lorry.  And I can charge up the laptop in the Dockyard during the day so I can write this blog and check my emails at night.  So I shall survive and aim to thrive, as Maya Angelou (RIP) said, ‘with some passion, some compassion, some humour and some style’

The Portsmouth Dockyard Victorian Christmas is supposed to be the largest Christmas event in Europe and my pitch there is lovely.  With my back to the Second Sea Lord’s private residence and facing the Spinnaker Tower and the afternoon sun, it’s a splendid space for the show.  Alongside Santa’s reindeer too, so there is a good footfall.  The only downside is that dogs, apart from the working ones, are forbidden on the dock site so my two are not with me.  I watched a VID (Very Important Dog) check my stage for explosives.  Very serious worker and a joy to watch the bond between him and his handler.  I hope he has some time off with rewards.  A little break from my two is a good thing though and I am enjoying being completely alone.

I have always liked my solitude.  Those following my ‘every other chapter’ stories will gain a flavour of the start of this from my next story.  The experience of an 11 year old on his first day at Christ’s Hospital in 1961.  For many years I have kept quiet about the CH experience but I feel now is the right time to tell a few of the stories.  It really was a horrible place and it changed me forever.  Some have said it was for the better, but I’m not so sure.  I will never know of course, ‘what might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present’ (TS Eliot).  The door I never opened may not have led to Eliot’s rose garden but may have opened to a life of petty crime with Geoffrey Monk.  I am sure that’s what Pat and Richard thought in their worst nightmares, and as a believer in the power of education, Richard justified his decision to send me and my brother there by thinking of the possibilities that a good education could provide.  I know he regretted the decision all his life and never really spoke of it. He wasn’t to know at the time that the education there, far from being good, was elitist, conservative and could be cruel. Apart from my occasional roles in school productions, it offered me little but hardship and pain, and taught me only the fact that I hated the place, hated the establishment and hated the people who ran it.  There were three sorts of boys I met at CH.  Those who accepted the system and blindly supported it, a few who rebelled against it and who grew with their belief that the system was wrong and that there had to be another way, and those who were crushed between the two.  I had pity for the first and the third as I became a proud rebel. I have never regretted that.

So surviving on my wits alone has always been part of my life.  Who’s complaining about a generator that refuses to start? 

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

One last playtime

It was Geoffrey who had found it, so it was always his den.  He guided David down an alley between two rows of shops, along an overgrown path and through a broken fence panel into the secret world.  The sun scorched the ground and there was a smell of grass and creosote in the abandoned yard.  A few houses overlooked it but there was no main entrance the boys could find.  It looked like a bombsite and, as it was only fifteen years after the war, it probably was.  There were piles of building materials, bricks, tiles and sand.  Nettles and cow parsley grew nose high everywhere.  Butterflies and bees flitted around them.  It would be their secret summer hideout.

Geoffrey showed David around the kingdom.  He was the taller boy, a tassle of ginger hair and freckles all over his face gave him a look of Swallows and Amazons.  David, still in shorts, a constant embarrassment, and a recent haircut by his mother made him look even younger than his eleven years. Geoffrey’s long trousers and height confirmed him as the leader.  Geoffrey showed David the Headquarters.  A broken down greenhouse with most of the glass gone but it would serve well as den HQ.  Geoffrey had found some old paint tins for seats and the boys sat to plan their last summer together.  Geoffrey was signed up for the local Secondary Modern School and David was going to Christ’s Hospital, a boarding school in Sussex.  But that was six whole weeks away.

Through the summer weeks the boys met at the yard almost daily.  They reenacted battles, made sorties out to the corner shop for supplies of sweets and grog and made the yard their Shangri-La.  As the weeks wound on they explored the far corners of the yard, dragging back logs and broken fence panels to serve the games they played.  Geoffrey would mostly be the leader, but occasionally would let David take over, particularly on dangerous missions where a lone soldier was needed to rescue the platoon.  If it was Dan Dare then David would be Digby, Dan’s assistant, and together they defeated Mekon and the evil Treens.

The last Saturday afternoon came.  The boys met as usual at the yard but neither felt like starting the game.  The unspoken truth that this would be their last day together hung over them like a cloud. Tomorrow David would be going with his parents in their car down to Sussex.  Geoffrey had been at his new school all week.  He was already different and distant. They kicked around for a bit without speaking, then David picked up a roof tile from a pile and threw it hard at the wall.  It made a pleasing smash.  Another followed and soon both boys were fully engaged.  ‘Here’s for you Mrs Jackson’. Crash. ‘Here’s for you Green Glass Goblin.’ Smash. ‘Here’s for you Mekon and the Treens’. The boys laughed as their enemies were reduced to rubble in the growing pile of broken tiles.

They didn’t say goodbye, just parted at the end of Geoffrey’s road.  David had to call at the flower shop on the way home.  Miss Heathcote had something for him.  The bell shook on the door as he pushed into the overpowering sweetness of the shop where he had worked on Saturday mornings, delivering flowers for weddings.  A tin of Quality Street chocolates and a card with a ten shilling note awaited him.  ‘Good luck in your new school’.  He waited while Miss Heathcote fussed her goodbyes and left as soon as he could with the tin under his arm and ten shillings in his shorts pocket.

Coming in through the backdoor, David knew someone else was there.  His mother was usually in the kitchen but he could hear her in the lounge, speaking with the voice she used for important visitors.  There was someone else there.  A man’s voice.  David tiptoed to the lounge door, waited, then opened it.  On the sofa, his helmet beside him, sat a policeman. 

The man who owned the yard had reported the damage and the boys had been recognised.  David was in trouble again.  This time it was a serious warning. By a real policeman. The ten shillings was sacrificed to help pay damages for the man’s loss.  Geoffrey was blamed and banned.  The following day, David was taken in the family black Rover to his new boarding school. It felt like punishment for all his past deeds, and he would always be angry with the place.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

A boy to be watched

I had not made any connection between the final line in my last blog and the fact that I do really like being watched.  The eight year old I was at the time liked being at the centre of things and maybe that’s what I was doing by scratching the swastika. It’s difficult to say as it was so long ago and 'the past is a foreign country' (L.P. Hartley, The Go-between, 1953). 

However it wasn’t the first time I’d been in trouble, but it was the first time it had become public.  I remember angering my father at home on many occasions to the extent that he would hit me.  I think he was hit as a child and didn’t know any differently.  Maybe he should have done as he was a teacher, and a good one, who rose to become a respected and loved headteacher in the salubrious confines of Highgate Village, not far from Southgate.  But Richard did hit the three of us quite regularly and as children we were a bit frightened of him.  I’ve mentioned we were encouraged to call them Pat and Richard.  I think it’s a potty idea and I wouldn’t recommend it. It made the distance between us even more pronounced.  Richard was a teacher at the school.  At the time of the swastika incident he was on the staff of the school.  The difficulties that made in the staffroom can only be imagined and it wasn’t long after that he took another job elsewhere.

What makes a boy who is brought up religiously and with love and care become the rebel I grew into over the following three or four years?  Richard would have blamed ‘bad influences’. It surely couldn’t have been original sin. I think he believed that my friend Geoffrey Monk lead me in the wrong direction. I don’t think Geoffrey was to blame, even though he was a strong figure in those last two years of my life at Walker Primary.  Next week’s story tells of another incident which stands out in my memory. It involved Geoffrey directly and I think was the final contribution to the moves made by Pat and Richard to distance me from such influences and look for a school that would, in their eyes, give me a better education than was available locally and would give me a chance to make a new start.  They weren’t to know that Christ’s Hospital would, far from making a new start, confirm my outsider status for once and all.  But I’m hopping ahead to the story after next.  Next week, it’s Geoffrey Monk and the Policeman.

Back in the damp twenty-first century present, Cat’s Paw Theatre goes from strength to strength.  The welsh language team has just finished the second week of touring with ‘I think I can wait’.  Despite some inevitable first week teething troubles, I watched it yesterday and I was enormously pleased.  They’ve made it their own.  The welsh culture is very different from the english.  It’s not just a language difference, there’s an entirely different approach to all aspects of life, and this is nowhere more apparent than in a welsh-speaking school.  The welsh team understand that of course and have developed the piece we originated for our culture fully into theirs and the results are there in the evaluation and feedback we are receiving from the teachers and more importantly from the young people themselves.

Back in the English culture (although I admit still geographically in Wales), Andrea presented a one woman show which I directed for Stepping Stones  (www.steppingstonesnorthwales.btck.co.uk), the organisation that offer counselling for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.  This wonderful third sector organisation has been operating on a shoestring in Wrexham for thirty years and the afternoon was a celebration of that fact.  We were honoured to be asked to develop a one-off piece of theatre for the occasion and presented to VIPs and well wishers.  Andrea’s performance as a survivor was memorable.  Touching, moving, in parts funny and entirely appropriate for the occasion.  I was immensely proud of the result, and proud to have directed this piece of invisible theatre.  Invisible because the audience is never told it is theatre.  So for many of them it’s real.  An interesting thought which I will leave in the air until another time.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

PS The music project is now fully funded thanks to many of you who have contributed.  If you haven’t done so but would still like to there is still time, until the end of November, to make a contribution.  Check it out on

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/990902434/mr-alexanders-travelling-show

Any extra over the target will add more musicians to the band.

Mr Alexander’s Ragtime Band, of course, it had to be.

The making of a rebel

The little pond on the green shone in the early May sunshine, even though the wind was chill and made his legs hurt.  Clouds across the sky made it feel it might rain. Two more years then no more short trousers. In his coat pocket David felt the medallion. He felt the embossed picture and the writing under it.  The purple ribbon threaded through the bar at the top. The metal was cold and he pushed the pointed end into his palm. The medal meant he was a trained chorister, a high chorister.  Three weeks ago he had been to the RSCM and his medal had arrived in the post yesterday.  The Royal School of Church Music.  A high chorister now and three weddings on Saturday.  That meant 7/6d.  Three half crowns for about two hours singing. What would he do with all that money?  Give it to Mummy. At the weddings the medallion would hang round his neck on the crisp white surplice. He would be proud. Tonight before the practice he would hang the medallion in the cupboard with his cassock ready for Saturday. It would be a long practice.  Trying out the anthems and hymns for Saturday.  Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring. Maybe a new one with Mr Branker shouting.  What was it the older boys called him? Sounded like Branker. Pranker, Manker?

The school playground was almost empty.  He liked being early, nosing round the yard, walking the white lines.  His brother and sister left him at the gate and waited for their own friends.  He had done his duty.  Seen them into the playground.  Now he could be alone.  His friend Geoffrey would always be late.  Geoffrey Monk.  Last week he had stayed a night at Geoffrey’s house.  Geoffrey’s mum had put them both in a bath.  It had been very strange seeing Geoffrey with no clothes. Being with him naked in a bath. He hadn’t looked at him the same since. 

The rain started.  After ten minutes the early children were allowed into the warm school.  David hung up his coat on his hook and took the medallion out of his coat pocket and put it into the one in his grey school shorts.  He liked the feel of it in his pocket.  He was proud of it.  He might show it to Geoffrey, even though Geoffrey wasn’t in the choir and wouldn’t know what it meant.  The school corridor was warm.  Damp children were coming in from the rain and waiting in line outside the classrooms.  They wouldn’t go in until the teacher told them they could.  The classroom belonged to the teacher.  David was third in line.  The two in front of him were girls and he didn’t have anything to say to them.  Along the wall was a big noticeboard that had been painted with a scene from History.  David didn’t know what.  He didn’t like History. He waited.  It seemed like ages.  Other children joined him in the queue.  They weren’t friends so he just ignored them. 

The medallion was in his hand.  The sharp point found its way in a short line scratched in the bottom corner of the history painting.  The line was about an inch long and then turned right, downwards for another inch.  An upside down L.  It turned left another inch and stopped. A zig zag.  The pattern was asking for another zigzag across it, across the middle.  It happened.  The result was pleasing but something was wrong with it.  What was wrong? David had seen the shape before but wasn’t sure where.  He rubbed it with his hand and the flecks of paint fell to the floor.  He soon forgot it because here was Mrs Jackson stalking up the corridor and looking furious.  She always looked furious. She was David’s teacher and would be his teacher next year in Class 6.  She always moved up with her class from Class 5 to Class 6 so she would really know her children after two years with them.

The class started but didn’t go very far before Miss Hamilton, the Headmistress was at the door.  David was told to go and wait in the corridor outside her room.  She looked serious and angry.  Teachers spoke in the corridor and examined the scratched swastika on the Mural of British History.

David spent the whole day doing work in Miss Hamilton’s room.  At the end of the day he was told to bend over a chair and was walloped six times with a slipper.  His mother was waiting outside to take him home.  On his way out David noticed his pattern had been painted over but the colour didn't quite match. No choir practice today and no weddings on Saturday.  What he had done defacing school property with the Nazi emblem, less than ten years after the end of the war had, for the first time in his life, but certainly not the last, established him as an outsider.  He was a naughty boy, destined for trouble; a boy who needed to be watched carefully.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

The end of the back end

Hallowe’en marks the end of the back end fairs.  I was in Thatcham in Berkshire again for Green Halowe’en, at the stunningly beautiful Nature Discovery Centre in aptly-named Muddy Lane, Thatcham.  I park up the night before alongside the lake being sung to sleep by the geese, ducks swans and assorted wildlife.  The next day was beautifully warm and sunny, and the shows went well with lovely audiences.  A really memorably charming end to a great summer for me.  I feel I’ve achieved a lot this year.  I’ve made a lot of new friends, developed some routines I’m pleased with and survived with only one significant injury, a twisted ankle, which is now almost fully healed.

I have one more Christmas event booked than last year so should make it through to the lean months with enough saved to survive.  And of course I’m now a pensioner so receive the state pension in return for all the years of National Insurance contributions I’ve dutifully paid.

Cat’s Paw Theatre is about to go on tour with two teams working at the same time, one Welsh and the other English, and for the very first time a Cat’s Paw production going out without me. In fact even more bizarre with someone playing me.  Well at least playing the role I have developed, scripted and played for five years, and playing it in another language.

I have been thinking about the next period of time and how I am going to include writing this blog in my life.  Well not just how but really what I am going to blog about.  I have tried to avoid just writing about the mundane and boring stuff, and instead tell you stories and incidents that I hope make interesting reading. The trouble is that winter is almost here and instead of travelling through this wonderful country from event to exciting event, I am sitting in my lorry in the yard watching the rain pour down, dreaming of summer and putting off all those jobs I really ought to do in the workshop.

So I have decided that for the next few episodes I will tell you something of the history of my life, and in particular the peculiar and particular episodes that have engineered me into the eccentric showman I am today.  Can I call myself that?  I guess so. I do shows and I am a bit strange.  Eccentric is better than strange.  More British somehow, and I am very British.

Which is why the first chapter of my story may shock some and worry others as it seemed, to those at the time, that I was displaying some particularly anti-British views.  I wasn’t, but looking back and trying to see what I did through the eyes of teachers and parents, I can now see that this simple act was bound to set me aside as a rebel, and one with perhaps somewhat dubious motives.

To tell the story I must carry you back, most of you in imagination, some in memory, to 1956 and a country very different to the one we now live in.  North of London, the village of Southgate was given its name by Henry VIII as it formed the south gate of his hunting fields, north of London Town.

By 1956 of course it was joined onto London, not quite swallowed by it as it is today, but definitely joined onto it by the No 29 bus and the Piccadilly tube.  Still a village though with a green and a pond, a cricket ground, a pub and a church and, nestling in the middle, Walker Primary School in which an innocent and unaware eight year old committed an act so heinous that it branded him forever at best as a very naughty boy and at worst as a lot worse, and turned him overnight into the outsider he still is today.

I was reminded of this story by a Facebook friend who posted a webpage called Reclaim the Swastika.  Check it out by a Google search, it makes interesting reading. But in 1956 the symbol had, as it still has to many, a very different meaning that was still very fresh, painful and unredeemable in everyone’s memories.

Read the full story next time and in the meantime, all the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander